travesty

****************************************************************
Finding your life to be indescribable? Get help
with Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Synonyms! 
http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/book.pl?synonym.htm&2
****************************************************************

The Word of the Day for May 27 is: 

travesty   \TRAV-uh-stee\   noun
     1 : a burlesque translation or literary or artistic imitation usually 
grotesquely incongruous in style, treatment, or subject matter
    *2 : a debased, distorted, or grossly inferior imitation

Example sentence:
     The new movie is a travesty of a documentary, likely to appeal only to the 
lowest sense of humor.

Did you know?
     "Travesty," which first appeared in print in English as a noun in 1674, 
comes from the French verb "travestir," meaning "to disguise." The word's 
roots, however, wind back through Italian to Latin. That ancient tongue 
includes the verb "vestire," a verb meaning "to clothe" or "to dress." 
"Vestire" is the ancestor of "travesty" and a number of other English words, 
including "transvestite," "divest," and "investiture." "Travesty," 
incidentally, can also be a verb meaning "to make a travesty of" or "to 
parody"; the verb predates the noun in English by a single year.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence. 




You Are Subscribed As: GCLW-MW-WOD7@xxxxxxxxx
To unsubscribe, change your e-mail address or to subscribe to the html
version of Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day, featuring audio
pronunciations, please visit:

http://www.startsampling.com/sm/wod/changeofaddress.iphtml

(c) 2006 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

Merriam-Webster, Inc.
47 Federal Street
P.O. Box 281
Springfield, MA 01102

*mf mwt 052706 GCLW-MW-WOD7@xxxxxxxxx mf*

---
You are currently subscribed to mw-text as: GCLW-MW-WOD7@xxxxxxxxx
To unsubscribe send a blank email to 
leave-mw-text-979910Y@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx