A.Word.A.Day --elute

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Today's Word

elute

PRONUNCIATION:

(ee/i-LOOT)

MEANING:

verb tr.: To wash out or extract, especially with a solvent.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin eluere (to wash out), from ex- (out) + -luere (to wash), from lavare/lavere (to wash). Earliest documented use: 1731.

USAGE:

“The caustic solvent of intercontinental travel has eluted away the fragile coating of polite civility each of them wears when at his unstressed best, leaving bare the chafed prickliness of self-justified irritability familiar to all who over-indulge in time zones.”
John Mickey; Ultimatum Day; iUniverse; 2006.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

What did I know, what did I know / of love's austere and lonely offices? -Robert Hayden, poet and educator (4 Aug 1913-1980)

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