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Jan 14, 2016
This week’s theme
Vocab words

This week’s words
onerous
torpor
welter
invective
reticence

Shakespearean invectives
Shakespearean invectives
Photo: Amazon

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

invective

PRONUNCIATION:
(in-VEK-tiv)

MEANING:
noun: An insulting or abusive criticism or expression.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin invehi (to attack with words), from invehere (to carry in). Ultimately from the Indo-European root wegh- (to go or to transport in a vehicle), which also gave us deviate, way, weight, wagon, vogue, vehicle, vector, envoy, trivial, and inveigh. Earliest documented use: 1430.

USAGE:
“The author does have some good points ... but they get lost in a welter of invective and innuendo.”
Stephen Schecter; Singularly Peevish View of Canada; The Gazette (Montreal, Canada); Jul 22, 1995.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
A man does not have to be an angel in order to be saint. -Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate (14 Jan 1875-1965)

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