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Aug 19, 2014
This week's themeMiscellaneous words This week's words presentiment fungible plangent deportment puissance A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Gargfungible
PRONUNCIATION:
MEANING:
adjective: Interchangeable.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin fungi (to perform in place). Earliest documented use: 1765.
NOTES:
When you lend someone a dollar bill, you don't care if he returns
the same bill or a different one because money is fungible. Same with
things such as gold, a cup of sugar, etc. However, if you lend someone
your cell phone, you wouldn't be pleased if he returned a different phone
even if it's exactly the same model. That would be an example of something
nonfungible.
USAGE:
"Forbidden to own land for most of our two millennia of exile, we gradually
became experts in accumulating capital, which is portable, easily
inheritable, fungible, and expandable." Ellen Frankel; Taking Stock; The Jerusalem Report (Israel); May 19, 2014. See more usage examples of fungible in Vocabulary.com's dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball, and that is to have either a clear conscience or none at all. -Ogden Nash, poet (1902-1971)
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