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Apr 28, 2011
This week's theme
Words related to clothing

This week's words
flathat
turncoat
shirty
pantywaist
bootstrap

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

pantywaist

PRONUNCIATION:
(PAN-tee-wayst)

MEANING:
noun: A weak or effeminate man.
adjective: Weak; cowardly; effeminate.

ETYMOLOGY:
A pantywaist was formerly a child's undergarment in which a shirt and pants were buttoned together at the waist. Earliest documented use: 1910.

USAGE:
"The question on many people's minds: Will the genteel Mr. Creel, more comfortable buried in legal briefs than in the trenches of hand-to-throat political combat, be able to respond in kind? He doesn't see himself as a political pantywaist."
Peter Fritsch and Jose de Cordoba; Would You Fall into Line for This Man?; The Wall Street Journal (New York); Jan 11, 2001.

See more usage examples of pantywaist in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into. -Jonathan Swift, satirist (1667-1745)

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