word of the day
An entry (written by Eric Sosman) in the Letters section of today's Boston Globe caught my eye:
ENGLISH EVOLVES. Old words fade away, and new ones crop up. Yet circumstances sometimes bring back an older word for a return engagement. As we enter upon a new era in America, we may need to resurrect one of those disused words, which describes showy but worthless nonsense, or trickery.Looking further to verify the definition I found the history of the word in The Did You Know? section for the word in Merriam-Webster:
The word I’m thinking of is “trumpery.”
Trumpery derives from the Middle English trompery and ultimately from the Middle French tromper, meaning "to deceive." ... Trumpery first appeared in English in the mid-15th century with the meanings "deceit or fraud" (a sense that is now obsolete) and "worthless nonsense."Do you agree that this is an interesting word in the context of today's world?
