This week’s theme
Words with hooks

This week’s words
ambit
peculate
resumptive
uberous
olio

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(PEK-yuh-layt)

MEANING:

verb tr., intr.: To steal or misuse money or property entrusted to one’s care.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin pecu (cattle, money). Ultimately from the Indo-European root peku- (wealth), which also gave us fee, fief, fellow, peculiar, impecunious, and pecuniary. Earliest documented use: 1715.

USAGE:

“A second figure, a major named Liu Bu, confessed to having peculated 1,700 to 1,800 taels from the purchase of materiel and another 3,000 taels from bribes, gifts, and unreported surpluses on construction jobs.”
Randall A. Dodgen; Controlling the Dragon; University of Hawaii Press; 2001.

See more usage examples of peculate in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: