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The Learning Kingdom's Cool Word of the Day for March 8, 1999
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thug [n. THUG]
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A thug is a tough criminal, like a mobster or a Mafia bodyguard.
"Those thugs and hoodlums ought to be arrested!" The word is blunt,
direct, and forceful, like the people it names.
The original thugs belonged to a guild of assassins and robbers in
India who worshipped the goddess Kali. In Hindi they were the thag or
the Thugees (thieves), words that evolved from Sanskrit sthagah (a
cheat), from sthagati (cover; hide). Their favorite method of
assassination was strangulation, so they were also known as the
phansigar (stranglers).
The ultimate root of this line of words was Indo-European steg- or
teg- (cover), which also led to covering words like deck (a covering),
protect (cover up), detect (uncover), and integument (outer covering).
Cool Word of the Day is taking a short break and will return on
Thursday, March 11th.
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