A.Word.A.Day --disaffect

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Sep 8, 2014

This week's theme
Verbs

This week's words
disaffect
vouchsafe
disabuse
promulgate
dissuade

A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

"They've a temper, some of them -- particularly verbs, they're the proudest -- adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs -- however, I can manage the whole lot of them!" boasts Humpty-Dumpty in Lewis Carroll's 1872 classic, Through the Looking Glass.

If verbs are in fact as conceited as Humpty-Dumpty claims them to be, perhaps they can be forgiven for their hoity-toity ways -- after all, they are the ones that bring a sentence to life. How many of this week's five verbs can you manage?

disaffect

PRONUNCIATION:

(dis-uh-FEKT)

MEANING:

verb tr.: To alienate the support or loyalty of someone.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin dis- (away) + affectare (to aim at, to strive after), from ad- (to) + facere (to do). Earliest documented use: 1621.

USAGE:

"Richard Riordan also risks de-energizing or disaffecting the base."
Sherry Jeffe; The Great GOP Hope: Independents?; Los Angeles Times; Feb 24, 2002.

See more usage examples of disaffect in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

If more politicians in this country were thinking about the next generation instead of the next election, it might be better for the United States and the world. -Claude Pepper, senator and representative (1900-1989)

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