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Dec 5, 2024
This week’s theme
Illustrated words

This week’s words
mimetic
gobbledygook
berserk
kindler
fairy-tale

kindler
Illustration: Leah Palmer Preiss

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

kindler

PRONUNCIATION:
(KIN-duh-luhr)

MEANING:
noun:
1. A person or thing that starts a fire.
2. A person or thing that inspires, incites, or arouses.

ETYMOLOGY:
Probably from Old Norse kynda (to ignite). Earliest documented use: 1439.

USAGE:
“Dispatchers informed the officers that they had received information from Christopher Kindler that Jason Kindler had burned down his house.”
Meredith Tho; Amherst Man Faces Arson Charge for Blaze at Own Home; Stevens Point Journal (Wisconsin); Dec 23, 2008.
[See nominative determinism.]

“But sport gives a nation heroes and role models and exhilaration. It is a source of health and fitness. It moves youth from the streets to the soccer fields and the baseball diamonds. It is a kindler of dreams.”
Lawrence Martin; The Politicization of Professional Sports Is a Home Run for Society; The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada); Apr 15, 2021.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun. -Christina Rossetti, poet (5 Dec 1830-1894)

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“Overall, the universe’s apostrophe store stays in balance. It seems our linguistic world was intelligently designed -- for every gratuitous apostrophe there’s an instance where it’s omitted.”

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