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Mata Hari
(photo: Wikimedia)
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with Anu GargMata Hari
PRONUNCIATION:
(MA-tuh HAR-ee, MAT-uh HAR-ee)
MEANING:
noun:
A seductive woman who works as a spy.
ETYMOLOGY:
After exotic dancer Mata Hari, a stage name of Margaretha Geertruida Zelle
(1876-1917). She was a Dutch woman, who took a Malay name, allegedly spied for
the Germans, and was executed by the French. Her stage name Mata Hari means
sun, literally "eye of the day", from Malay mata (eye) + hari (day, dawn).
USAGE:
"Roxana Saberi, in the space of a few months, has gone from freelance
journalist arrested for carrying an illicit bottle of wine, to American
Mata Hari spying against Iran for the CIA and now a free woman allowed
to return home."Richard Beeston; Ayatollah Ali Khameini's Hidden Hand in Roxana Saberi Case; The Times (London, UK); May 12, 2009. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The price we pay for money is paid in liberty. -Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, and poet (1850-1894)
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