This week’s theme
Verbs

This week’s words
insufflate
spanghew
peregrinate
quetch
nidify

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(SPANG-hyoo)

MEANING:

verb tr.: To throw violently into the air.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Scots spang (to spring, leap, or throw) + hew, of obscure origin. Earliest documented use: 1781.

NOTES:

It doesn’t get any more specialized than this. It began as a word for torturing animals in a specific manner. The Dictionaries of the Scots Language defines it as “To jerk or catapult violently into the air, specif. applied to a mode of torturing frogs and birds by placing the animal, sometimes tied by the neck, on one end of a board, the other end of which is then sharply struck downwards.” Thankfully, this cruel practice is now obsolete and so is that meaning of the word. Feel free to spanghew balls, paper planes, and even jackets.

USAGE:

“Spanghew his jacket, when you’ve riped [searched] his pockets.”
Wilfrid Wilson Gibson; Krindlesyke; Macmillan; 1922.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: