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May 14, 2020
This week’s themeThere’s a word for it This week’s words gazump al desko grinagog pot-valor gazunder Enjoy A.Word.A.Day? Here are ways you can support this and other free services from Wordsmith: . Upgrade to premium subs. . Send a gift subscription . Become a sponsor . Buy our books . Contribute Thank you! 
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Gargpot-valor
PRONUNCIATION:
(POT-val-uhr)
MEANING:
noun: Boldness or courage induced by the consumption of alcohol.
NOTES:
Also known as liquid courage or Dutch courage.
ETYMOLOGY:
From pot, alluding to a drinking pot + valor (boldness), from Latin valor
(worth), from valere (to be well, be of worth). Ultimately from the
Indo-European root wal- (to be strong), which also gave us valiant, avail,
valor, value,
wieldy,
countervail,
valence,
valetudinarian, and
valorize. Earliest documented use: 1623.
USAGE:
“Along the way, puffed with pot-valor, I imagined how I would scale the
wall and enter the loft.” Steve Stern; Tikkun (San Francisco, California); Jan/Feb 2000. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character. This
is how ideologues justify punishing the sick and the poor. But poverty is
neither a crime nor a character flaw. Stigmatize those who let people die,
not those who struggle to live. -Sarah Kendzior, journalist and author (b.
1978)
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