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A.Word.A.Day--a fortiori

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a fortiori (a fort-tee-OR-ee) adverb

For an even stronger reason; even more so.

[From Latin, literally from the stronger.]

"'If your argument is good for this case, then your argument is a fortiori good for testing everyone in school,' Justice David H. Souter told Linda M. Meoli, the lawyer representing Independent School District No. 92 ..." Linda Greenhouse; Supreme Court Seems Ready To Extend School Drug Tests; The New York Times; Mar 20, 2002.

"The Governor is a sailing man - indeed, when it comes to monetary waters, he is positively an old salt. He knows what it is to have shot in the locker, and, a fortiori (as it were), to have no shot in the locker." William Keegan; In my View: George Calls the Shots in Clarke's Battle; The Guardian (London, UK): Feb 12, 1995.

This week's theme: terms from Latin.

X-Bonus

Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth. -Walt Whitman, poet (1819-1892)

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