denigrate

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The Word of the Day for October 22 is:=20

denigrate   \DEN-ih-grayt\   verb
          1 : to attack the reputation of : defame=20
    *2 : to deny the importance or validity of : belittle=20

Example sentence:
          Although some medical experts denigrate the new technology, ot=
hers believe that the experimental results have been quite promising.

Did you know?
          If you "denigrate" someone, you attempt to blacken their reput=
ation. It makes sense, therefore, that "denigrate" can be traced back to=
 the Latin verb "denigrare," meaning "to blacken." When "denigrate" was =
first used in English in the 16th century, it meant to cast aspersions o=
n someone's character or reputation. Eventually, it developed a second s=
ense of "to make black" ("factory smoke denigrated the sky"), but this s=
ense is somewhat rare in modern usage. Nowadays, of course, =E2=80=9Cden=
igrate=E2=80=9D can also refer to belittling the worth or importance of =
someone or something.





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