A.Word.A.Day --assart

A.Word.A.Day

About | Media | Search | Contact

Home

Today's Word

Archives

Aug 10, 2026

This week’s theme
Is it a noun or a verb? Both!

This week’s words
assart

Illustration from the Codex Granatensis, c. 1400

Previous week’s theme
Words that sound dirty, but aren’t

Wordsmith Games

🧩	Jigsaw Riddle The Musician
🌍	Langitude Trace atticism home

A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

Love is often said to be not a noun but a verb. Grammar is less romantic and more accommodating: love is both. You can love love.

This week’s words enjoy the same grammatical freedom. Put a or an before one and it clocks in as a noun. Put to before it and it reports for duty as a verb. One even works a third shift.

Linguists call this kind of job switch conversion or zero derivation: a word moves from one part of speech to another without changing its form. We call it lexical moonlighting.

assart

PRONUNCIATION:

(uh-SART)

MEANING:

noun:	1. A tract of woodland cleared for cultivation.
	2. The act of clearing such land.
verb tr., intr.:	To clear woodland for cultivation.

ETYMOLOGY:

From French essart (cleared land) and essarter (to clear), ultimately from Latin exsarire (to weed out), from ex- (out) + sarire (to hoe or weed). Earliest documented use: before 1450 for the noun and 1523 for the verb.

USAGE:

“This forest is unique because, despite encroachments within the statutory forest boundary and assarts that go back almost 1,000 years, the community has never acquired rights within it.”
Alan Robertson; Letter: Forest Sell-Off Has No Debate or Mandate; The Guardian (London, UK); Jan 25, 2011.

“It is well known that woodland in the Chilterns was assarted before and during the thirteenth century.”
R.B. Peberdy; From Goring Towards Henley; Oxoniensia; 2012.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

I like the pluralism of modernity; it doesn't threaten me or my faith. And if one's faith is dependent on being reinforced in every aspect of other people's lives, then it is a rather insecure faith, don't you think? -Andrew Sullivan, author and editor (b. 10 Aug 1963)

We need your help

Help us continue to spread the magic of words to readers everywhere

Donate

Subscriber Services
Awards | Stats | Links | Privacy Policy
Contribute | Advertise