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Dec 3, 2013
This week's theme
Illustrated words

This week's words
felicitous
disprize
ineluctable
malinger
nimiety

disprize
Illustration: Leah Palmer Preiss

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

disprize

PRONUNCIATION:
(dis-PRYZ)

MEANING:
verb tr.: To disdain or scorn.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Old French desprisier (dispraise), from Latin pretium (price, worth, or reward). Ultimately from the Indo-European root per- (to traffic in, to sell) which also gave us praise, price, precious, appreciate, appraise, and interpret. Earliest documented use: 1480.

USAGE:
"And disprize them [jingles] as we might, they are an art form."
James Parker; Let Us Now Praise... Jingles; The Boston Globe; Dec 6, 2009.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry. -Thomas Paine, philosopher and writer (1737-1809)

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