Merriam Quotes

me: why is it upset? shouldn't it be downset? gideon: i will file a lawsuit against the dictionaries first thing tomorrow morning. we're going to tear merriam a new asshole and throw webster inside of it.

I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, Mother, what was war?

I don't need no Smith and Wesson, man, I got Merriam and Webster.

Extroverts want us to have fun, because they assume we want what they want. And sometimes we do. But “fun” itself is a “bright” word, the kind of word that comes with flashing lights and an exclamation point! One of Merriam-Webster’s definitions of “fun” is “violent or excited activity or argument.” The very word makes me want to sit in a dimly lit room with lots of pillows—by myself.

Good night, Jessica Marie and Juno Merriam. Good night, River Nicolas.

The touch of your fingers grazing mine delicate as a single drop of wine in a crystal goblet. Rolling it round, I savor it on my tongue, try to make it last forever. The words I love you form in the air and melt. Your palm against my cheek, light as a snowflake.

Davis spun back around, with a nod at Wilkins. “You know, I think Merriam-Webster here is right, Jack—you do have a glowering way about you.” Then he turned to Wilkins. “And yes, that was a joke. It normally takes about a year to accurately detect Agent Pallas’s small forays into humor, but you’ll get there.

We were teen girls. Look up the word “blasé” in Merriam-Webster’s and you’d find a picture of us, our eyes burning through your soul from the page.

Most words come into being first in speech, then in private writing, and then in public, published writing, which means that if the date given at the entry marks the birth of a word, the moment when it went from nothing to something, then Merriam-Webster must have an underground vault full of clandestine recordings of each word’s first uttering, like something out of the Harry Potter books, only less magical.

One night, after hours, you are alone and running your hands under the hot water when the voice asks if you aren't through with your ablutions yet. You do not know the word but write it down to look it up the next day. You learn its definition on page 3 of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: "The washing of one's body or part of it (as in a religious rite)." You are certain you have never heard this word before as you were raised without any religion and have never set foot inside any church or temple, and you return the dictionary to the shelf and vow never to play this game of counting your wounds again.

In short order, I became America’s foremost “irregardless” apologist. I recorded a short video for Merriam-Webster’s website refuting the notion that “irregardless” wasn’t a word; I took to Twitter and Facebook and booed naysayers who set “irregardless” up as the straw man for the demise of English. I continued to find evidence of the emphatic “irregardless” in all sorts of places—even in the oral arguments of a Supreme Court case. One incredulous e-mail response to my video continued to claim “irregardless” wasn’t a real word. “It’s a made-up word that made it into the dictionary through constant use!” the correspondent said, and I cackled gleefully before responding. Of course “irregardless” is a made-up word that was entered into the dictionary through constant use; that’s pretty much how this racket works. All words are made-up: Do you think we find them fully formed on the ocean floor, or mine for them in some remote part of Wales? I began telling correspondents that “irregardless” was much more complex than people thought, and it deserved a little respectful respite, even if it still was not part of Standard English. My mother was duly horrified. “Oh, Kory,” she tutted. “So much for that college education.” —

Most lexicographers had no clue that such a career path existed until they were smack in the middle of it. Neil Serven, an editor at Merriam-Webster, is an outlier. He sums up his brief musings on how dictionaries came to be thusly: "I imagined dark halls and angry people.

Everyone knew Eleanor was the smartest person in their class. So when she said sabotage the rest of them went scrambling for the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

Vender (según el Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary) es la acción de persuadir o influir los actos o la aceptación de alguien más.

She found a second blanket in the closet and curled up on the bed, feeling like the discarded toy of a spoiled child. She found a strange sort of comfort in the heat of her misery as the cold chilled her tears. In time, she would look up words like 'doormat' and 'wimp,' with Merriam-Webster definitions that would expose her to the faulty clockwork of her heart.

Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. GENESIS 1:28 Abide in me. JOHN 15:4 Go . . . [to] all nations. MATTHEW 28:19 Stay . . . and go. Jesus is our staying power in all our going. If you’ll stay while you go, you may not always know where you’re going. But you can know that wherever you end up, He will walk you there. [1] Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed.

In 2016, “Fascism” was searched on the Merriam-Webster dictionary website more often than any other word in English except “surreal,” which experienced a sudden spike after the November presidential election.

There is a frequent tendency in the presentation of mechaincs to use problems mainly as a vehicle to illustrate theory rather than to develop theory for the purpose of solving problems. When the first view is allowed to predominate, problems tend to become overly idealized and unrelated to engineering with the result that the exercise becomes dull, academic, and uninteresting. This approach deprives the students of valuable experience in formulating problems and thus of discovering the need for and meaning of theory. The second view provides by far the stronger motive for learning theory and leads to a better balance between theory and application. The crucial role played by interest and purpose in providing the strongest possible motive for learning cannot be overemphasized." Glenn Kraige, from Merriam & Kraige's Dynamics text, 7th Edition.

I have seen many woman in my time. I have seen what love looks like. I have waited my entire life for you. I know you well enough to know I love you and you love me. You may not know it yet but you do. It’s as though my soul is married to yours. I knew the first time I looked at you. I was trying to take things slowly, after all we are at war, but seeing you with her. Knowing what could have happened. Knowing I could have lost you. We don’t have time to take it slowly. I can’t guarantee we will be here tomorrow. I love you. It’s that simple.

DYNAM comes from the Greek dynamis, meaning “power.” A dyne is a unit used in measuring force; an instrument that measures force is called a dynamometer. And when Alfred Nobel invented a powerful explosive in 1867, he named it dynamite.

ycan \ī-kən\ see ICHEN1 yce \īs\ see ICE1 ych1 \ik\ see ICK

History is to the race what memory is to the individual.

Weird: of strange or extraordinary character

There is a thin line between self-love and self-hate. When you are at the self-hate side, make sure to cross the line and stay away from it forever.

suffix

When being extremely judgmental about something, we are likely to narrow our eyes.

According to the lovely folks at Merriam-Webster, the term “hippie,” in the sense of hirsute member of the counterculture, dates back to 1965, which is a skosh later than I might have guessed. One fun thing about dictionaries is that they’ll provide a date of introduction into written English for just about any word you can think of. This comes in awfully handy when you’re writing period fiction and wish to be era-appropriate, especially in dialogue. Copyediting a novel set during New York’s 1863 Draft Riots, I learned that what we now call a hangover—a term that didn’t pop up till 1894—was known in those earlier days as, among other things, a “katzenjammer.” Note, please, my use of quotation marks just now. I needed them.

The authors of Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage, having surveyed the uses of the two forms over six hundred years, conclude, “The traditional rules about shall and will do not appear to have described real usage of these words precisely at any time, although there is no question that they do describe the usage of some people some of the time and that they are more applicable in England than elsewhere.

What would it mean, instead of being an elderly woman, to be an elder woman? Because to be an elder implies something rather different — it implies authority: “a leader” or “senior figure” in a tribe or other group, says Lexico. According to Merriam-Webster, a person “having authority by virtue of age and experience.” The Cambridge Dictionary tells us it’s “an older person, especially one with a respected position in society.” So how do women transition from becoming elderly to becoming elder?

No Shep, I am serious. I need you to make me laugh again. I need us to be us. Shep and Lilly. Chocolate Muffin and Strawberry Shortcake. Us. Happy, silly, and free. Promise me you will make me laugh when all this is done,” I said and could hear the pleading in my voice. “I promise Lilly. I will make you laugh again. We will be us. We will be happy. Our son will be happy. He will laugh and be silly and free. I promise you,” he said before kissing the top of my head and I finally believed him. I believed in him

crescent (1) The moon between the new moon and first quarter, and between the last quarter and the next new moon. (2) Anything shaped like the crescent moon. • The symbol of Islam is a crescent moon with a star between the points, an astronomical impossibility.

Don't be polite. Bite in. Pick it up with your fingers and lick the juice that may run down your chin. It is ready and ripe now, whenever you are. You do not need a knife or fork or spoon. For there is no core or stem or rind or pit or seed or skin to throw away.

Every pain, every sorrow, every worry, and the betrayal. Hearing him say Fionna and sex in the same sentence and demeaning my insecurities pushed me over the edge. If someone had told me I was crying I wouldn't have believed them because in that moment all I felt was contempt. Before I knew what I was doing my hand reached out and skid across his cheek. I instantly felt the sting of the slap. I dismissed the pain. I planted both hand on his chest and pushed with all my strength. I was ready to attack him again when he grabbed my arms and held them tight. The harder I fought the harder he held me

As a society we certainly equate speed with smarts. Think fast. Are you quick-witted? A quick study? A whiz kid? Even Merriam-Webster bluntly informs us that slowness is “the quality of lacking intelligence or quickness of mind.” But we also recognize something counter-intuitive about accepting full-stop that people who react faster are smarter. That’s why, even though athletic training improves reaction time, we wouldn’t scout for the next Einstein at a basketball game. Intelligence probably has a lot to do with making fast connections, but it surely has just as much to do with making the right connections.

That life must be worked out by each for himself, equipped as he finds himself by inheritance and circumstance, and guided largely by the sure and simple laws of conduct which he drew in with his mother's milk. Study and thought may help a little, and so such essays as the present are offered for whatever they may afford.

A political science professor and Princeton University president before his election as U.S. president, Wilson had fallen under the spell of a quite different political tradition from American republicanism. He had learned German to read philosopher G.W.F. Hegel and his followers, and he embraced their concept of the Rechtsstaat, whose ideology replaces “the contract theory of the origin of the state” with the idea that the function of the state is not to protect individual rights but rather to take “general care for the interests of the community,” as the University of Chicago’s hugely influential political science chairman Charles Merriam had put it in 1903.

American Heritage Dictionary: “The only rationale for condemning the construction is based on a false analogy with Latin. . . . In general, the Usage Panel accepts the split infinitive.” Merriam-Webster Unabridged online dictionary: “Even though there has never been a rational basis for objecting to the split infinitive, the subject has become a fixture of folk belief about grammar. . . . Modern commentators . . . usually say it’s all right to split an infinitive in the interest of clarity. Since clarity is the usual reason for splitting, this advice means merely that you can split them whenever you need to.” Encarta World English Dictionary: “There is no grammatical basis for rejecting split infinitives.

Two People She reads the paper, while he turns on TV; she likes the mountains, he craves the sea. He'd rather drive, she'll take the plane; he waits for sunshine; she walks in the rain. He gulps down cold drinks, she sips at hot; he asks, "Why go?" She asks, "Why not?" In just about everything they disagree, but they love on another and they both love me.

...for Fascism to extend its reach from the streets to the high offices of state, it must secure backing from multiple sectors of society. This insight has value today because of the growing tendency in the media to portray Fascism as a logical outgrowth of populism and to attribute both allegiances to an unhappy lower middle class, as if anti-democratic sentiments were the exclusive property of one economic tier. They’re not, and there is nothing inherently biased or intolerant about being a populist, which Merriam-Webster defines as “a believer in the rights, wisdom, or virtues of the common people.” Were I to be given the choice of sitting inside or outside that large circle of believers, my response would be, “Include me in.

Briefcase A scientist named Tim Berra wrote a book called Evolution and the Myth of Creationism in 1990. In it, he said that Corvettes can help us understand evolution, because we can see how they changed from year to year. Whoops! Somebody forgot to tell Professor Berra that Corvettes don’t have baby Corvettes. And that Corvettes are designed by intelligent people. So Tim Berra scored a goal for the other side, since his argument was really for intelligent design! Today, it’s called Berra’s Blunder. No one is quite sure when the first demolition derbies were held. Some think a stock-car driver named Larry Mendelsohn organized the first one in Long Island, New York, in the late 1950s. But the Merriam-Webster’s dictionary first included the term “demolition derby” in their 1953 edition. That means there were probably demolition derbies at county fairs at least back in the late 1940s. Anyway, people have been smashing cars for a long time.

And you approve of your future sister-in-law?” Cade asked. “Sure. Isabelle seems great.” Her sister, on the other hand . . . Huxley studied him as he slid on his boxer briefs. “What’s the ‘but’?” “No ‘but,’” Vaughn said. “I like Simon’s fiancée.” And, fortunately for him, she inherited all the good-natured genes in the family. Cade furrowed his brow. “There it is again—that look. Like you want to say more.” Vaughn scoffed at that as he pulled on his clothes. “There’s no look.” Cade pointed. “Huxley just put on his underwear. Not once, in the two years that you two have been partners, have you ever missed an opportunity to smirk at the fact that the man irons his boxer briefs.” “Hey. They fold neater that way. It saves space in the drawer,” Huxley said. Cade gave Vaughn a look. I rest my case. “So? What gives?” Vaughn took in the tenacious expression on his friend’s face and knew that any further denials would only bring on more questions. He sighed. “Fine.” He thought about where to begin. “Isabelle has a sister.” Huxley rolled his eyes. “Here we go.” “No, no. Not here we go. She and I are not going anywhere,” Vaughn said emphatically. “The woman’s a . . .” He paused, trying to think of the right word. He caught sight of another agent, Sam Wilkins, passing by their row of lockers. The man was a walking dictionary. “Hey, Wilkins—what’s that word you used the other day, to describe the female witness who kept arguing with you?” “Termagant,” Wilkins called over. “Means ‘quarrelsome woman.’” Vaughn nodded at Cade and Huxley in satisfaction, thinking that definition perfectly captured Sidney Sinclair. “There. She’s a termagant.” “It can also mean ‘vixen,’” Wilkins shouted from the next aisle over. “Thank you, Merriam-Webster,” Vaughn called back, with a half growl. “I think we’ve got it.” Cade raised an eyebrow teasingly. “So. Does the vixen have a name?” Yep, Vaughn had walked right into that one. “Sidney

The spectrum of hatred against “irregardless” might be unmatched. Everyone claims to hate the word “moist,” but the dislike is general and jokey: ew, gross, “moist,” bleh. People’s hatred of “irregardless” is specific and vehemently serious: it cannot mean “without regard to” but must mean “with regard to,” so it’s nonsensical and shouldn’t exist; it’s a double negative and therefore not allowable by anyone with sense and judgment; it’s a redundant blend of “irrespective” and “regardless,” and we don’t need it; it is illogical and therefore not a word; it is a hallmark of uneducated speech and shouldn’t be entered into the dictionary. All of these complaints point in one direction: “irregardless” is evidence that English is going to hell, and you, Merriam-Webster, are skipping down the easy path, merrily swinging the handbasket. The truth is I felt for the complainant. “Irregardless” was just wrong, I thought—I knew this deep down at a molecular level, and no dictionary entry was going to convince me otherwise. But sharing my personal linguistic beef with the world was not part of the job, so I buttoned my yap and answered the correspondence. Yes, it’s entered, I said, but please note that it’s marked “nonstandard” (which is a fancy way of saying it’s not accepted by most educated speakers of English) and we have a very long usage paragraph after the one-word definition that explains you should use “regardless” instead. We are duty-bound to record the language as it is used, I concluded, gritting my teeth and mentally sprinkling scare quotes throughout the entire sentence.

The secret of wisdom is to be overly curious, like a cat--to take the time to look closely, to use all your senses to see and to touch and to taste and to smell and to hear, and to die because you were overly curious. To keep on wondering...about the afterlife. That is our only mission. Only one. If we don’t wonder, then we will never, ever be curious. Then, if like the cat, you wondered too far...you simply no longer will have to ever wonder again. Your mission will be fulfilled. All because of curiosity. --from The Wise-ass Man who butchered Eve Merriam’s wisdom...and Her Secret

Me: (in the midst of a conversation) “. . . actually I’m a pacifist.” Person X: “Really?” Me: “Yeah.” (After a brief pause.) Person X: “What if someone was raping your wife?” First off, what makes people jump from pacifism to rape? Why does every person on the planet do this? It’s never: “Pacifist, eh? Like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?” or “Pacifism? Isn’t that the opposition to war or violence of any kind, culminating in a refusal to engage in any military activity?” Nope, no Merriam-Webster here; just the same fictitious rape of my invented wife. —English teacher and amateur blogger Nathan Rex Smith

Merriam-Webster even added “fangirl” to the dictionary. We’re fully legit now.

Dictionaries define love as “the inclination of one person for another” (Larousse), or as a “strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties” (Merriam-Webster).

word vulnerability is derived from the Latin word vulnerare, meaning “to wound.” The definition includes “capable of being wounded” and “open to attack or damage.” Merriam-Webster defines weakness as the inability to withstand attack or wounding. Just from a linguistic perspective, it’s clear that these are very different concepts, and in fact, one could argue that weakness often stems from a lack of vulnerability—when we don’t acknowledge how and where we’re tender, we’re more at risk of being hurt.

Interesting: attracting your attention and making you want to learn more about something or to be involved in something, not dull or boring.

I'm so frigid Merriam Webster uses my picture as their standard definition.

stopped after the sirens blared past him. Milo raised his head. Seeing no one, he darted from the garbage heap and raced down the road to his car. As he drove away from the abandoned building, he held tight to the steering wheel to keep his hands from shaking. Lyra had barely escaped being shot by her attackers, and he felt an overwhelming sense of guilt. He had put his love in terrible danger. This was all his fault. He never should have told Mr. Merriam about her. Tears flooded his eyes. Letting her go was the only way Milo could save her. TWENTY-THREE The good news was that the two men trying to kill Sam and Lyra were now in handcuffs. The bad news was that they weren’t the two men who had broken into her apartment. Sam drove her to the police station where the men were being processed. She stood in a tiny room behind a one-way mirror and waited while Sam stepped out into the hall to talk to two other agents. Ed, the man who had delivered the car, saw her and came in. “I looked at the car, and not a single bullet touched it. The perps were either lousy shots or Agent Kincaid was too fast for them.” Shaking his head, he repeated, “Not a single bullet.” Sam walked up behind Lyra and put his hands on her shoulders. “They’re bringing them up. Ready?” “Yes,” she answered. “Have they said anything?” “Yes. They want lawyers.” Two men were led into the interrogation room. They hadn’t even taken their seats when Lyra said, “They aren’t

Cui bono: principio del Derecho Romano que refiere la probable responsabilidad de un acto o evento hacia aquel que tiene algo que ganar.” Diccionario Merriam-Webster

Merriam-Webster defines anti-black as “opposed to or hostile toward black people,” and the Movement for Black Lives defines anti-black racism as a “term used to specifically describe the unique discrimination, violence and harms imposed on and impacting Black people specifically.”18

Merriam-Webster defines apathy as “lack of feeling or emotion; lack of interest or concern” and gives the synonyms “indifference, unconcern, passivity, detachment, insensitivity, dispassion, disregard.”33

Being scared is not the same being cowardly. Doing what's right despite your fears is the actual Merriam-Webster definition of bravery.

Singapura InterContinental Hotel

With five Cessna 172s at their disposal, the club averages 4,000 hours of flying a year.

...Fascism has indeed become fashionable, insinuating its way into social and political conversation like a renegade vine. Disagree with someone? Call him a Fascist and thereby relieve yourself of the need to support your argument with facts. In 2016, “Fascism” was searched on the Merriam-Webster dictionary website more often than any other word in English except “surreal,” which experienced a sudden spike after the November presidential election.

I know that my brain is broken. I am the human embodiment of “not mentally sound,” making assumptions that would seem “insane” to anyone but me, because the thoughts that fuel them are just as unfounded. Like Merriam-Webster says, I am “full of cracks or flaws.

1abe·ce·dar·i·an

His compassionate words had a way of stilling my emotions. Then he added, “What life does not have great challenges? Without them, how would we ever grow in understanding? We who live during these times are very blessed to have Krishna and Rukmini as our friends and guides. Never for a moment do I forget to be grateful for that.

Aristotle wrote, “We are what we repeatedly do.” Merriam-Webster defines habit this way: “An acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary.” There’s a story about a man riding a horse, galloping quickly. It appears that he’s going somewhere very important. A man standing along the roadside shouts, “Where are you going?” The rider replies, “I don’t know. Ask the horse!” This is the story of most people’s lives. They’re riding the horse of their habits, with no idea where they’re headed. It’s time to take control of the reins and move your life in the direction of where you really want to go.

Start using the words immediately. As soon as you feel confident with a word, start trying to work it into your writing wherever appropriate—your papers and reports, your diary and your poetry. An old saying goes, “Use it three times and it's yours.” That may be, but don't stop at three. Make the words part of your working vocabulary, the words that you can not only recognize when you see or hear them but that you can comfortably call on whenever you need them. Astonish your friends, amaze your relatives, astound yourself (while trying not to be too much of a show-off)—and have fun!

Studies have shown that the only way a new word will remain alive in your vocabulary is if it's regularly reinforced through use and through reading. Learn the word here and look and listen for it elsewhere; you'll probably find yourself running into it frequently, just as when you've bought a new car you soon realize how many other people own the same model.

Every time we tap our phones to open Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, we inch closer to the giant rolling pin that will splatter our gray matter everywhere. In 2020, Merriam-Webster released a new entry to its Words We’re Watching blog: doomscrolling.2

skep·tic

we came into the situation blind.

the heaviness of his mission hung in the air between them.

hand. “Let’s focus on today, my dear. You never know what may come.

It was like no one was fated to live together happily for all time.

Cognitive dissonance is when you hold two conflicting beliefs in your mind. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as, “Psychological conflict resulting from incongruous beliefs and attitudes held simultaneously.” This is what makes covert narcissistic abuse so confusing and difficult. For so long you believed this person was kind and genuine. You believed with all your heart this person loved and cared about you. When you start to experience cruelty from them that is more overt or when you begin to discover they have many narcissistic traits, this messes with your mind because seeing them as manipulative and controlling contrasts the belief that they are loving, kind, and innocent.

We all have undignified moments in life.

She’s turned me into a sap.

and she wasn’t going to let a bunch of bullies with more money than sense stand in her way.

Savor means ‘to delight in / enjoy’ (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). It is not just about noticing but extracting enjoyment from the moment or activity for as long as you can. Savoring, or its associated words, luxuriating, reveling, marveling, relishing or basking are simple methods of finding pleasure in everyday moments.

meretricious

biohacking, I defined it as changing the environment inside of and around you to gain control of your own biology. (In 2018, Merriam-Webster added biohacking to the list of new words in the English language!)

Larry's dog's named Earl P. Jessup Bowers, if you can get ready for that. And I should mention straightaway that I do not like dogs one bit, which is why I was glad when Larry said somebody had to go. Cats are bad enough. Horses are a total drag. By the age of nine I was fed up with all that noble horse this and noble horse that. They got good PR, horses. But I really can't use em. Was a fire once when I was little and some dumb horse almost burnt my daddy up messin around, twisting, snorting, broncing, rearing up, doing everything but comin on out the barn like even the chickens had sense enough to do. I told my daddy to let that horse's ass burn. Horses be as dumb as cows. Cows just don't have good press agents is all. I used to like cows when I was real little and needed to hug me something bigger than a goldfish. But don't let it rain, the dumbbells'll fall right in a ditch and you break a plow and shout yourself hoarse trying to get them fools to come up out the ditch. Chipmunks I don't mind when I'm at the breakfast counter with my tea and they're on their side of the glass doing Disney things in the yard. Blue jays are law-and-order birds, thoroughly despicable. And there's one prize fool in my Aunt Merriam's yard I will one day surely kill. He tries to "whip whip whippoorwill" like the Indians do in the Fort This or That movies when they're signaling to each other closing in on George Montgomery but don't never get around to wiping that sucker out. But dogs are one of my favorite hatreds. All the time woofing, bolting down their food, slopping water on the newly waxed linoleum, messin with you when you trying to read, chewin on the slippers.

Connor

Emily Brewster, who has been an editor at Merriam-Webster for over fifteen years, sums up the secret longing of every lexicographer: “Yes, this is what I want to do. I want to sit alone in a cubicle all day and think about words and not really talk to anybody else. That sounds great!

update

change

enamored Charmed or fascinated; inflamed with love.

Merriam-Webster defines an entrepreneur18 as “one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.

Your face changes when you speak of your family,” Becca said. “It’s like the sun comes out inside you.

Even

Roman statesman and orator Cicero was renowned for his elegant style and great knowledge (and occasional long-windedness). So 18th-century Italians seem to have given the name cicerone to the guides who would show well-educated foreigners around the great cultural sites of the ancient Roman empire—guides who sought to

From here, this author found that the Hebrew pronunciation in both Strong's and The Hebrew-English Dictionary is baw-bel'. The stress is on the second syllable with the short a sound. It is the same Hebrew word for both Babel and Babylon, the latter empire. The Greek equivalent is Babulwn (bab-oo-lone'). The Greek yields a short a sound similar to the second pronunciation (ba-bel) in Merriam-Webster Dictionary, and this Greek influence may be why the second pronunciation gained popularity.

Our traditional view of betting is very narrow: casinos, sporting events, lottery tickets, wagering against someone else on the chance of a favorable outcome of some event. The definition of “bet” is much broader. Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary defines “bet” as “a choice made by thinking about what will probably happen,” “to risk losing (something) when you try to do or achieve something” and “to make decisions that are based on the belief that something will happen or is true.” I have emphasized the broader, often overlooked, aspects of betting: choice, probability, risk, decision, belief. We can also see from this definition that betting doesn’t have to take place in a casino or against somebody else.

Defining Christian Zionism is fraught with difficulty. I begin by defining what I mean by Zionism. The term was first used only in 1890; the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition is: “an international movement originally for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel.

For starters, I'm thankful and honored to have so many friends and family to share this table with. From my older sister Dee to little Merriam and everyone in between, I'm thankful for you all. We don't look alike and some of us have accents different from others. I'm thankful for those differences because it makes each one unique with a perspective to add. Sorrow, joy, and everything in between – we've experienced it all at one time or another and leaned on someone at this table for support. Let’s all be thankful for our shared humanity and thank God for the bounty we

There’s nothing wrong with trying to make money. Indeed, the desire for gain is one of the most important elements in the workings of the market and the overall economy. The danger comes when it moves on further to greed, which Merriam-Webster’s defines as an “inordinate or all-consuming and usually reprehensible acquisitiveness especially for wealth or gain.” Greed is an extremely powerful force. It’s strong enough to overcome common sense, risk aversion, prudence, caution, logic, memory of painful past lessons, resolve, trepidation and all the other elements that might otherwise keep investors out of trouble.

willing to close large distances in response to calls. Does that make them stupid? No! Due to the vastness of the landscape these birds often call home, it’s not uncommon for a walk-about tom to respond and come to a live-hen call that barely tickles his eardrums. When calling Merriam’s birds, I prefer to run calls that carry great distances and cut the all-to-often howling western wind. My favorite reach-out-and-touch-their-ears Merriam’s call is a trusty box call. Box calls get a bad rap. When I give seminars, I hear a lot of negative comments about them. They’re too easy to use. Every hunter on the planet hammers away on them. They don’t work on public land. You can’t get the exact pitch you want. I could go on forever with the complaints I’ve heard from hunters about box calls. Here’s my opinion on the matter. They work great to cut the western winds. They also work great when trying to raise the interest of a distant tom. On multiple occasions, I’ve been able to sit behind a quality spotting scope and watch a tom 500 yards away take notice of my box call. Once you master them, box calls can produce pitch-perfect tones. I especially feel this is the case when using a true chalk-on-wood system. Another Merriam’s eardrum ringer is an aluminum pot-and-peg call. I’ve found aluminum pot calls carry great distances. I’m also a fan of glass. What I love about pot-and-peg calls is that I can easily adjust the volume and pitch simply by swapping strikers. And that’s not all. Once you really know what you’re doing, these calls produce, in my opinion, simply the best turkey tones. Like many turkey fanatics, my go-to call is a diaphragm. Through this wonderful

of

GAZE, GAPE, STARE, and GLARE mean to look at something or someone for a long time. GAZE suggests looking steadily at something with feelings of interest, wonder, or admiration. • She was gazing at the moon. • GAPE suggests looking in wonder or surprise with your mouth open. • tourists gaping at celebrities • STARE suggests looking with your eyes open wide, often in a rude way. • Don't stare at him, it's not polite. • GLARE suggests looking in an angry way. • The speaker glared at the people in the audience who were talking.

The word “covert” is defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “not openly shown.” “Passive-aggressive” is defined as “displaying behavior characterized by the expression of negative feelings, resentment, and aggression in an unassertive passive way.

But here in the contemporary West, we don’t really do elders: instead, we have “the elderly.” The connotations are quite different. According to the Cambridge English Dictionary online, “elderly” is nothing more than “a polite word for ‘old.’” The online Merriam-Webster Dictionary informs us that “elderly” can also mean “old-fashioned.” In Lexico, the Oxford online thesaurus, the word is associated with synonyms such as “doddering,” “decrepit,” “in one’s dotage,” “past one’s prime,” “past it,” and “over the hill.” It doesn’t paint a pretty picture; these are not exactly the adjectives that most aging women would aspire to embody. But the aging woman has had a particularly troubled history in Western culture. The last convictions might have taken place in the eighteenth century, but in many ways we still haven’t quite recovered from our demonization in the witch trials. Older women, when they’re not rendered completely invisible, are still trivialized and marginalized, and often actively ridiculed. “Little old ladies,” we call them here in Britain; “old bats” (if we think they’re crazy), or “old bags” and “old trouts” (if they don’t live up to our expectations that old women should rarely be seen, and certainly should never be heard).

The word meme was coined by the biologist Richard Dawkins to draw an analogy between how genes can propagate in populations by evolution and how small units of ideas can propagate between people. Memes (discrete units of knowledge, gossip, jokes and so on) are to culture what genes are to life. Just as biological evolution is driven by the survival of the fittest genes in the gene pool, cultural evolution may be driven by the most successful memes. (Richard Dawkins, according to Merriam-Webster)

Many of the most heroic deeds of the war were performed by small, isolated groups of soldiers, unaware of the situation, without adequate equipment or support, who stood and battled it out with the Germans until overwhelmed.

The sudden, brilliant victory in France, like a Frankenstein monster, had turned against us; we had far outstripped our ability to supply the troops.

GENUINE MERRIAM-WEBSTER The name Webster alone is no guarantee of excellence. It is