This week’s theme
Words derived from food

This week’s words
appanage
cake eater
grubstake
applesauce
interlard

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(GRUHB-stayk)

MEANING:

noun:	1. Funds supplied for launching an enterprise in return for a share of the profits.
	2. Money or other assistance provided to sustain someone in difficult circumstances.
verb tr.:	To supply with funds.

ETYMOLOGY:

From grub (food) + stake (share). The term has origins in gold mining, where miners would get investors to fund their efforts in return for a cut of the profits. Earliest documented use: 1863.

USAGE:

“Starting with a grubstake in the low six figures, Two Small Fish backed 22 companies, some of which became breakout stars in Canada.”
Sean Silcoff; Two Small Fish Aims to Take Big Bite of Tech Market With New Venture Fund; The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada); Oct 4, 2022.

“If Bezos had any particular ingenuity, it was in realizing that not only could Amazon avoid paying taxes to get a leg up over its competitors, but it could rely on witless local, state, and federal government representatives to actively grubstake the company’s growth. As a result, in 2018 Amazon contributed $0 in corporate tax on $11 billion in profit, and actually bagged a $129 million tax rebate. ‘[F]rom 2009 to 2018, the company paid an effective tax rate of 3 percent on profits totaling $26.5 billion’ writes MacGillis. Amazon wove a new social fabric by threading an astonishing number of loopholes in the American tax system.”
Alexander Sammon; In Bezosworld; The American Prospect (Princeton, New Jersey); Mar/Apr 2021.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: