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May 19, 2015
This week’s theme
Verbs

This week’s words
devolve
edify
parlay
espouse
acerbate

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

edify

PRONUNCIATION:
(ED-i-fy)

MEANING:
verb tr.: To instruct in order to improve the mind or character.

ETYMOLOGY:
Via French from Latin aedificare (to build), from aedis (building) + facere (make). Earliest documented use: 1340.

USAGE:
“If [translator Jay Rubin’s] suggestion [not to read literature in translation] were to be heeded, most of us would not be edified by the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Albert Camus, Italo Calvino, and Saadat Hasan Manto.”
G. Seetharaman; Despite Pitfalls, Publishers Bet on Translated Vernacular Indian Literature; The Economic Times (New Delhi, India); Dec 16, 2013.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Red roses for young lovers. French beans for longstanding relationships. -Ruskin Bond, author (b. 19 May 1934)

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