

Sep 18, 2017 This week’s theme

Words that result in another word when a single letter is prefixed



This week’s words

ovine

uberty

lection

rill

otic



“He tells it like it is.” Cartoon: Paul Noth/New Yorker Words that result in another word when a single letter is prefixed A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg



Recently, I was in a group when the discussion turned to one’s favorite dish. A woman talked about her favorite preparation: smashed potatoes. I had never heard of it. Surely she meant “mashed potatoes”, I thought, though the mental image of a chef smashing potatoes with a hammer was funny.



Later, I googled the term and learned that there is a real dish named smashed potatoes. Tells you how much I know. Smashed potatoes and mashed potatoes are two different beasts. They have about as much in common as pomme and pomme de terre.



What a difference a letter makes. The same is true for the words this week. You can add an initial letter to them to turn them into a completely different word. ovine PRONUNCIATION: (O-vyn)

MEANING: adjective: Of, relating to, or resembling, sheep.

ETYMOLOGY: From Latin ovis (sheep). Ultimately from the Indo-European root owi- (sheep), which also gave us ewe. Earliest documented use: 1676.

USAGE:

James Gingell; Rejecting the Cult of Bardolatry Does Not Make You a Philistine; The Guardian (London, UK); May 20, 2016.



See more usage examples of “George Bernard Shaw said that the English ‘worship their great artists indiscriminately and abjectly’ and described this phenomenon -- the uncritical ovine devotion to Shakespeare -- as ‘Bardolatry’.”James Gingell; Rejecting the Cult of Bardolatry Does Not Make You a Philistine;(London, UK); May 20, 2016.See more usage examples of ovine in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. -Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (18 Sep 1709-1784)





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