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Mar 21, 2013
This week's theme
Contranyms or words with an opposite set of meanings

This week's words
secrete
peruse
second-guess
discursive
impregnable

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

discursive

PRONUNCIATION:
(dis-KUHR-siv)

MEANING:
adjective:
1. Jumping from topic to topic; rambling.
2. Proceeding logically, using reason or argument rather than emotion.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin discurrere (to run about), from dis- (apart) + currere (to run). Ultimately from the Indo-European root kers- (to run), which is also the source of car, career, carpenter, occur, discharge, succor, and caricature. Earliest documented use: 1599.

USAGE:
"The book is discursive, gently meandering down the River Thames."
Three Men In A Boat; Northern Echo (Darlington, UK); Sep 20, 2012.

"Obama's penchant for discursive explanations has bothered no constituency more than his base, whose members see in his sometimes professorial tone a lack of passion for the cause at hand."
Scott Wilson; In Arguing for Firearms Restrictions, Obama Points to Constitution; The Washington Post; Jan 17, 2013.

See more usage examples of discursive in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
There is a foolish corner in the brain of the wisest man. -Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 BCE)

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