Word of the day: ensorcell
I confess that I had never heard this word until today – and I regard myself as reasonably proficient in the English language. I saw the word in a comment about British politician Boris Johnson by the former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstad:
"To Johnson’s followers, however, he is more prophet than politician: only he can deliver a mythical ‘true Brexit’ that will deliver the prosperity promised during the referendum campaign.
"As is often the case with populists, reality does not square with Johnson’s ensorcelling combination of false promises, pseudo-patriotism and foreigner-bashing.”
I had to check the meaning of the verb and it means ‘to bewitch’. Then I thought: how come a Belgian knows more English than I do? But I found that the word has its origin in the Middle French of the 16th century.
You learn something new every day – or at least you should.
This entry was posted on Friday, June 28th, 2019 at 9:26 am and is filed under Cultural issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.