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A.Word.A.Day--feme sole

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feme sole (fem sol) noun, plural femes sole

A single woman, whether divorced, widowed, or never married.

[From Anglo-French feme soule, from feme (woman) + soule (single).]

"'The sheriff heavily pronounced, 'If she sued for divorce on the grounds of desertion -- which she could and would have done once he'd sailed off -- she would be declared feme sole and regain full control of her own property.'" Joan Druett; A Watery Grave; St. Martin's Minotaur; Oct 4, 2004.

"The divorce restored Ann to the status of a feme sole with the right to own and manage her own property." Thomas E. Buckley; The Great Catastrophe of My Life: Divorce in the Old Dominion; University of North Carolina Press; Sep 1, 2002.

This week's theme: words to describe women.

X-Bonus

There are books in which the footnotes or comments scrawled by some reader's hand in the margin are more interesting that the text. The world is one of these books. -George Santayana, philosopher (1863-1952)

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