A.Word.A.Day --widdershins

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Mar 2, 2018

This week’s theme
Adverbs

This week’s words
deasil
tantivy
fain
piecemeal
widdershins

Photo: Nick Johnson

This week’s comments
AWADmail 818

Next week’s theme
Five words that use all letters of the alphabet

A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

widdershins

PRONUNCIATION:

(WID-uhr-shinz)

MEANING:

adverb: In a counterclockwise, left-handed, or wrong direction.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Old High German widar (back, against) + sin (direction). Earliest documented use: 1513. Also see deasil.

USAGE:

“There was a boat, ‘The Messenger’. It went widdershins around the Middle Sea.”
Jim Webster; Dead Man Riding East; AUK Authors; 2012.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Religious freedom should work two ways: we should be free to practice the religion of our choice, but we must also be free from having someone else's religion practiced on us. -John Irving, novelist (b. 2 Mar 1942)

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