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Aug 29, 2018
This week’s themeEponyms This week’s words scaramouch Molotov cocktail roister-doister braggadocio dickensian On your calendar Get A.Word.A.Day on your calendar A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Gargroister-doister
PRONUNCIATION:
MEANING:
noun: A swaggering buffoon or reveler. adjective: Engaged in swaggering buffoonery. ETYMOLOGY:
After Ralph Roister Doister, the eponymous main character of the playwright
Nicholas Udall’s play written around 1552. From roister (to behave in a
boisterous, swaggering manner), from Middle French rustre (boor), from Latin
rusticus (rustic). Earliest documented use: 1592.
USAGE:
“And the roister-doister swagger of the performers has a definite charm.” Mary Brennan; ‘Bestest Bits’ That Even the Grown-Ups Will Love; The Herald (Glasgow, Scotland); Aug 11, 2010. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The mind of a bigot to the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour on it,
the more it contracts. -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., poet, novelist,
essayist, and physician (29 Aug 1809-1894)
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