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Oct 19, 2018
This week’s theme
Words borrowed from Native American languages

This week’s words
cornpone
bayou
sagamore
mugwump
totem

totem
This week’s comments
AWADmail 851

Next week’s theme
Words related to the eye
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

totem

PRONUNCIATION:
(TOH-tuhm)

MEANING:
noun: A person, object, group, etc. that serves as an emblem or symbol.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Ojibwe/Ojibwa language of the Algonquian language family in North America. Earliest documented use: 1609.

USAGE:
“The Beats, so long a totem of countercultural cool, now seem anomalous, even old-school.”
Peter Murphy; The Beats That My Heart Skipped; Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland); Jul 1, 2017.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The same people who can deny others everything are famous for refusing themselves nothing. -Leigh Hunt, poet and essayist (19 Oct 1784-1859)

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