This week’s theme
Well-traveled words

This week’s words
zen
butterfingered
canary
panache
alterity

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(BUHT-uhr fing-guhrd)

MEANING:

adjective: Clumsy or careless, especially frequently dropping things.

ETYMOLOGY:

From butter, from Old English butere, from Latin butyrum, from Greek boutyron, from bous (cow) + tyros (cheese) + finger, from Old English. Earliest documented use: 1615.

USAGE:

“The New Jersey country club [Alpine Country Club] that was sued by a patron [Maryana Beyder] after a waiter dumped red wine on her $30,000 Hermes handbag is turning on the butterfingered staffer -- they claim in new legal papers is liable for the flub.”
Craig McCarthy and Emily Saul; NJ Country Club Sues Waiter Who Dumped Wine on Member’s $30K Hermes Bag; New York Post; Nov 11, 2019.

[All that’s wrong with the humanity in three acts: Woman seeks fulfillment with a $30k handbag; sues a club for inadvertently dyeing it from pink to red; the club goes after its own waiter who makes, perhaps, $30k in a whole year. -Ed.]

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: