This week's theme
What to call people at work

This week's words
factotum
interlocutor
confrere
protege
fugleman

This week's comments
AWADmail 585

Next week's theme
Words derived from goats

The gift of words
Send a gift subscription
In less than a minute!

---

A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(FYOO-guhl-muhn)

MEANING:

noun: One who leads a group, company, or party.

ETYMOLOGY:

From German Flügelmann (flank man), from Flügel (wing) + Mann (man). A fugleman was once a soldier placed usually on a flank during drill to serve as a guide for his company. Earliest documented use: 1804.

USAGE:

"H.L. Mencken was trying single-handedly to drag American culture out of Puritanism and into the twentieth century, to act as fugleman on this side of the Atlantic for a literary and artistic renaissance comparable to the one then taking place on the other side."
Jonathan Yardley; The Sage of Baltimore; The Atlantic Monthly (New York); Dec 2002.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: