A.Word.A.Day --pot-valor

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Today's Word

pot-valor

PRONUNCIATION:

(POT-val-uhr)

MEANING:

noun: Boldness or courage induced by the consumption of alcohol.

NOTES:

Also known as liquid courage or Dutch courage.

ETYMOLOGY:

From pot, alluding to a drinking pot + valor (boldness), from Latin valor (worth), from valere (to be well, be of worth). Ultimately from the Indo-European root wal- (to be strong), which also gave us valiant, avail, valor, value, wieldy, countervail, valence, valetudinarian, and valorize. Earliest documented use: 1623.

USAGE:

“Along the way, puffed with pot-valor, I imagined how I would scale the wall and enter the loft.”
Steve Stern; Tikkun (San Francisco, California); Jan/Feb 2000.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character. This is how ideologues justify punishing the sick and the poor. But poverty is neither a crime nor a character flaw. Stigmatize those who let people die, not those who struggle to live. -Sarah Kendzior, journalist and author (b. 1978)

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