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Nov 6, 2020
This week’s theme
Borrowed words

This week’s words
cushy
pogonip
pishogue
zarf
picaro

picaro
Tintin and the Picaros
Art: Hergé

This week’s comments
AWADmail 958


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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

picaro

PRONUNCIATION:
(PEE-kuh-roh)

MEANING:
noun: A rogue; an adventurer.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Spanish pícaro (rogue). Earliest documented use: 1622. Also see picaresque and picaroon.

USAGE:
“Too often his bedeviling qualities get passed over as the colorful traits of a picaro.”
Lee Siegel; The Tower of Babel; The Nation (New York); Nov 17, 2005.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
I don't think that combat has ever been written about truthfully; it has always been described in terms of bravery and cowardice. I won't even accept these words as terms of human reference any more. And anyway, hell, they don't even apply to what, in actual fact, modern warfare has become. -James Jones, novelist (6 Nov 1921-1977)

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