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Jul 13, 2012 This week's theme Words borrowed from French This week's words risque billet-doux femme fatale pudeur dishabille This week's comments AWADmail 524 Next week's theme Short words Discuss Feedback RSS/XML A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg dishabille or deshabille PRONUNCIATION: (dis-uh-BEEL, -BEE) MEANING: noun: 1. The state of being partly dressed. 2. A deliberately careless or casual manner. ETYMOLOGY: From French déshabillé, past participle of déshabiller (to undress), from des- (apart) + habiller (to clothe). Earliest documented use: 1703. USAGE: "Seconds after 7 am on Monday, trousers were dropping and skirts were lifting all along Wall Street. The mass dishabille was part of a site-specific work of performance art." Melena Ryzik; A Bare Market Lasts One Morning; The New York Times; Aug 1, 2011. Explore "dishabille" in the Visual Thesaurus. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: I begin to see what marriage is for. It's to keep people away from each other. Sometimes I think that two people who love each other can be saved from madness only by the things that come between them: children, duties, visits, bores, relations, the things that protect married people from each other. -Edith Wharton, novelist (1862-1937)

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