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Mar 19, 2020
This week’s theme
Reduplicatives

This week’s words
razzle-dazzle
hobnob
artsy-fartsy
flimflam
lardy-dardy

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

flimflam

PRONUNCIATION:
(FLIM-flam)

MEANING:
noun:1. Nonsense.
 2. Deception.
verb tr.:1. To deceive.
 2. To swindle.

ETYMOLOGY:
A reduplication, probably of the Old Norse flim (mockery). Earliest documented use: 1538.

USAGE:
“James Stewart, a business columnist for The Times, noted that Citigroup’s flimflam made ‘Goldman Sachs mortgage traders look like Boy Scouts.’”
Thomas Friedman; Did You Hear the One About the Bankers?; The New York Times; Oct 29, 2011.

See more usage examples of flimflam in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Many people consider the things government does for them to be social progress but they regard the things government does for others as socialism. -Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court (19 Mar 1891-1974)

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