|
Home
|
Apr 26, 2011
This week's themeWords related to clothing This week's words flathat turncoat shirty pantywaist bootstrap 
Make a gift thatkeeps on giving. A gift subscription of AWAD or give the gift of books 
Discuss
Feedback
RSS/XML
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Gargturncoat
PRONUNCIATION:
(TUHRN-koht)
MEANING:
noun:
Someone who changes allegiance and joins the opposite side.
ETYMOLOGY:
The color, and especially the color of clothing, has long symbolized
association with a particular cause. For example, soldiers in an army or
players in a sports team don a designated color. The idea behind the word
turncoat is someone switching allegiances and turning his coat inside out
to hide his earlier colors. Earliest documented use: 1567.
USAGE:
"You could almost imagine the little turncoats from the last poster creeping
off and taking up residence in another series of photographs downstairs."Julius Purcell; Faces That Cannot be Argued Away; Financial Times (London, UK); Jul 18, 2006. See more usage examples of turncoat in Vocabulary.com's dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. -George Washington, 1st US president, general (1732-1799)
|
|
Subscriber Services
Awards | Stats | Links | Privacy Policy
Contribute | Advertise
Awards | Stats | Links | Privacy Policy
Contribute | Advertise
© 1994-2024 Wordsmith