This week’s theme
People who have become verbs

This week’s words
pythagorize
malaprop
nestorize
dewitt
aladdinize

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(di-WIT)

MEANING:

verb tr.: To kill by mob violence.

ETYMOLOGY:

After brothers, Johan and Cornelius De Witt, Dutch statesmen, who were killed by a mob on Aug 20, 1672. Earliest documented use: 1689.

NOTES:

Today’s word has a better-known synonym: lynch. While the word lynch is coined after the perpetrator of such extra-judicial killing (Captain William Lynch), the word dewitt is coined after people who were the object of such violence.

USAGE:

“As Lockhard in his papers says, ‘Had Mr. Campbell himself been in town they had certainly dewitted him.’”
Constance Russell; Three Generations of Fascinating Women; Longmans, Green; 1905.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: