A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg prow PRONUNCIATION: (prou) MEANING: noun: 1. The front of a ship or a boat above the water; the bow. 2. The projecting front part of something, as a building. adjective: 3. Valiant. ETYMOLOGY: For 1-2: From Middle French proue, from Old Italian dialect prua, from Latin prora. Ultimately from the Indo-European root per- (forward), which also gave us paramount, prime, proton, Czech prám (raft), German Frau (woman), and Hindi purana (old). Earliest documented use: 1555. For 3: From Middle French prou, from Old English prud. Earliest documented use: 1350. USAGE: With his hard nose protruding like a ships prow ... he took to business as if it were war. Cornelius Vanderbilt: Bare-Knuckled Capitalism; The Economist (London, UK); Apr 16, 2009. Forty years on, Sir Henry Bunbury remembered him as ... the prowest of Black Edwards knights. Piers Mackesy; British Victory in Egypt, 1801: The End of Napoleons Conquest; Routledge; 1995. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: If a rabbit defined intelligence the way man does, then the most intelligent animal would be a rabbit, followed by the animal most willing to obey the commands of a rabbit. -Robert Brault, writer (b. 1938)
Posted on: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 13:00:00 +0000
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