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Discuss Email this Feedback RSS/XML Permalink A.Word.A.Day--fletcher This week's theme: words related to archery. fletcher (FLECH-uhr) noun A maker of arrows. [From Middle English fleccher, from Old French flechier, from fleche (arrow). Ultimately from the Indo-European root pleu (to flow), which also gave us flow, fly, float, fleet, pulmonary, and pluvial.] Today's word in Visual Thesaurus. Sometimes this word is used in extended senses, for one who deals in arrows and also for an archer, but it is one of those occupations that now mostly survive as surnames. Some others are Webster (a weaver), Napier (in charge of the table linen at a royal estate), and Cooper (makes or repairs casks or barrels). In their place, new professions have cropped up: webmaster, knowledge manager, privacy officer, and others. Do you think the pattern will repeat and in a century or two one might find somebody named John Webmaster only because his father had a last name Webmaster? "Richard Head's garden is a longbow factory. His wife, Lindsay, is a longbow champion and a full-time fletcher." Angus Watson; Know your Bow: Yew Turn That Changed History; The Daily Telegraph (London, UK); Oct 8, 2005. X-Bonus Good books don't give up all their secrets at once. -Stephen King, novelist (1947- )

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