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Sep 2, 2009
This week's themeAnimal terms This week's words bird-dog wildcatter frogmarch mawkish shrew Karl Rove, frogmarched
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with Anu Gargfrogmarch
PRONUNCIATION:
(FROG-march)
MEANING:
verb tr.:
To force a person to walk with arms pinned behind the back.
ETYMOLOGY:
If you've dissected a frog in a high school biology lab, that's your clue
to the frog in frogmarch. Earlier the term meant to carry someone, such as
an uncooperative prisoner or a drunk, with arms and legs spread out, each
limb held by a person, just like a frog pinned down on a tray. Today the
term applies to someone walking upright, but arms held behind the back.
USAGE:
"Indeed many of the spectators even allowed their camera flashes to go off
during the golfers' back-swings, a crime usually punished by a frogmarch
off the course during a more routine tournament."Norman Dabell; Time for Tee on the Ponte Vecchio; Reuters; Dec 31, 2007. See more usage examples of frogmarch in Vocabulary.com's dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars etc., and all that dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish and play around. Dolphins believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons. -Douglas Adams, writer, dramatist, and musician (1952-2001)
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