imprecate

****************************************************************
Attention word gurus:  try WORD SWEEP!, the first board game to feature 
Merriam-Webster definitions! Available at Borders Bookstores.
http://www.wordsweep.com
****************************************************************

The Word of the Day for December 10 is: 

imprecate   \IM-prih-kayt\   verb
          : to invoke evil on : curse

Example sentence:
          "The workers' sweating brows wrinkled, but I heard no one imprecate 
the river; each just went back to passing along stories and sandbags." (William 
Least Heat-Moon, _River-Horse_)

Did you know?
          It may surprise you to learn that a word that refers to wishing evil 
upon someone has its roots in praying, but "imprecate" ultimately derives from 
the Latin verb "precari," meaning "to pray, ask, or entreat." "Precari" is also 
the ancestor of such English words as "deprecate" (which once meant "to pray 
against an evil," though that sense is now archaic), "precatory" ("expressing a 
wish") and even "pray" itself (which has deeper roots in the Latin noun for a 
request or entreaty, "prex"). 





You Are Subscribed As: gclw-mw-wod7@xxxxxxxxx

To unsubscribe, please click here:
http://www.drhinternet.net/mw/u/966408/568f14b4ab4f050b/N320L6

To 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://mw.drhinternet.net/sm/wod/changeofaddress.iphtml

(c) 2007 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

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