A.Word.A.Day --bumbaze

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Today's Word

bumbaze

PRONUNCIATION:

(buhm-BAYZ)

MEANING:

verb tr.: To bewilder or stupefy.

ETYMOLOGY:

Of uncertain origin, perhaps an alteration of Scots baze (to dismay). Earliest documented use: 1587.

NOTES:

Despite the first impressions or the first syllable, no backside is involved. To be bumbazed is to have your thoughts sent into a maze without a map.

USAGE:

“I hate to observe devoted and intelligent men bumbazed by a bolt from the blue.”
Edwin Morgan; A.D.: A Trilogy on the Life of Jesus; Carcanet; 2000.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

America has changed over the years. But these values my grandparents taught me -- they haven't gone anywhere. They're as strong as ever; still cherished by people of every party, every race, every faith. They live on in each of us. What makes us American, what makes us patriots, is what's in here. That's what matters. And that's why we can take the food and music and holidays and styles of other countries, and blend it into something uniquely our own. That's why we can attract strivers and entrepreneurs from around the globe to build new factories and create new industries here. That's why our military can look the way it does -- every shade of humanity, forged into common service. That's why anyone who threatens our values, whether fascists or communists or jihadists or homegrown demagogues, will always fail in the end. -Barack Obama, US President (b. 4 Aug 1961)

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