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fructify: msg#00005culture.language.word-of-the-day
***************************************************************** Will you travel further or farther for your summer vacation? Find out with our new Concise Dictionary of English Usage. http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/book.pl?conusg.htm&6 ***************************************************************** The Word of the Day for July 6 is: fructify \FRUK-tuh-fye\ verb *1: to bear fruit 2: to make fruitful or productive Example sentence: Fred is in a comfortable financial position these days, thanks to some investments that have recently begun to fructify. Did you know? "Fructify" derives from the Middle English "fructifien" and ultimately from the Latin noun "fructus," meaning "fruit." When the word was first used in English in the 14th century, it literally referred to the actions of plants that bore fruit; later it was used transitively to refer to the action of making something fruitful, such as soil. The word also expanded to encompass a figurative sense of "fruit," and it is now more frequently used to refer to the giving forth of something in profit from something else (such as dividends from an investment). "Fructus" also gave us the name of the sugar "fructose," as well as "usufruct," which refers to the legal right to enjoy the fruits or profits of something that belongs to someone else. *Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence. |
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