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Jan 4, 2016
This week’s theme
New words

This week’s words
dox
photoshop
defriend
affluenza
peeps

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

What’s new? Well, the year is new. So we bring you some new words. New is relative, of course. In the linguistic world, where we have words going back thousands of years, a few decades is new. This week, we’ll feature some words that have come into circulation in the last few decades. Finally, we’ll wrap up the week with a word that you might think is new but, in reality, goes back more than 150 years.

dox

PRONUNCIATION:
(doks)

MEANING:
verb tr.: To gather and publish someone’s personal information, such as phone number, address, email messages, credit card numbers, etc., especially with a malicious intent.
noun: Personal information about someone, collected and published without permission.

ETYMOLOGY:
Phonetic respelling of docs, short for documents, from Latin documentum (lesson, proof, specimen), from docere (to teach), which also gave us doctor and docent. Earliest documented use: early 2000s.

USAGE:
“He doxed her, posting her address and apartment number, which he had filched from her Internet provider.”
Jason Fagone; The Serial Swatter; The New York Times; Nov 24, 2015.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
People who demand neutrality in any situation are usually not neutral but in favor of the status quo. -Max Eastman, journalist and poet (4 Jan 1883-1969)

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