If anything is guaranteed to annoy a lexicographer, it is the journalistic habit of starting a story with a dictionary definition. “According to Webster’s,” begins a piece, blithely, and the lexicographer shudders, because she knows that a dictionary is about to be invoked as an incontrovertible authority. Although we may profess to believe, as the linguist Dwight Bolinger once put it, that dictionaries “do not exist to define but to help people grasp meanings,” we don’t often act on that belief. Typically we treat a definition as the final arbiter of meaning, a scientific pronouncement of a word’s essence. But the traditional dictionary definition, although it bears all the trappings of authority, is in fact a highly stylized, overly compressed and often tentative stab at capturing the consensus on what a particular word “means.” A good dictionary derives its reputation from careful analysis of examples of words in use, in the form...
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And the basis for this is the ephemeral rationale that the definition of marriage is too narrow, much like the minds of the opponents. |
The most basic and literal definition of the term is to buy back something that was pawned. So when we say Vick's season with the Philadelphia Eagles is a
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And what happens to the case could hinge on what the courts say is the definition of the word "boy" and whether it changes when directed at a black man. |
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However, the new resident stickers and a definition of the word “contractor” are reducing the number of abuses. The definition of a contractor, |
Now imagine what a Jamaican would do if he or she was asked to define the word on stage. Surely you would get a new definition that will make your eyes run
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"well you see sir, she died from trying to comprehend how 7 consecutive consonants create a word.. that, by definition, is death by czech."
RT @: "silly" comes from the old English word "sellig" - the literal definition is "to be blessed and happy". it's a good day to be silly. 
RT @: courage - from the latin word, 'cor', meaning 'heart' - original definition: to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.
Oxford Dictionary recently added the word "unfriend". The official definition of unfriend is: to delete someone from your Facebook account.
Can someone from explain to me the definition of the word "slaw".