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Aug 8, 2008
This week's themeMetaphorical descriptions of people This week's words paper tiger loose cannon sacred cow tenderfoot dark horse This week's comments AWADmail 319 Next week's theme Miscellaneous words Spread the word Send a gift subscription 
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with Anu Gargdark horsePRONUNCIATION:
(dark hors)
MEANING:
Someone little-known who ends up winning a contest unexpectedly.
ETYMOLOGY:
From the idea of a relatively unknown horse winning a race. The term
is also used for a person who unexpectedly wins a party's nomination
for a political contest, often as a compromise candidate. The OED shows
the first citation of the term from the novel The Young Duke by the
British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli.
USAGE:
"John King thinks he, RPB and Sheldon Hope, all from De Big Show, are
the three front-runners, with Adrian Clarke as the dark horse."Yvette Best and Carlos Atwell; Oval Awaits First Monarch; Nation News (Barbados); Jul 31, 2008. See more usage examples of dark horse in Vocabulary.com's dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good. -Alice May Brock, author (b. 1941)
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