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A.Word.A.Day--commentariat

This week's theme: newly coined words.

commentariat (kom-uhn-TAR-ee-uht) noun

The group of people who provide opinion and analysis of events in the news.

[Blend of commentator and commissariat or proletariat. The term was first noticed in a 1993 article in the Washington Post.]

Examples of people who form the commentariat: talk show hosts and their guests, newspaper and magazine columnists, and political bloggers.

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

"This outcome should not have surprised anyone with the wit to examine the opinion polling. But most of Australia's conservative commentariat refused, until faced with the actual results, to believe that their nation's sagacious voters would be so ungrateful as to throw their favourite overboard." Frank Bongiorno; Rudd Ends Opposition Years; New Statesman (London, UK); Nov 26, 2007.

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