A.Word.A.Day --usufruct

A.Word.A.Day

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Mar 21, 2011

This week's theme
Miscellaneous words

This week's words
usufruct
bailiwick
effulgent
lapidary
taradiddle

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

Anyone who cancels an A.Word.A.Day subscription receives a brief feedback form. The number one reason for cancellations is information overload. I understand. We all get too much email, and the number of messages we receive isn't going down with time. That's why back in 2000 we reduced the frequency from seven to five words a week.

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Unfortunately, we can't do much for those ex-subscribers and ex-girlfriends, but others are more manageable. There are some who say that they want words to be more useful.

The way I look at it, all words are useful, as shown by their use in current newspapers. But I get it. Those readers want words that they may come across more often, yet are somewhat unfamiliar, words such as, invidious, profligate, and exiguous.

This week we'll feature a few miscellaneous words that could be considered more employable by those readers. As for the rest of you, even if you know these words, their etymologies may be something you'll enjoy.

And don't wait for the exit survey to tell us what you like or don't like. Send your comments any time to (words at wordsmith.org).

usufruct

PRONUNCIATION:

(YOO-zuh-fruhkt, -suh-)

MEANING:

noun: The right to use and enjoy another's property without destroying it.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin ususfructus, from usus et fructus (use and enjoyment). Earliest documented use: 1646.

USAGE:

"It is currently in the process of purchasing perpetual usufruct rights to a number of plots."
Budlex Prepares for Large Residential Project; Warsaw Business Journal (Poland); Jan 17, 2011.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

When I go into the garden with a spade, and dig a bed, I feel such an exhilaration and health that I discover that I have been defrauding myself all this time in letting others do for me what I should have done with my own hands. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

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