Monday, January 27, 2014

Fwd: squib: Dictionary.com Word of the Day

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dictionary.com <doctor@dictionary.com>
Date: 2014-01-27
Subject: squib: Dictionary.com Word of the Day
To: "Hector William G." <hectorpinillos@gmail.com>

Word of the Day for Monday, January 27, 2014

squib \skwib\, noun:

1. a short and witty or sarcastic saying or writing.
2. Journalism. a short news story, often used as a filler.

verb:
1. to write squibs.
2. to shoot a squib.

This last is a sarcastic squib partly based on an experience of Gérard de Nerval's in Vienna.
-- Théophile Gautier (1811-1872), translated by Richard Holmes, My Fantoms, published in 2008

His tendency to uphold technical views gave rise to a very clever squib by the late Mr. Justice Hayes, in which the spirit of the baron is supposed to arrive in Hades…
-- William Ballantine, Some Experiences of a Barrister's Life, 1883

Squib is of unknown origin, though it entered English in the 1500s.

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