Friday word: Metagrobolize

Dec 21, 2018 18:57

Today's word is kindly brought to you by prettygoodword :)
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metagrobolize (meh-tuh-GROB-uh-laiz) - v., to puzzle, mystify, baffle.

Not common, but definitely available for humorous use. Coined 1534 in French by Rabelais, and imported into English in an 1693 translation of same, by attaching Greek root mátaios, vain/frivolous + grabeler, to sift (which arrived via Italian, via Arabic, from Latin cribulum, a sieve). Metagrobology is sometimes used for the study (and construction) of puzzles.

---L.

Crossposts: https://prettygoodword.dreamwidth.org/748080.html
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m, verb, wordsmith: prettygoodword, made-up, french

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