This week’s theme
Back-formations

This week’s words
liaise
jerry-build
osmose
manumise
enthuse

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(JER-ee-bild)

MEANING:

verb tr.: To build cheaply and sloppily.

ETYMOLOGY:

Back-formation from jerry-built. Further derivation unknown. Earliest documented use: 1832.

NOTES:

Do not confuse jerry-build with jury-rig (to fix something using whatever is at hand). Some have even coined a third term, jerry-rig, most likely a blend of jerry-build + jury-rig. Where to use which one?

jerry-build: when you do something cheaply and sloppily
jury-rig: when you do something in a makeshift or temporary manner due to lack of proper time or materials
jerry-rig: when you are neither a rocket scientist nor a brain surgeon, yet are called upon to do brain surgery aboard a rocket

USAGE:

“I grew up in a jerry-built 1930s terraced house in an unfashionable London suburb. My father, a writer, made it his goal to one day match the annual salary of a London bus driver: When that thrilling day came, in the 1980s, he took the whole family out to KFC to celebrate. But one of the curiosities of the English class system is that it is defined by style as much as money.”
Jemima Lewis; The Prejudice Against Brown Shoes Is a Classic Case of Class Snobbery (Permalink); The Telegraph (London, UK); Sep 2, 2016.

See more usage examples of jerry-build in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: