This week’s theme
Miscellaneous words

This week’s words
factious
repudiate
blandishment
ignominious
fractious

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(BLAN-dish-muhnt)

MEANING:

noun: Something (action, speech, etc.) designed to flatter, coax, or influence.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin blandiri (to flatter). Ultimately from the Indo-European root mel- (soft), which also gave us bland, melt, smelt, malt, mild, mulch, mollify, mollusk, emollient, enamel, smalto, and schmaltz. Earliest documented use: 1591.

USAGE:

“The House should take the opportunity to demonstrate that it isn’t really susceptible to the blandishments of a special interest and repudiate the bill.”
Big Bucks for Billboards; The Post and Courier (Charleston, South Carolina); Feb 5, 2006.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: