A.Word.A.Day --grandisonize

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Mar 25, 2019

This week’s theme
People who became verbs

This week’s words
grandisonize
lynch
galvanize
mesmerize
crusoe

Charles Grandison escorting Harriet Byron

Engraving: Isaac Taylor, 1778

A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

To be or not to be ... that’s the question. Or more precisely: To be a verb or not to be. Some people in history did become verbs and this week we’ll awaken them and have them stop by here to say hello. These are people from myth and reality, science and pseudoscience, and more.

What persons from reality or fiction would you like to turn into a verb? Share below or email us at words@wordsmith.org (include the verb, its definition, and a usage example).

Grandisonize

PRONUNCIATION:

(gran-DIS-uh-nyz)

MEANING:

verb tr.: To escort in a courteous manner.

ETYMOLOGY:

After Sir Charles Grandison, the model gentleman hero of Samuel Richardson’s 1753 novel The History of Sir Charles Grandison. Earliest documented use: 1824.

USAGE:

“And now will your ladyship permit me to have the honour of Grandisonizing you into the next apartment?”
Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (Scotland); Jun 1824.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it. -Flannery O'Connor, writer (25 Mar 1925-1964)

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