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Apr 13, 2010
This week's themeToponyms This week's words shanghai munich bayonet babylon maffick 
Photo-op before the signing of the Munich Pact
L to R: Chamberlain (British PM), Daladier (French PM), Hitler, Mussolini
(Italian PM), and Ciano (Italian foreign minister)
Photo: German Federal Archive
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with Anu GargMunich
PRONUNCIATION:
(MYOO-nik)
MEANING:
noun:
A shortsighted or dishonorable appeasement.
ETYMOLOGY:
After Munich, Germany, the site of a pact signed by Great Britain,
France, Italy, and Germany on Sep 29, 1938 that permitted annexation
of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland by Nazi Germany. WWII began a year
later; Sudetenland was restored to Czechoslovakia after the war.
NOTES:
The name Munich is an exonym
(a name used by outsiders). The local name (endonym) for Munich is München,
derived from Mönch (monk) as the city was founded by Benedictine monks in 1158.
USAGE:
"Neoconservatives, writes Jacob Heilbrunn, 'see new Munichs everywhere and
anywhere'."Andrew J. Bacevich; The Neocondition; Los Angeles Times; Jan 20, 2008. See more usage examples of munich in Vocabulary.com's dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Convulsions in nature, disorders, prodigies, miracles, though the most opposite to the plan of a wise superintendent, impress mankind with the strongest sentiments of religion. -David Hume, philosopher, economist, and historian (1711-1776)
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