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Apr 6, 2026
This week’s themeBack-formations This week’s words 
Photo: Gust Previous week’s theme All vocabulary, no cardio Wordsmith Games
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu GargIf you find a watch on a beach, the old argument goes, you may infer a watchmaker. Watches do not simply wash ashore fully assembled, any more than a pizza bakes itself. Some have used this line of reasoning as an argument for creationism: if a watch implies a watchmaker, surely a world implies a world-maker. But then who made the watchmaker? Wouldn’t there have to be a watchmaker-maker, busily engaged in watchmaker-making? And who made the watchmaker-maker? A watchmaker-maker-maker, naturally. You can see the problem. Arguments of this kind tend to run down rather quickly, reverting to assertions that the creator is eternal with no beginning. But that brings it back to a statement of faith rather than a logical conclusion. A cheap watch found on a beach might keep better time. So who created the world? I don’t know. But I do know who coined the word watchmaker-maker-making. I did. And you are encouraged to make words, too. This week we’ll look at five verbs formed by back-formation. To back-form is to make a word from an existing one by removing a part. For example, English took the noun laser and back-formed the verb lase from it. You could easily back-form a verb such as “to watchmaker-maker-make”. What back-formations can you come up with? Share below or email us at words@wordsmith.org. As always, include your location (city, state). PS: For a deeper look at the old watchmaker argument, see The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins. alliterate
PRONUNCIATION:
(uh-LIT-uh-rayt)
MEANING:
verb intr.: To use words beginning with the same sound or letter, especially the same initial consonant sound. verb tr.: To arrange with the same sound or letter. ETYMOLOGY:
Back-formation from alliteration, from al-, a variant of ad- (toward) + littera (letter). Earliest documented use: 1739.
NOTES:
Related terms include consonance,
in which consonant sounds recur, often at the ends of stressed syllables
and assonance, in which similar
vowel sounds are repeated.
USAGE:
“Of his plans to expand domestic oil drilling, [Ron] DeSantis said,
‘We’re going to choose Midland over Moscow. We’re going to choose the
Marcellus over the Mullahs. We’re going to choose the Bakken over
Beijing.’ Stop this man before he alliterates again.” Benjamin Wallace-Wells; “Thank You for Speaking While I’m Interrupting”: The Crosstalk Chaos of the Second Republican Debate; The New Yorker; Sep 28, 2023. See more usage examples of alliterate in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
We take our colors, chameleon-like, from each other. -Nicolas de Chamfort,
writer (6 Apr 1741-1794)
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