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May 4, 2023
This week’s theme
Words from Star Wars

This week’s words
Yoda
droid
Jedi
Padawan
dark side

padawan
Luke Skywalker and Master Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back, 1980
Photo: Lucasfilm

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

padawan

PRONUNCIATION:
(PAD-uh-wahn)

MEANING:
noun:
1. An apprentice or student.
2. A naive, ignorant, or untrained person.

ETYMOLOGY:
After Padawans, apprentice Jedis in the Star Wars universe. Earliest documented use: 1973. Yoda was the mentor for the Padawan Luke Skywalker.

USAGE:
“Let me explain, my ignorant little padawan. Those satellites up there are subject to all sorts of outside influences. Small changes in gravity, micro objects colliding with it, even temperature changes can all make the satellite move out of alignment.”
Bryan Whelan; Mind Your Own Business; Xlibris; 2016.

“He’s my Yoda and I’m his Padawan. But maybe he’ll be with me when I’m coaching my son for the first time. ... He’ll be looking down.”
Jane Havsy; Morristown Beard Teacher, Coach Remembered; Daily Record (Morristown, New Jersey); Aug 17, 2022.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
If any man seeks for greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for truth, and he will find both. -Horace Mann, educational reformer (4 May 1796-1859)

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