Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: Mrs. Don-o

I’d throw mine in the clink if I could.


78 posted on 09/11/2017 3:21:11 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("Freedom is freedom, and not another thing."~Theodore Dalrymple)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 77 | View Replies ]


To: Tax-chick
Having never seen the verb “to winkle” in all my 65 years, I have by some odd cosmic coincidence encountered the word three times, today!!

A book reviewer regretted the author was not able to “winkle” an anecdote out of a famous raconteur.

A ground combat squad “winkled” the snipers out of their fortified hidey-holes.

And the Welsh street vendors were selling mussels, winkles, and eels. It turns out a winkle is a kind of bashful barnacle that has to be pushed or tweezed or squeezed out of its crevice. "Winkled into" a tight spot doesn't appear. Just "winkled out of."

82 posted on 09/13/2017 6:43:05 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (Invertebrate philology.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 78 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson