This week's theme
Words that have many unrelated meanings

This week's words
consonance
levee
prow
rote
loblolly

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(roht)

MEANING:

noun:
1. A mechanical or unthinking way of doing something.
2. The sound of surf.
3. A medieval stringed instrument or Celtic origin. Also known as crowd or crwth.

ETYMOLOGY:

For 1: Of obscure origin. Earliest documented use: 1325.
For 2: Perhaps of Scandinavian origin. Earliest documented use: 1610.
For 3: From Middle French rote. Earliest documented use: 1330.

USAGE:

"From learning by rote they graduated to living by rote."
Ashwini Bhatnagar; Dina Nath (MBA); 2014.

"The dull mist immediately broke, blossomed with marvelous colors, all kinds of sounds burst forth -- the rote of the sea, the clapping of the wind, human cries."
The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov; Knopf; 1995.

"One played the harp; another a viol;
another, the flute; another, a fife;
one played a rebeck; another, a rote."
E.D. Blodgett, translator; Romance of Flamenca; Routledge; 1995.

See more usage examples of rote in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: