A.Word.A.Day --confute

A.Word.A.Day

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Oct 10, 2016

This week’s theme
Verbs

This week’s words
confute
propine
flocculate
absolve
objurgate

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

This sentence no verb. This one neither.

Well, it may be possible to crank out a sentence or two without verbs, but this train isn’t going very far. It’s glaringly obvious in the above paragraph that the first car is missing a key part, while in the second there’s a verb, just hidden under the floor.

Verbs make the world go around. You can’t say the same about other parts of speech. Let’s take a look at five uncommon verbs this week.

confute

PRONUNCIATION:

(kuhn-FYOOT)

MEANING:

verb tr.: To prove to be wrong.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin confutare (to restrain or silence), from con- (an intensifier) + futare (to beat). Ultimately from the Indo-European root bhau- (to strike), which also gave us refute, beat, button, halibut, and buttress. Earliest documented use: 1529.

USAGE:

“Page after page of these volumes confute that claim by showing how philoprogenitive the mothers were who sat for [the artist George] Romney with their children.”
Edward Short; The English Look; The Weekly Standard (Washington, DC); Jun 6, 2016.

See more usage examples of confute in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set. -Lin Yutang, writer and translator (10 Oct 1895-1976)

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