This week's theme
Words coined from body parts

This week's words
inoculate
palpable
cullet
skint
pratfall

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(skint)

MEANING:

adjective: Having no money; broke; poor.

ETYMOLOGY:

A variant spelling of the word skinned, as in, so broke that even one's skin is shaved off. Earliest documented use: 1925.

NOTES:

Most of the time we make the past participle of a verb by adding -ed to it (walk/walked), but sometimes we use the phonetic spelling as in today's word. Some other examples are burnt, learnt, spilt, and spoilt. The -t ending is usually used when the past participle is employed as an adjective. By the way, the word 'past' itself is a phonetic spelling of 'passed'.

USAGE:

"I've had a run of bad luck recently and I'm totally skint."
Mark McGivern; Bookie Refuses to Pay Out; Daily Record (Glasgow, Scotland); Nov 13, 2013.

"Much of the information contained in the early reports was ambitious in tone but skint on detail."
Philip Wen; China's Communist Party; The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia); Nov 13, 2013.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: