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Jan 17, 2023
This week’s theme
Shoes

This week’s words
suede-shoed
saboteur
well-heeled
sneakernet
boot-faced

saboteur
Alfred Hitchcock’s Saboteur (1942)
Poster: Universal Pictures

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

saboteur

PRONUNCIATION:
(sab-uh-TUHR)

MEANING:
noun: One who disrupts, damages, or destroys, especially in an underhanded manner.

ETYMOLOGY:
From French saboter (to walk noisily, to botch), from sabot (wooden shoe). Earliest documented use: 1921.

NOTES:
The popular story of disgruntled workers throwing their sabots into the machinery to jam it is not supported by evidence. Rather, it’s that the workers typically wore sabots.

USAGE:
“Yes, this saboteur has escalated the attacks.”
Case Lane; The Origin Point; Clane Media Books; 2016.

See more usage examples of saboteur in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Little Strokes, Fell great oaks. -Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (17 Jan 1706-1790)

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