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Feb 4, 2020
This week’s theme
Well-traveled words

This week’s words
Moloch
bezoar
cavalcade
saber-rattling
calash

bezoar
Bezoar from unknown animal

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

bezoar

PRONUNCIATION:
(BEE-zohr)

MEANING:
noun: A stone-like mass formed in the stomach or intestines of some animals, formerly believed to be a remedy for poison.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Old French bezahar/bezoard, from Arabic bazahr, from Persian padzahr (antidote), from pad- (protector) + zahr (poison). Earliest documented use: 1597.

USAGE:
“Other objects will seem familiar to readers: a bezoar, a stone taken from an animal’s stomach, like the one Harry used after Ron was poisoned; an 18th-century orrery, a model of the solar system, with tiny, movable planets, ...”
Jennifer E. Smith; Even Harry Potter Has a Past; The New York Times; Oct 5, 2018.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
There comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience. -Hartley Shawcross, barrister, politician, and prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes tribunal (4 Feb 1902-2003)

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