Today’s random fact doesn’t have much to do with our word. It’s just a wacky fact I enjoy. Today is Annie Edson Taylor’s birthday – she achieved fame on her 63rd birthday in 1901 when she became the first person to survive traveling over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Annie didn’t denude this barrel, though. It was custom-made and included a mattress (all the better to survive the fall, I would imagine). You have to love America, where people can be famous for really stupid things.
Denude (“dih-nood”)
Verb; from Dictionary.com:
1. To make naked or bare; strip
2. To lay bare; uncover
A goose, denuded of feathers and with its neck broken, was tied to one of the cupboard’s knobs. (Shadow of Night, Deborah Harkness)
Finally, another verb! Denude is another word with Latin roots (are you surprised? Because you really shouldn’t be at this point). From the Latin word denudare (meaning “to strip or uncover, to expose”), this word is a conjunction of the prefix de (“away”) and nudare (“to strip”). When something is denuded, it is stripped away of all things and bare. This makes sense, of course, since the second syllable in the word is “nude” – which we all know means naked. (Cue the giggling now.)
Your turn, bookworms – Do you prefer writing with lots of flourish, or denuded writing, in its simplest form?
[Photo Credit: Google Images]
