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May 7, 2020
This week’s theme
Words related to the hand

This week’s words
handfast
repugnant
backhanded
ironfisted
dead hand

ironfisted
Sculpture: Liu Bolin
Photo: Dominique Bergeron
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

ironfisted

PRONUNCIATION:
(eye-uhrn-FIS-tid)

MEANING:
adjective:
1. Ruthless; tyrannical.
2. Stingy; tight-fisted.

ETYMOLOGY:
For sense 1, from the allusion to someone wielding a crushing fist.
For 2, from the allusion to a hard-to-open fist clutching money.
Earliest documented use: 1852.

USAGE:
“There is no way that this ironfisted approach will bring about reconciliation.”
Veera Prateepchaikul; Sonthi’s Efforts to Do Right May Backfire; Bangkok Post (Thailand); Apr 2, 2012.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
On each race is laid the duty to keep alight its own lamp of mind as its part in the illumination of the world. To break the lamp of any people is to deprive it of its rightful place in the world festival. -Rabindranath Tagore, poet, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter, educator, composer, Nobel laureate (7 May 1861-1941)

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