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Mar 6, 2024
This week’s theme
Words derived from body parts

This week’s words
tergiversate
loggerhead
hough
middlebrow
footloose

hough
Hough/hock joint in a horse
Photo: Malcolm Morley / Wikimedia

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

hough

PRONUNCIATION:
(hok)

MEANING:
verb tr.: To cripple, disable, or to make ineffective.
noun: The joint in the hind leg of a quadruped animal such as a horse, equivalent to the ankle in a human.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Old English hoh (heel). Earliest documented use: 1400.

USAGE:
“The self hamstrung, houghed, short-circuited, is the self God wants of us.”
Molly Rachamim; After the Fall; Cross Currents (New York); Fall 2004.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful after all. -Michelangelo Buonarroti, sculptor, painter, architect, and poet (6 Mar 1475-1564)

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