word (English, verb)
Pronunciation: tags: Received-Pronunciation
ipa: /wɜːd/
tags: General-American
enpr: wûrd
ipa: /wɝd/
tags: General-American
tags: Canada
ipa: /wəɹd/
tags: Canada
ipa: [wɚ(ɹ)d]
tags: Scotland
ipa: /wʌrd/
tags: New-Zealand
ipa: /wøːd/
note: Liverpool, fair–fur merger
ipa: /weːd/
note: Humberside, Teesside, fair–fur merger
ipa: /wɛːd/
rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)d
homophone: whirred (wine–whine merger)
homophone: wared (fair–fur merger)
Etymology: From Middle English word, from Old English word, from Proto-West Germanic *word, from Proto-Germanic *wurdą, from Proto-Indo-European *wr̥dʰh₁om. Doublet of verb and verve; further related to vrata.
Definitions: examples: text: I’m not sure how to word this letter to the council.
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type: example
synonyms: express
phrase
put into words
state
glosses: To say or write (something) using particular words; to phrase (something).
tags: transitive
examples: text: He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not / be noble to myself.
ref: 1607, William Shakespeare, Anthony and Cleopatra, act 5, scene 2:
type: quote
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glosses: To flatter with words, to cajole.
tags: obsolete
transitive
examples: text: […] if one were to be worded to death, Italian is the fittest Language [for that task]
ref: 1621 November 30, James Howell, letter to Francis Bacon, from Turin:
type: quote
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text: […] if a man were to be worded to death, or stoned to death by words, the High-Dutch were the fittest [language for that task].
ref: 1829 April 9, “Webster's Dictionary”, in The North American Review, volume 28, page 438:
type: quote
glosses: To ply or overpower with words.
tags: transitive
examples: text: Against him […] who could word heaven and earth out of nothing, and can when he pleases word them into nothing again.
ref: c. 1645-1715, Robert South, Sermon on Psalm XXXIX. 9:
type: quote
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text: "Postcolonialism" might well be another linguistic construct, desperately begging for a referent that will never show up, simply because it never existed on its own and was literally worded into existence by the very term that pretends to be born from it.
ref: 1994, “Liminal Postmodernisms”, in Postmodern Studies, volume 8, page 162:
type: quote
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text: The being of each person is worded into existence in the Word, […]
ref: 2013, Carla Mae Streeter, Foundations of Spirituality: The Human and the Holy, →ISBN, page 92:
type: quote
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glosses: To conjure with a word.
tags: rare
transitive
examples: text: Thus wording timidly among the fierce: / "O Father, I am here the simplest voice, […]"
ref: 1818–1819, John Keats, “Hyperion, a Fragment”, in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], published 1820, →OCLC, page 181:
type: quote
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glosses: To speak, to use words; to converse, to discourse.
tags: archaic
intransitive
Forms: form: words
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: wording
tags: participle
present
form: worded
tags: participle
past
form: worded
tags: past
form: worde
tags: alternative
Derived terms: misword
reword
wordable
worder
word it