WORD OF THE DAY

16-NOV-2014

ambagious

PRONUNCIATION:

(am-BAY-juhs) 

MEANING:

adjective: Roundabout; circuitous.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Middle English ambages (equivocation), taken as a plural and the singular ambage coined from it. From Latin ambages, from ambi- (both, around) + agere (to drive). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ag- (to drive, draw, or move), which also gave us act, agent, agitate, litigate, synagogue, ambassador, agonistes,axiomatic, cogent, incogitant, exigent, exiguous, intransigent. Earliest documented use: 1656.

USAGE:

"... Mandelstam's ambagious passage to a common grave outside a transit camp."
Andrew Hudgins; Stalin's Laughter; The Kenyon Review (Gambier, Ohio); Spring 2010.