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Feb 12, 2015
This week’s theme
Random words

This week’s words
exordium
recrudescence
opprobrium
comportment
solicitude

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

comportment

PRONUNCIATION:
(kuhm-PORT-muhnt)

MEANING:
noun: Behavior; demeanor; bearing.

ETYMOLOGY:
From French comportement (behavior), from comporter (to bear), from Latin comportare (to transport), from com- (with) + portare (to carry). Ultimately from the Indo-European root per- (to lead, pass over), which also gave us support, petroleum, sport, passport, colporteur, rapporteur, deportment, Swedish fartlek, Norwegian fjord, and Sanskrit parvat (mountain). Earliest documented use: 1605.

USAGE:
“Let’s hear from no less an arbiter of manners and proper comportment than David Studer, the CBC’s journalistic standards and practices boss.”
Terry Glavin; After the Paris Atrocities, a Long-Overdue Reckoning with Ourselves; Ottawa Citizen (Canada); Jan 14, 2015.

See more usage examples of comportment in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. -Charles Darwin, naturalist and author (12 Feb 1809-1882)

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