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Jul 16, 2015
This week’s theme
Words to describe people

This week’s words
longhair
blackleg
double-dome
white-livered
dittohead

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

white-livered

PRONUNCIATION:
(hwyt-LIV-uhrd)

MEANING:
adjective: Cowardly.

ETYMOLOGY:
From the former belief that a lack of vigor or courage was from a deficiency of bile which showed in a light-colored liver. Earliest documented use: 1546. Also known as lily-livered.

USAGE:
“Fillmore jumped on a fence post, straddled a rail, and shouted at the Confederates, ‘Surrender, you white-livered sons of guns!’”
Eric Wittenberg, et al; One Continuous Fight; Savas Beatie; 2008.

See more usage examples of white-livered in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Every student needs someone who says, simply, "You mean something. You count." -Tony Kushner, playwright (b. 16 Jul 1956)

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