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Jun 26, 2019
This week’s themeWords originating in horses
This week’s words
hippodrome
horse race
chivalry
Chivalry is not dead :-)
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Gargchivalry
PRONUNCIATION:
(SHIV-uhl-ree) 
MEANING:
noun:
1. The ideal qualifications of a knight: courtesy, honor, bravery, gallantry, etc.
2. The institution of knighthood, a group of knights, a gallant deed, etc.
1. The ideal qualifications of a knight: courtesy, honor, bravery, gallantry, etc.
2. The institution of knighthood, a group of knights, a gallant deed, etc.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Old French chevalerie, from chevalier (knight), from Latin caballus (horse). Earliest documented use: 1297.
NOTES:
Chivalry sounds nice, but it hides a dark side. While pretending to treat women with courtesy, we also treat them as if they are less capable, in leadership, in intelligence, and so on. It took as late as 1919 for women to get the right to vote in the US, for example. As late as 2016, some people voted for an incompetent over a highly accomplished woman, because, in their view, a “man can do a better job than a woman”.
USAGE:
“If Ambler details the death of chivalry, she also exposes the dark underbelly of that very culture -- a culture that feared outsiders and prized violence, while purporting to embody the values of ‘honour’ and bravery.”
Reformer or Violent Thug?: A New Biography of Simon de Montfort Is Enthralling and Horrifying in Equal Parts; Sunday Times (London, UK); Jun 2, 2019.
See more usage examples of chivalry in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.
Reformer or Violent Thug?: A New Biography of Simon de Montfort Is Enthralling and Horrifying in Equal Parts; Sunday Times (London, UK); Jun 2, 2019.
See more usage examples of chivalry in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating. -Pearl S. Buck, novelist, Nobel laureate (26 Jun 1892-1973) We love your comments. Post them here.
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