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Aug 23, 2018
This week’s theme
Words that sound dirty

This week’s words
tittup
assize
crunt
cockade
fallacious

cockade
Hungarian cockade
Image: Khalai/Wikimedia

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

cockade

PRONUNCIATION:
(ko-KAYD)

MEANING:
noun: An ornament, such as a rosette or a knot of ribbons, worn as a badge on a hat, lapel, etc.

ETYMOLOGY:
From French cocarde, from Old French coquarde, feminine of coquard (vain, arrogant), from coc (cock), of imitative origin. Earliest documented use: 1709.

NOTES:
Not sure if cockade would become ade one day, but cockroach did turn into roach because the word has a supposedly dirty four-letter combination. In reality, the word is an anglicization of Spanish cucaracha.
Unfortunately, many schools and corporations will block this issue of A.Word.A.Day and as a result readers in those places will be deprived of this essential knowledge for success in modern life.

USAGE:
“His cockade, a circular piece of fabric in red, white, and blue, bobbed as he moved.”
Shana Galen; Traitor in Her Arms; Loveswept; 2017.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
It matters not how strait the gate, / How charged with punishments the scroll, / I am the master of my fate: / I am the captain of my soul. -William Ernest Henley, poet, critic, and editor (23 Aug 1849-1903)

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