Jan
31, 2012
This week's theme
Dickensian characters that became words
This week's words
wellerism
fagin
Standing: Fagin, Artful Dodger, Oliver
Illustration:
George Cruikshank (1792-1878)
A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
fagin
PRONUNCIATION:
(FAY-gin)
MEANING:
noun: One who trains others, especially children, in crime.
ETYMOLOGY:
After Fagin, the leader of a gang of pickpockets, in Charles
Dickens's
novel Oliver Twist. Oliver runs away from the cruelty of the
undertaker
to whom he was apprenticed and ends up in Fagin's gang where he
joins
other orphans to learn the art of stealing. Earliest documented
use: 1847.
USAGE:
"A fagin crook led a gang of young thieves stealing valuable bikes
to
order across Tyneside."
Garry Willey; Fagin's Gang Busted; The Evening Chronicle
(Newcastle, UK)
Apr 4, 2011.
Explore "
fagin" in the
Visual Thesaurus.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
If you wish to make an apple pie truly from scratch, you must first
invent the universe. -Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)