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Oct 21, 2021
This week’s themeEponyms This week’s words brewstered hoover cookie monster marplot Panglossian
Charles Pasternak (left) as Marplot in The Busy Body production at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Photo: Brynn Yeager
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Gargmarplot
PRONUNCIATION:
MEANING:
noun: A meddlesome person who spoils a plan by interference.
ETYMOLOGY:
After Marplot, the titular character in the 1709 play The Busy Body
by Susannah Centlivre (1669-1723). Marplot means well and tries to help
only to get in the way of others and foul things up. Earliest documented
use: 1709.
USAGE:
“And if Ben tried to say they were surely now all past the age for such
folly, the others would accuse him of being a marplot.” Annie Burrows; A Scandal at Midnight; Harlequin; 2021. See more usage examples of marplot in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
We read books to find out who we are. -Ursula K. Le Guin, author (21 Oct
1929-2018)
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