This week's theme
Terms with connections to the number 19

This week's words
nineteenth hole
suffragist
bromide
tinnient
extraterritoriality

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(BRO-myd)

MEANING:

noun:
1. A tired or meaningless remark.
2. A tiresome or boring person.

ETYMOLOGY:

From bromine, from Greek bromos (stench). Earliest documented use: 1836.

NOTES:

In earlier times, potassium bromide used to be taken as a sedative. So any statement that was intended to be soothing ("Don't worry, everything will be OK.") acquired the name bromide. Eventually any commonplace or tired remark and anyone uttering such remarks came to be known as a bromide.
The term was popularized in the title of Gelett Burgess's 1906 book "Are You a Bromide?" It was to promote this book that Burgess coined the term "blurb".

USAGE:

"His daddy occasionally pops back in to dispense nonsensical bits of advice -- 'If you're not first, you're last' -- a bromide that the young Ricky Bobby adopts as his motto."
Teresa Wiltz; Where There's Will; Washington Post; Aug 4, 2006.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: