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Dec 12, 2013 This week's theme Words coined from body parts This week's words inoculate palpable cullet skint Read it today Discuss Feedback RSS/XML A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg skint PRONUNCIATION: (skint) MEANING: adjective: Having no money; broke; poor. ETYMOLOGY: A variant spelling of the word skinned, as in, so broke that even one's skin is shaved off. Earliest documented use: 1925. NOTES: Most of the time we make past participle of a word by adding -ed to it (walk/walked), but sometimes we use the phonetic spelling as in today's word. Some other examples are burnt, learnt, spilt, and spoilt. By the way, the word 'past' itself is a phonetic spelling of 'passed'. The -t spellings are more common in British English. USAGE: "I've had a run of bad luck recently and I'm totally skint." Mark McGivern; Bookie Refuses to Pay Out; Daily Record (Glasgow, Scotland); Nov 13, 2013. "Much of the information contained in the early reports was ambitious in tone but skint on detail." Philip Wen; China's Communist Party; The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia); Nov 13, 2013. Explore "skint" in the Visual Thesaurus. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: What a heavy oar the pen is, and what a strong current ideas are to row in! -Gustave Flaubert, novelist (1821-1880)

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