This week’s theme
Words that appear rude, but aren’t

This week’s words
cockup
crapulous
pricket
fard
cunctation

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(PRIK-it)

MEANING:

noun:	1. A sharp point or spike for holding a candle.
	2. A male deer in its second year, before the antlers have branched.

ETYMOLOGY:

Diminutive of prick/prik, from Old English prica (point). Earliest documented use: 1331.

USAGE:

“These first candlesticks probably were no more than hollowed-out wood or stone, unembellished, or some sort of crude pricket.”
Candelight Adds Special Warmth to Any Meal; Chicago Sun-Times; Oct 23, 1988.

“The years passed and each year McCarricker made it a point to locate the now full-grown stag who had had a forked antler when he was only a pricket and now carried great antlers.”
John Joseph Mathews; Old Three Toes and Other Tales of Survival and Extinction; University of Oklahoma Press; 2015.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: