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Apr 10, 2020
This week’s theme
Eponyms

This week’s words
Mae West
Adonic
vandal
nimrodize
Chadband

Chadband
Jo, a homeless boy, and Rev. Chadband
Illustration: Kyd (Joseph Clayton Clarke) (1856-1937)

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

Chadband

PRONUNCIATION:
(CHAD-band)

MEANING:
noun: An oily, hypocritical person.

ETYMOLOGY:
After Rev. Mr. Chadband, a greedy preacher in Charles Dickens’s 1853 novel Bleak House. Earliest documented use: 1853.

USAGE:
“‘Peace, maid-servants and men-servants,’ said he, after the manner of Chadband. ‘There is no need for alarm. I am a stranger, and you must take me in.’”
Fergus Hume; The Millionaire Mystery; Chatto & Windus; 1901.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Joy is the best makeup. -Anne Lamott, writer (b. 10 Apr 1954)

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