falcate

Pronounced: FAL-kate, adj

Notes: I got this word from a vocabulary calendar, and this entry happened to have an error; they printed the pronunciation of some other word instead of our word

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Yesterday’s word

The word repugn means to oppose, resist, or right

First usage

This word came into English in the late 1300s

Background / Comments

To me, the word looked like the verb form of “repugnant” (with the -ant ending left off), so I thought perhaps it meant the act of offending or finding offensive. In reality, the word comes from the Old French word repugner, which comes from the Latin word repugnare. It is split into re- (again) and pugnare (to fight), which came from pugnus (fist). We get the word pugilist from this same source.