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May 13, 2025
This week’s theme
Interesting usage examples

This week’s words
renunciatory
winsome

winsome
Illustration: Anu Garg + AI

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winsome

PRONUNCIATION:
(WIN-suhm)

MEANING:
adjective: Pleasing or charming, especially in a childlike or innocent manner.

USAGE:
From Old English wynsum, from wynn (joy) + -sum (-some). Earliest documented use: 450.

ETYMOLOGY:
“The guest lists included women who were ‘as winsome as possible’ to make the town seem attractive to the (male) engineer in charge of choosing [the site of a nuclear research center]. The plan worked.”
Going Nuclear; The Economist (London, UK); Jul 1, 2023.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
In a free country there is much clamor, with little suffering: in a despotic state there is little complaint but much suffering. -Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot, statesman and engineer (13 May 1753-1823)

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