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Nov 14, 2014
This week's theme
Words that appear to be misspelled

This week's words
tegular
refection
frustraneous
wonted
ambagious

This week's comments
AWADmail 646

Next week's theme
Words borrowed from German
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

ambagious

PRONUNCIATION:
(am-BAY-juhs)

MEANING:
adjective: Roundabout; circuitous.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Middle English ambages (equivocation), taken as a plural and the singular ambage coined from it. From Latin ambages, from ambi- (both, around) + agere (to drive). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ag- (to drive, draw, or move), which also gave us act, agent, agitate, litigate, synagogue, ambassador, agonistes, axiomatic, cogent, incogitant, exigent, exiguous, intransigent. Earliest documented use: 1656.

USAGE:
"... Mandelstam's ambagious passage to a common grave outside a transit camp."
Andrew Hudgins; Stalin's Laughter; The Kenyon Review (Gambier, Ohio); Spring 2010.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed, and love of power. -P.J. O'Rourke, writer (b. 1947)

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