lodestar

Pronounced: LOAD-star, noun

Notes: I’ve heard this word, but realized I could not define it very accurately

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Yesterday’s word

The word grabble means “to feel and search for something with the hands; to grope; to scramble”

First usage

This word came into English in the late 1500s

Background / Comments

I thought our word was much newer than it actually is. It sounds a lot like “grapple” unless one is careful to distinguish between the “b” and “p” sounds, and in a quieter voice, they can be very hard to tell apart. Our word is just the verb grab with -le added – according to one source, the -le ending adds “a frequentative force” to the verb: that phrase is just a fancy one to mean that is repeats. The word grab comes from the Middle Dutch word grabben; the Dutch also have a “frequentative” word grabbelen.