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dewy: msg#00022

culture.language.word-of-the-day

Subject: dewy

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Resolve to introduce the word enthusiasts in your family
to Merriam-Webster Unabridged this coming year.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged_sub.pl?refr=U_wod
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The Word of the Day for December 23 is:

dewy \DOO-ee\ adjective
1 : moist with, affected by, or suggestive of dew
*2 : innocent, unsophisticated

Example sentence:
"She was cute. She had that dewy look. Ryan was unable to remain angry
with pretty women...." (Tom Clancy, _Patriot Games_)

Did you know?
"And her faire deawy eies with kisses deare Shee ofte did bathe" (Edmund
Spenser, _The Faerie Queene_). "I would these dewy teares were from the ground"
(William Shakespeare, _Richard III_). "Till dewie sleep Oppress'd them" (John
Milton, _Paradise Lost_). "Strengthen me, enlighten me ... Thou dewy dawn of
memory" (Alfred Tennyson, "Ode to Memory"). Such lines exemplify how the greats
have poetically extended the characteristics of dewy grass to misty or crying
eyes, as well as to things, like sleep, that affect people gently like forming
dew, or to things, like memory, that gradually vanish like a morning's dew. Not
until the 20th century, however, did people begin to connect newly formed,
undisturbed dew with freshness or purity and, in turn, with innocence and
naivete.

* Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.







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