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Oct 12, 2015
This week’s theme
Words with hooks

This week’s words
ambit
peculate
resumptive
uberous
olio

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

They are called hooks. And they are one of the best ways to increase your score in a game of Scrabble. A hook is when you add a letter at the beginning or at the end of a word. For example, if the board has the word VERY, you can add E at the beginning to make EVERY.

This week's words in A.Word.A.Day can all take a hook. Can you find them? Enjoy the hooks, but be careful. You never know when a little harmless WORDPLAY can turn into dangerous SWORDPLAY.

ambit

PRONUNCIATION:
(AM-bit)

MEANING:
noun: Scope, range, limit, or boundary.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin ambitus (going around), from ambire (to go around), from ambi- (both, around) + ire (to go). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ei- (to go), which also gave us exit, transit, circuit, itinerary, obituary, adit, and arrant. Earliest documented use: 1398.

USAGE:
"President Buhari acted within the ambit of the law by taking his time to do a thorough job."
Agenda for New Ministers; The Sun (Lagos, Nigeria); Oct 2, 2015.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Life is just a short walk from the cradle to the grave and it sure behooves us to be kind to one another along the way. -Alice Childress, playwright, author, and actor (12 Oct 1916-1994)

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