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Jul 7, 2011
This week's themeContranyms, or words with an opposite set of meanings This week's words ravel adjure avocation inure adumbrate Read it today Discuss Feedback RSS/XML A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garginure
PRONUNCIATION:
(in-YOOR, i-NOOR)
MEANING:
verb tr.: To accustom to something unpleasant.verb intr.: 1. To become beneficial. 2. To take effect. ETYMOLOGY:
From the phrase in/en ure (in use, customary), from French oeuvre (work),
from Latin opera, plural of opus (work). Ultimately from the Indo-European
root op- (to work, produce) that is also the ancestor of words such as opera,
opulent, optimum, operose, maneuver,
and manure. Earliest documented use: 1489.
NOTES:
The intransitive form of the word is usually used in legal contexts
and also spelled as enure.
USAGE:
"We were never able to tell our daughter that things would get better.
No amount of repetition can inure you to these things."Aleksandar Hemon; The Aquarium; The New Yorker; Jun 13, 2011. "'Jody Henderson voted on measures which he knew would inure to the special private gain of a business associate,' the commission stated." Tom McLaughlin; Trustee Will Likely be Fined for Voting Conflict; The Walton Sun (Santa Rosa Beach, Florida); May 27, 2011. See more usage examples of inure in Vocabulary.com's dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
A cult is a religion with no political power. -Tom Wolfe, author and journalist (b. 1931)
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