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Apr 25, 2005
This week's theme
Verbs

This week's words
temporize
adduce
perpend
animadvert
palter

“There is no material with which human beings work which has so much potential energy as words.” ~Earnest Calkins
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

"They've a temper, some of them--particularly verbs, they're the proudest -- adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs -- however, I can manage the whole lot of them!" boasts Humpty-Dumpty in Lewis Carroll's 1872 classic, Through the Looking Glass.

If they are in fact as conceited as Humpty-Dumpty claims them to be, perhaps verbs can be forgiven for their hoity-toity ways -- after all they are the ones that bring a sentence to life. How many of this week's five verbs can you manage?

temporize or temporise

(TEM-puh-ryz) Pronunciation

verb intr.: To delay so as to gain time or to avoid making a decision.

[From French temporiser (to bide one's time), from Medieval Latin temporizare (to pass the time), from Latin tempor-, from tempus (time).]

"Over the past several months, as the international community has continued to temporize, conditions in Sudan have worsened."
Editorial: Darfur, Continued; The Providence Journal (Rhode Island); Apr 19, 2005.

See more usage examples of temporize in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

X-Bonus

I hold that gentleman to be the best-dressed whose dress no one observes. -Anthony Trollope, novelist (1815-1882)

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