Word of the Day for Sunday, March 17, 2013
sundry \SUHN-dree\, adjective:
various or diverse: sundry persons.
The early counts in the indictment will be thrown out: they concern sundry words spoken, at sundry times, about the act and the oath, and More's treasonable conspiracy with Fisher—letters went between the two of them, but it seems those letters are now destroyed.
-- Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall, 2009
He looked like an Italian, was dressed like an Englishman, and had the independent air of an American—a combination which caused sundry pairs of feminine eyes to look approvingly after him, and sundry dandies in black velvet suits, with rose-colored neckties, buff gloves, and orange flowers in their buttonholes, to shrug their shoulders, and then envy him his inches.
-- Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, 1868
Sundry first appeared in English before the year 900. It is derived from the Old English syndrig meaning "separate," "apart," and "special." While sundi and sundrie were acceptable spellings between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, since then they have fallen out of use in favor of sundry.
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