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A.Word.A.Day--dreary

Pronunciation RealAudio

dreary (DREER-ee) adjective

1. Dismal, gloomy.

2. Dull.

[From Middle English drery, from Old English dreorig (bloody, sad), from dreor (gore).]

"Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake."
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), Gitanjali, 1912.

This week's theme: words from poetry.

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When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth. -George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)

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