Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Fwd: pittance: Dictionary.com Word of the Day

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dictionary.com <doctor@dictionary.com>
Date: 2013/8/28
Subject: pittance: Dictionary.com Word of the Day
To: "Hector William G." <hectorpinillos@gmail.com>

Word of the Day for Wednesday, August 28, 2013

pittance \PIT-ns\, noun:

1. a small amount or share.
2. a small allowance or sum, as of money for living expenses.
3. a scanty income or remuneration.

He showed us a perfectly authentic mission-card which certified that his family had received a pittance from some charitable organisation situated in the Whitechapel neighbourhood, and that, moreover, they were in the habit of receiving this pittance; and that, finally, their claim to such pittance was amply justified by the poverty of their circumstances.
-- E. E. Cummings, The Enormous Room, 1922

Each daughter can claim an income of 250 pounds, in case of marriage. It is evident, therefore, that if both girls had married, this beauty would have had a mere pittance, while even one of them would cripple him to a very serious extent.
-- Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1892

Pittance shares its root with the word pity. It entered English in the 13th century from the Latin pietatem meaning "piety," "loyalty" and "duty."

Read the full entry | See synonyms | Comment on today's word | Suggest tomorrow's word

Yesterday's word | Previous words | Help

Words of the Day? How about words of timeless wisdom?

Introducing our Quotes channel! "Life itself is a quotation." - Jorge Luis Borges
Check out the Quote of the Day ››

Lexical Investigations: Sustainability

This may come as a surprise, but the link between sustainability and environmentalism is actually fairly recent. Before 1980, sustainability was an uncommon variant of sustainable, as in "capable of being upheld," and it could be used in any context. But in 1980 that all changed when the International Union for the Conservation of Nature...
Read more ››

Dictionary.com Word of the Day	You are subscribed to the Word of the Day as: hectorpinillos@gmail.com
Subscriber since: June 03, 2013 Unsubscribe from the Word of the Day	To subscribe to the Word of the Day by email, please send a blank message to: join-wordoftheday@lists.lexico.com
©2013 by Dictionary.com, LLC. 555 12th Street Suite 500 Oakland CA 94607	Subscriptions to the Word of the Day can also be managed online
	Tell a friend about the Word of the Day!