earwig

****************************************************************
Happy New Edition! Ring in more than 10,000 new words
and meanings with the latest Collegiate Dictionary!
http://www.merriam-webstercollegiate.com/info/eleventh.htm
****************************************************************

The Word of the Day for January 11 is:

earwig   \EER-wig\   verb 
     : to annoy or attempt to influence by private talk

Example sentence:
     "[He] earwigged the big man at the Labour conference, 
asking him to take the lead in banning tobacco advertising from 
newspapers." (Stephen Cook, _The Guardian_ [London], October 
1986)

Did you know?
     Earwigs are small insects that were once thought to crawl 
into the ears of sleeping people. This isn't true -- earwigs 
prefer moist, dark places under leaves and rocks to human 
ears -- but the superstition led people to name the 
insect "earwicga," Old English for "ear insect." Over time, 
people connected the idea of having an insect in one's ear to 
situations that involve whispering or speaking privately into 
someone's ear. The noun "earwig" came to also mean "a 
whispering busybody" (though this sense is now considered 
archaic), and the verb "earwig" evolved to refer to the acts of 
such meddlers.