[Loch-Ruadh] Word for the day
Jane Sitton
jane.sitton at radioshack.com
Wed Oct 23 11:45:36 PDT 2002
The Word of the Day for October 23 is:
tousle * \TOW-zul ("OW" as in "cow")\ * (verb): dishevel, rumple
Example sentence:
Vic stood in front of the mirror and tousled his hair, trying to master the
cool, disheveled look.
Did you know?
"Tousle" is a word that has been through what linguists call a "functional
shift." That's a fancy way of saying it was originally one part of speech,
then gradually came to have a different function. "Tousle" started out as a
verb back in the 15th century. By the late 19th century, "tousle" was also
being used as a noun meaning "a tangled mass (as of hair)."
Etymologists connect the word to an Old High German word meaning "to pull to
pieces."
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