A.Word.A.Day --excubant

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Today's Word

excubant

PRONUNCIATION:

(EKS-kyoo-buhnt)

MEANING:

adjective: On guard.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin excubare (to lie on guard), from ex- (out) + cubare (to lie down), which also gave us cubicle, concubine, and incubate. Earliest documented use: 1831.

USAGE:

“Menelaus’ excubant slave arrives with the news that the Helen in the cave has ‘vanished into the air!’”
Laurie Maguire; Shakespeare’s Names; Oxford University Press; 2007.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

If you pray for rain long enough, it eventually does fall. If you pray for floodwaters to abate, they eventually do. The same happens in the absence of prayers. -Steve Allen, television host, musician, actor, comedian, and writer (26 Dec 1921-2000)

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