A.Word.A.Day --fardel

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Today's Word

fardel

PRONUNCIATION:

(FAHR-dl)

MEANING:

noun:
1. A bundle.
2. A burden.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Old French fardel, diminutive of farde (package, burden), from Arabic farda (piece, pack). Earliest documented use: 1300.

USAGE:

“He could be seen on the first night of every full moon, looking down with a fardel of twigs strapped with vines to his back.”
McDonald Dixon; Saints of Little Paradise; Xlibris; 2012.

“It was selfish of me to link you with so much wretchedness, and join you with me in bearing the fardel of neverending anxiety and suspense.”
Frederick Marryat; The Phantom Ship; E.L. Carey & A. Hart; 1839.

See more usage examples of fardel in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead. I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors. -Thomas Jefferson, 3rd US President (1743-1826)

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