A.Word.A.Day		About Us | What's New | Search | Site Map | Contact Us

Home Today's Word Yesterday's Word Archives FAQ

Discuss Email this Feedback RSS/XML Permalink A.Word.A.Day--ragamuffin This week's theme: eponyms -- words coined after someone. ragamuffin (RAG-uh-muf-in) noun Someone, especially a child, in ragged, dirty clothes. [After Ragamoffyn, a demon in William Langland's 14th century poem Piers Plowman.] Today's word in Visual Thesaurus. -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "There were ragamuffins filled with certainties on every streetcorner and philosophers in every coffeehouse." Earl Shorris; A Nation of Salesmen; Harper's (New York); Oct 1994. X-Bonus That some good can be derived from every event is a better proposition than that everything happens for the best, which it assuredly does not. -James Kern Feibleman, philosopher and psychiatrist (1904-1987)

Just released: A new book: The Dord, the Diglot, and an Avocado or Two: The Hidden Lives and Strange Origins of Common and Not-So-Common Words Subscribe: Sign up to receive A.Word.A.Day in your mailbox every day. "The most welcomed, most enduring piece of daily mass e-mail in cyberspace." -The New York Times Sponsored by: Give the Gift of Words Share the magic of words. Send a gift subscription of A.Word.A.Day. Anu on Words: Writer Magazine Globe & Mail Interact: Bulletin board Wordsmith Talk Moderated Chat Wordsmith Chat Readers' Voice AWADmail