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graduand (paid)

  • Dave Wilton

Dave Wilton

21 Jan 2026 • 2 min read
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domestic terrorism/terrorist

Words in the News is a weekly, paid-subscriber feature of Wordorigins.org. If you’d like to see more, please subscribe at a paid level. My goal is to simply break even and have subscriptions and ads pay for my out-of-pocket expenses in keeping this site up and running. So
22 Jan 2026 9 min read
Line from sheet music that reads, “I been wukkin’ on de rail-road All de live-long day” with accompanying musical notation

livelong

21 January 2026 Livelong is not a common adjective. Its use, for the most part, is restricted to one expression, all the livelong day, although as late as the nineteenth century the livelong night was also common. In these expressions the word is simply an intensified version of the adjective
21 Jan 2026 2 min read
B&W photo of three men pouring liquor into a sewer while a group of other men look on; all are wearing 1920s-era clothing

bootleg

19 January 2026 Bootleg marks a product that is either inferior or illicitly produced. But why bootleg and when did the term come into being? Literal use of bootleg to refer to the part of a boot that covers the lower leg dates to the sixteenth century. And it is
19 Jan 2026 3 min read
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