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Nov 27, 2009
This week's themeUncommon adverbs This week's words doggo cap-a-pie videlicet apropos scienter Next week's theme Terms from French This week's comments AWADmail 387 Discuss Feedback RSS/XML A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Gargscienter
PRONUNCIATION:
(sy-EN-tuhr)
MEANING:
adverb:
Deliberately; knowingly.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin scienter (knowingly), from scire (to know; to separate one thing
from another). Ultimately from the Indo-European root skei- (to cut or split)
that also gave us schism, ski, shin, science, conscience, and nice.
NOTES:
In law, scienter is an important concept. Scienter must be shown,
i.e. a person was aware -- for example, the currency note he was passing
was counterfeit -- to prove the guilt. The word is often used as a noun.
USAGE:
"The judge said that the complaint, if true, would show BankAtlantic's
executives acted with scienter -- the intent or knowledge of wrongdoing
that's the key to a plaintiff's argument in a class action complaint."Brian Bandell; Judge Lets Class Action Suit Proceed Against BankAtlantic Bancorp; South Florida Business Journal; May 22, 2009. See more usage examples of scienter in Vocabulary.com's dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature. -George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
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