A.Word.A.Day --palouser

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Today's Word

palouser

PRONUNCIATION:

(puh-LOO-zuhr)

MEANING:

noun:
1. Strong, dangerous winds.
2. An improvised lantern.
3. A country bumpkin.

ETYMOLOGY:

After the Palouse region in northern Idaho and eastern Washington, named after the Palouse river. Earliest documented use: 1903.

USAGE:

“But with the impetus of a palouser ... these fires converged into one and then burned ferociously for two days.”
Larry Sears; The Big Burn; The Christian Science Monitor (Boston, Massachusetts); Oct 6, 2009.

“When we got opposite the camp we couldn’t see nothing at all, and I hollered for someone to come out with a palouser and light us in to camp.”
Elers Koch; Forty Years a Forester; University of Nebraska Press; 2019.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It is a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity. -Jimmy Carter, 39th US President, Nobel laureate (b. 1 Oct 1924)

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