This week’s theme
Usage examples that are food for thought

This week’s words
parturition
avarice
panacea
scepter

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(SEP-tuhr)

MEANING:

noun: A wand held by a sovereign as an emblem of authority and power.
verb tr.: To invest with authority and power.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Old French sceptre, from Latin sceptrum, from Greek skeptron (staff), from skeptesthai (to prop oneself). Earliest documented use: 1340.

USAGE:

“Taught from infancy that beauty is woman’s sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.”
Mary Wollstonecraft; A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; 1792.

See more usage examples of scepter in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: