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Oct 21, 2021
This week’s theme
Eponyms

This week’s words
brewstered
hoover
cookie monster
marplot
Panglossian

marplot
Charles Pasternak (left) as Marplot in The Busy Body production at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

marplot

PRONUNCIATION:
(MAHR-plot)

MEANING:
noun: A meddlesome person who spoils a plan by interference.

ETYMOLOGY:
After Marplot, the titular character in the 1709 play The Busy Body by Susannah Centlivre (1669-1723). Marplot means well and tries to help only to get in the way of others and foul things up. Earliest documented use: 1709.

USAGE:
“And if Ben tried to say they were surely now all past the age for such folly, the others would accuse him of being a marplot.”
Annie Burrows; A Scandal at Midnight; Harlequin; 2021.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
We read books to find out who we are. -Ursula K. Le Guin, author (21 Oct 1929-2018)

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