This week’s theme
Words that aren’t what they appear to be

This week’s words
windlass
monopolylogue
lustration
unicity
piepowder


This week’s comments
AWADmail 1192

Next week’s theme
Words with all the vowels

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(PY-pow-duhr)

MEANING:

noun: A traveler, especially a traveling merchant.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Old French pie (foot) + poudre (powder, dust). Earliest documented use: 1436.

NOTES:

Back in the pre-sneaker, pre-sidewalk, pre-horseless-carriage era, travelers earned their name the hard way: one dusty footstep at a time. The term piepowder literally means dusty-foot, a poetic nod to the grime that clung to merchants as they wandered from fair to fair, hawking wares and dodging pickpockets. Itinerant merchants were the original pop-up shops. Because disputes over goods, weights, and prices were inevitable, special Courts of Piepowders were held on the spot to mete out justice, fairground-style. Think Judge Judy, but with more livestock and fewer microphones.

USAGE:

“I had the rogues up at the court of piepowder, and they will harm no more peaceful traders.”
Arthur Conan Doyle; The White Company; Smith, Elder & Co.; 1891.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: