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Discuss Email this Feedback RSS/XML Permalink A.Word.A.Day--gumshoe This week's theme: words related to shoes. gumshoe (GUM-shoo) noun 1. A detective. 2. A rubber overshoe. [The word is an allusion to the quiet snooping that a detective is supposed to do. Wearing rubber shoes, one can move around without making much noise.] The word is an example of the figure of speech called metonymy in which a part is used for the whole or vice versa. Another example is the use of the word crown to refer to a king. Today's word in Visual Thesaurus. -Anu Garg (garg AT wordsmith.org) "So far, the entertainment industry's approach to peer-to-peer file sharing has been to hire gumshoes to bang on teenagers' doors at midnight and haul them off to court -- an act akin to trying to beat back a tsunami with a tennis racquet." Staunching a Tide of Piracy; Sydney Morning Herald (Australia); May 18, 2006. X-Bonus For God's sake don't say yes until I've finished talking. -Darryl F. Zanuck, movie producer, director, and actor (1902-1979)

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