Pronounced: in-SPIS-ate, verb
Notes: I did not know this word (making it fit for these posts)
Yesterday’s word
The word gloss means
- to provide a short explanation or definition for; explain; define
- to interpret
- to dispose of by false or perverse interpretation
First usage
Our word came into English in the mid-to-late 1200s
Background / Comments
As I noted, I know the noun gloss, which means “shine”; I also know the phrase “gloss over”, which means ‘to treat or describe something as if it were not important’. Our word came from the Middle English noun glose/glose, which came from the Old French word glose, which came from the Medieval Latin word glōsa/glōza, which came from the Greek word glôssa (a word that needs an explanation; an obscure word – literally ‘language’ or ‘tongue’).
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 