A.Word.A.Day --runagate

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Today's Word

runagate

PRONUNCIATION:

(RUHN-uh-gayt)

MEANING:

noun:
1. A person who has run away.
2. A vagabond or wanderer.

ETYMOLOGY:

Alteration of renegate (renegade), past participle of renegare (to renounce), from re- (back) + negare (to deny). Earliest documented use: 1530.

NOTES:

A renegade (from Latin negare, to deny) is someone who abandons a cause or religion. English speakers, hearing the word, confused the first syllable of renegade with run and the second with gate (an old word for road or way) and turned it into runagate.

USAGE:

“If Thomas Jefferson’s genius matters, then so does his taking of Sally Hemings’s body. If George Washington crossing the Delaware matters, so must his ruthless pursuit of the runagate Oney Judge.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates; We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy; One World; 2017.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

The tragedy in the lives of most of us is that we go through life walking down a high-walled lane with people of our own kind, the same economic situation, the same national background and education and religious outlook. And beyond those walls, all humanity lies, unknown and unseen, and untouched by our restricted and impoverished lives. -Florence Luscomb, architect and suffragist (6 Feb 1887-1985)

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