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Jan 11, 2019
This week’s themePortmanteaux (blend words) This week’s words rurban squiggle palimony guesstimate contraption
“Utopian flying machines of the previous century”
Image: Romanet & cie., c. 1890 Next week’s theme Adjectives A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Gargcontraption
PRONUNCIATION:
MEANING:
noun: A device that appears to be strange, makeshift, or complicated.
ETYMOLOGY:
Perhaps a blend of contrive + trap + invention. Earliest documented use: 1825.
USAGE:
“Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s just a police officer on a hoverbike.
Dubai’s cops are training on the hi-tech contraptions.” Cops Putting Crims in Spot of Hover; The Daily Telegraph (Surry Hills, Australia); Nov 10, 2018. See more usage examples of contraption in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
We worry more about the purity of dogma than about the integrity of love.
-Abraham Joshua Heschel, rabbi and professor (11 Jan 1907-1972)
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