Wednesday Word: Educe

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

Educe - verb.

A surprising source of words recently was a Tournament Variety Puzzle book that I bought last year because it advertised 20 syllacrostics--one of my favourite word puzzles.

Apparently, "Tournament" means extra hard or extra obtuse or extra stupid because I have been struggling with it for months. I can't bear to recycle it yet because I haven't gotten my $8.25 worth out of it yet and because it's full of humdingers like educe.

To educe something means to draw out, infer or develop an idea or to discover potential or a latent quality.

For example:

Paul waved the lamp to and fro, trying to educe the wicked expression that had frightened Barbara.

We do not have to draw out or educe positive activities from a child, as some educational doctrines would have it.

Synonyms for educe include derive, conclude and sometimes, as you might have guessed, deduce.

Comments

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

Oh I like that one!

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

It's a really interesting word! The puzzle that it appeared in had pairs of clues. One was easy, one was hard. You took one answer and rearranged the letters to make the other word (and ultimately, a mystery word in the diagram).

I easily figured out deuce, but what the heck kinda word can you make from that??? Ugh...that puzzle book still has me grumpy :-D