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This week's theme Metaphorical descriptions of people. This week's guest wordsmith was Dr Mardy Grothe. This week's words paper tiger loose cannon sacred cow tenderfoot dark horse Today's word in Visual Thesaurus Next week's theme Miscellaneous words. Spread the word Send a gift subscription Discuss Feedback RSS/XML A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg dark horse PRONUNCIATION: (dark hors) MEANING: Someone little-known who ends up winning a contest unexpectedly. ETYMOLOGY: From the idea of a relatively unknown horse winning a race. The term is also used for a person who unexpectedly wins a party's nomination for a political contest, often as a compromise candidate. The OED shows the first citation of the term from the novel The Young Duke by the British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli. USAGE: "John King thinks he, RPB and Sheldon Hope, all from De Big Show, are the three front-runners, with Adrian Clarke as the dark horse." Yvette Best and Carlos Atwell; Oval Awaits First Monarch; Nation News (Barbados); Jul 31, 2008. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good. -Alice May Brock, author (b. 1941)

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