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Word of the Day

Word of the day

spruik

[ sprook ]

verb (used without object)

Australian Slang.

to make or give a speech, especially extensively or elaborately; spiel; orate.

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More about spruik

Spruik “to make or give a speech, especially extensively or elaborately” is an Australian and New Zealand slang term recorded by the early 1900s. While its exact origin is unknown, spruik may have been borrowed from German Sprüche “patter, spiel,” the plural of Spruch, “a saying; empty talk,” among other senses. Other proposed sources include forms of Dutch spreken “to speak,” such as spreuk “saying, spell.” German Spruch and Dutch spreken are both related to English speak, which developed from Old English specan, a variant of sprecan that lost the original r.

how is spruik used?

Thompson might have had the power of the press to spruik his message, but he had other factors going against him.

James Coventry, Time and Space, 2015

Andi, Justin and Karl will sit around the set looking uncomfortable waiting their turn to spruik about the New Alchemy Institute in Massachusetts, the world’s most powerful microscope, robot technology in Japan and research into children’s co-ordination.

Richard Coleman, "Television Choice," The Sydney Morning Herald, July 23, 1985
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Word of the day

chutzpa

[ hoot-spuh, khoot- ]

noun

Slang.

audacity; nerve.

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More about chutzpa

Chutzpa is one of many colorful, and very useful, English words of Yiddish origin. Also commonly spelled chutzpah (among other forms), chutzpa was borrowed into English in the late 1800s from Yiddish khutspa “impudence; gall; audacity; nerve,” from Aramaic ḥūṣpā. Chutzpa often has a negative connotation, as in “The unruly siblings had the chutzpa to correct their father on manners.” The qualities of chutzpa, however, can also be positive, as in “The employees showed a great deal of chutzpa when they demanded pay raises.”

how is chutzpa used?

It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to write a book called “The Problem With Everything,” but chutzpah is something essayist and cultural critic Meghan Daum has always possessed in spades.

Rosa Brooks, "Meghan Daum's merciless take on modern feminism, woke-ness and cancel culture," Washington Post, October 24, 2019

Selling these artifacts at these prices requires more than a list of customers with too much disposable income. It takes hard work, chutzpa and catalog copy that ignites neural brush fires in the amygdala.

Rene Chun, "Why Audiophiles Are Paying $1,000 for This Man's Vinyl," Wired, March 4, 2015
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Word of the day

ipso facto

[ ip-soh fak-toh ]

adverb

by the fact itself; by the very nature of the deed: to be condemned ipso facto.

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More about ipso facto

First recorded in English in the mid-1500s, ipso facto is an adverb that comes directly from the Latin phrase ipsō factō “by the fact itself, by the very fact.” Ipso facto is often used when the very fact that one thing occurs is a direct consequence of another, as in “Having won all the gold medals in the sport’s Olympic events, she was ipso facto the best gymnast in the world.” Latin factō is the ablative form of factum “deed, act, fact,” and ipsō is the ablative of ipsum “very, same, itself,” among other senses. Ipso appears in other Latin expressions used in English, especially in law, including eo ipso “by that very fact” and ipso jure “by the law itself.”

how is ipso facto used?

… the notion that cars made in Germany would ipso facto be better crafted than others … this would have seemed curious indeed just a generation before.

Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, 2005

I had, it seemed, defined myself as a “popular” writer, and if one is popular, then, ipso facto, one is not to be taken seriously.

Oliver Sacks, On the Move, 2015
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