This week’s theme
Nouning the verb, verbing the noun

This week’s words
cavil
shirtfront
foin

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(foin)

MEANING:

verb intr.: To thrust with a weapon; lunge.
noun: A thrust with a weapon.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Old French foine (trident), from Latin fuscina (trident). Earliest documented use: verb 1400, noun: 1450.

NOTES:

A word fit for a fencing manual or a swashbuckling novel, foin is what you do when you want to poke someone, with a sword or metaphorically. Shakespeare uses the word, usually when characters are getting stabby or merely pretending to. If you’ve ever tried to spear the last olive in a jar with a fork, congratulations: you’ve performed a domestic foin.

USAGE:

“I snatched the policeman’s saber from its sheath, foined at him with the point to gain a moment’s start on him and his companion.”
Emile Capouya; In the Sparrow Hills; The Antioch Review (Yellow Springs, Ohio); Spring 2012.

“On either part, and many a foin and thrust
Aim’d and rebated; many a deadly blow.”
Robert Southey; Roderick, the Last of the Goths; 1814.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: