Word Woman

Welcome to another exciting episode of Word Woman's Weekly Work-Out! Keeping your brain in shape is the name of the game -- I've done my mental push-ups for the day with the daily crossword puzzle. How about you? Now, let's get going with the Word of the Week, a familiar term to most, but with an interesting origin:

Donate: The verb donate is a back formation from the noun donation. An Americanism recorded as early as 1795, it is firmly established today, but at first met with vociferous opposition, having been placed on William Cullen Bryant's Index Expurgatorius and denounced as "a pretentious and magniloquent vulgarism" by a British writer as late as 1935. -- "The Facts On File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins", Robert Hendrickson, Checkmark Books, 1997.

Example: 'Tis the season to open your heart and your pocketbook to those less fortunate than yourself and donate a modest sum to charity.