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Aug 5, 2022
This week’s theme
Verbs

This week’s words
obtrude
mundify
discerp
elute
micrify

micrify
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, 1989
Poster: Disney / Wikimedia

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Words coined after animals
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

micrify

PRONUNCIATION:
(MYK-ruh-fy)

MEANING:
verb tr.: To make small or insignificant.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek micro- (small) + -ficare (to make). Earliest documented use: 1836.

USAGE:
“With no way to micrify anything ... I had to let everything in one-to-one, raw, and unreduced.”
Harry Dodge; My Meteorite; Penguin; 2020.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
How would you describe the difference between modern war and modern industry -- between, say, bombing and strip mining, or between chemical warfare and chemical manufacturing? The difference seems to be only that in war the victimization of humans is directly intentional and in industry it is "accepted" as a "trade-off". -Wendell Berry, farmer and author (b. 5 Aug 1934)

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