This week’s theme
Words derived from Dutch

This week’s words
hogen-mogen
toenadering
poppycock
sooterkin
brabble

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(SOO-tuhr-kin)

MEANING:

noun:
1. A sweetheart or mistress.
2. An afterbirth formerly believed to be gotten by Dutch women by warming themselves on stoves.
3. Something imperfect or unsuccessful.

ETYMOLOGY:

Apparently from Dutch zoet (sweet). Earliest documented use: 1530.

USAGE:

“sooterkin, my twin
how oft I see you in dark corners of this room
so like our early home, a hot dark womb”
Alison Calder; Wolf Tree; Coteau Books; 2007.

“Dr. Maubray even claimed that he had seen and delivered a sooterkin when he was traveling on a ferry from Harlingen to Amsterdam and a woman fell into labor on board.”
Jan Bondeson; A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities; W.W. Norton; 1999.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: