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Oct 21, 2010
This week's themeEponyms This week's words harlequin stentorian pharisaical luddite simony 
Luddites smashing a loom, 1812
Illustrator unknown
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with Anu Gargluddite
PRONUNCIATION:
(LUHD-yt)
MEANING:
noun:
One who opposes or avoids the use of new technology.
ETYMOLOGY:
After the Luddites, name taken by textile workers in England during
1811-1816 who destroyed machinery that was displacing them. They took the
name after one Ned Ludd, whose identity is not clear. Ned Ludd is said to
have destroyed, in a fit of insanity, a knitting frame in 1779. In response
to the Luddites, the British parliament passed the Frame Breaking Act which
made the destroying of knitting frames punishable by death.
USAGE:
"But I'm not a luddite. I'll keep my automatic coffee-maker, my computer,
and my automatic dishwasher, thank you!"Richard Packham; Elaborate Appliances Don't Justify the Cost or the Space; The News-Review (Roseburg, Oregon); Mar 21, 2010. See more usage examples of luddite in Vocabulary.com's dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves. -Gilbert Highet, writer (1906-1978)
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