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Feb 9, 2017
This week’s theme
Eponyms

This week’s words
gnathonic
bovarism
Mrs. Grundy
struwwelpeter
gargantua

Struwwelpeter
Struwwelpeter
Illustration: Heinrich Hoffman
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

Struwwelpeter

PRONUNCIATION:
(STROO-uhl-pee-tuhr)

MEANING:
noun: A person with long, thick, disheveled hair.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Struwwelpeter, the title character of the 1845 children’s book Der Struwwelpeter (Shockheaded Peter) by Heinrich Hoffman. Earliest documented use: 1909.

USAGE:
“Einstein ... presented as a Struwwelpeter character, smiling from an aureole of almost electrified hair.”
Ronald Clark; Einstein: The Life and Times; Bloomsbury; 2011.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right. -Carl Schurz, revolutionary, statesman, and reformer (1829-1906)

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