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A.Word.A.Day--brad

brad (brad) noun

A thin wire nail with a small, deep head, or a projection on one side of the head.

[From Middle English, from Old Norse broddr (spike).]

Here's a picture of a brad.

"Joey Lapland quipped that she spelled words as though she herself created them, as though what she uttered became real. She could never be wrong. Preposterous, we snickered, looking at the wizard, sketching in her notebook, bent brad nails as posts adorning her earlobes." Stephen Guinan, The Queen of Spelling, The Massachusetts Review (Amherst), Winter 2000/2001.

"Every day, she takes about 70 pills. She has a plastic divided box, similar to those used to hold screws, nails, brads, etc. The compartments are labeled with each day, and further labeled as morning, midmorning, noon, afternoon, dinner, bedtime. Each is loaded with pills." Patricia Swanson, A Used Heart: Evansville Woman Finds A Second Chance With A Heart Transplant, The Evansville Courier & Press (Indiana), May 14, 2000.

This week's theme: What's in a name?

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