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Friday 27 April 2012

Entry: pregnable (adj.)


In context: "There is a nourishing sense of pregnable space in a big indoor club that you never get playing outside, especially outside in the cold, when the balls feel hard and sullen and come off the stick's strung face with an echoless ping."

Definition: b. fig. Open to attack, vulnerable, assailable; accessible.

Other:  I thought the word would have some connection to pregnant, but the etymologies don't appear to be linked.


Etymology:  < Anglo-Norman and Middle French prenable that may be taken by force (c1155 in Old French; French prenable )

SNOOT score: 2

Page: 268
 
Source: Oxford English Dictionary   


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