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Sep 17, 2019
This week’s theme
Shakespearean insults

This week’s words
dotard
sodden-witted
scullion
knotty-pated
gorbellied

“Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone.” ~Emerson
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

sodden-witted

PRONUNCIATION:
(SOD-en-wit-id)

MEANING:
adjective: Dull.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Middle English soden (boiled), past participle of sethen (to boil) + wit (mental capacity). Earliest documented use: 1609, in Troilus and Cressida.

USAGE:
“Upon our oath, only knaves and sodden-witted loons would quibble that Sir Tony’s decree to restore knighthoods and damehoods was inspired.”
Michael West; Selling Medibank Doesn’t Add Up; Sydney Morning Herald (Australia); Mar 29, 2014.

“Thersites: Ay, do, do; thou sodden-witted lord! thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows.”
William Shakespeare; Troilus and Cressida; 1609.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
What power has love but forgiveness? -William Carlos Williams, poet (17 Sep 1883-1963)

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