This week’s theme
Words derived from body parts

This week’s words
visceral
blood-and-guts
hamstring
chopped liver
heart-whole

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(HAM-string)

MEANING:

noun:	1. Any of the tendons at the back of the knee.
	2. Any of the three muscles in the back of the thigh, connecting the pelvis and the knee.
verb tr.:	1. To disable or make ineffective.
	2. To cut the hamstring.

ETYMOLOGY:

From ham (the back of the knee) + string (tendon). Earliest documented use: 1565.

NOTES:

In the past, literal hamstringing -- cutting someone’s hamstring -- was done to humans (such as prisoners and runaway slaves) and to animals (horses of the enemy, bull in a bullfighting ring).

USAGE:

“Why hamstring your own side with needless restrictions?”
Publish and Perish?; The Economist (London, UK); May 3, 2003.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: