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Oct 25, 2012
This week's theme
Words that aren't what they appear to be

This week's words
predial
hibernian
histrionics
blousy
redoubtable

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

blousy or blowsy or blowzy

PRONUNCIATION:
(BLOU-zee)

MEANING:
adjective:
1. Having a coarsely ruddy complexion.
2. Disheveled.

ETYMOLOGY:
From English dialect blowze (wench). Earliest documented use: around 1770.

USAGE:
"She appears transformed from the dowdy, blousy woman with big hair."
Hillary in the Oval Office; Irish Independent (Dublin); Mar 25, 2006.

See more usage examples of blousy in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
You know what getting married is? It's agreeing to taking this person who right now is at the top of his form, full of hopes and ideas, feeling good, looking good, wildly interested in you because you're the same way, and sticking by him while he slowly disintegrates. And he does the same for you. You're his responsibility now and he's yours. If no one else will take care of him, you will. If everyone else rejects you, he won't. What do you think love is? Going to bed all the time? -Jane Smiley, novelist (b.1949)

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