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Nov 24, 2021
This week’s theme
Toponyms from England

This week’s words
Piltdowner
Devonshire
kersey
Halifax
Aldermaston

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

kersey

PRONUNCIATION:
(KUHR-zee)

MEANING:
adjective: Plain; simple.

ETYMOLOGY:
After Kersey, a village in Suffolk, England. Earliest documented use: 1390.

NOTES:
The word is believed to be coined after the village Kersey in England where a kind of coarse cloth was apparently first made. The word kersey today is applied to the coarse ribbed cloth and clothing made from it. An opposite of this word could be fustian, also coined after a cloth, and this word also is, perhaps, coined after a place name.

USAGE:
“Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express’d
In russet yeas and honest kersey noes.”
William Shakespeare; Love’s Labour’s Lost; 1590s.
(russet = plain, simple)

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Do we need weapons to fight wars? Or do we need wars to create markets for weapons? -Arundhati Roy, author (b. 24 Nov 1961)

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