A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg ambage PRONUNCIATION: (AM-bij) MEANING: noun: Ambiguity; circumlocution. ETYMOLOGY: From Middle English ambages (equivocation), taken as a plural and the singular ambage coined from it. From Latin ambages, from ambi- (both, around) + agere (to drive). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ag- (to drive, draw, or move), which also gave us act, agent, agitate, litigate, synagogue, ambassador, agonistes, axiomatic, cogent, incogitant, exigent, exiguous, intransigent. Earliest documented use: 1374. USAGE: This increase in ambage measures increased arbitrariness. Harrison C. White; Identity and Control; Princeton University Press; 2008. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: Good fiction creates empathy. A novel takes you somewhere and asks you to look through the eyes of another person, to live another life. -Barbara Kingsolver, novelist, essayist, and poet (b. 1955)
Posted on: Wed, 16 Apr 2014 13:00:00 +0000
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