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Apr 2, 2021
This week’s theme
Places that have given us multiple toponyms

This week’s words
coventrate
Roman holiday
canter
Trojan
Kentish fire

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

Kentish fire

PRONUNCIATION:
(KEN-tish fyr)

MEANING:
noun: Prolonged cheering.

ETYMOLOGY:
From the prolonged derisive cheering in opposition to meetings held in Kent, England, during 1828-29 regarding the Catholic Relief Bill which sought to remove discrimination against Catholics. Earliest documented use: 1834.

USAGE:
“Then Kim would join the Kentish-fire of good wishes and bad jokes, wishing the couple a hundred sons and no daughters, as the saying is.”
Rudyard Kipling; Kim; Macmillan; 1901.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
How far should one accept the rules of the society in which one lives? To put it another way: at what point does conformity become corruption? Only by answering such questions does the conscience truly define itself. -Kenneth Tynan, theater critic and author (2 Apr 1927-1980)

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