A.Word.A.Day |
About | Media | Search | Contact |
Home
|
Nov 30, 2010
This week's themeWords with unusual initial consonants This week's words sforzando kvetch tmesis svelte llano Discuss Feedback RSS/XML A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Gargkvetch
PRONUNCIATION:
(kvech)
MEANING:
verb intr.: To complain habitually, whine; gripe.noun: 1. A chronic complainer. 2. A complaint. ETYMOLOGY:
From Yiddish kvetshn (squeeze, pinch, complain), from Middle High German
quetschen (to squeeze). First recorded use: 1964.
USAGE:
"Perhaps one should emphasize here that V.S. Naipaul has gone out of his way,
from time to time and far beyond the call of duty, to burnish his reputation
as a cantankerous curmudgeon -- truly the Evelyn Waugh of our age, right
down to his squirearchal residence in the west of England -- or even as a
bigoted old barroom kvetch. Not long ago Naipaul anathematized Tony Blair
as a 'pirate' at the head of 'a socialist revolution'."Geoffrey Wheatcroft; A Terrifying Honesty; The Atlantic Monthly (Boston); Feb 2002. See more usage examples of kvetch in Vocabulary.com's dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Elitism is the slur directed at merit by mediocrity. -Sydney J. Harris, journalist (1917-1986)
|
|
© 1994-2024 Wordsmith