I found this on Yahoo Answers and wanted to share it:
Q: Where does the expression 'at large' originate, when referring to escaped criminals?
A: The original meaning of the word "large" included, "abundant, copious, plentiful, liberal" (from the Latin largus), so that "at large" meant "liberated, free". Today, "large" simply means "big" and all the variants of "big", but not "free". But the old idiom "at large" meaning "free" survives on.
Interesting!
.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
New Quiz: Negative Inversion
Negative inversion refers to where we invert the normal sentence structure and begin a sentence with an adverb or adverbial phrase instead. ...
-
The RoadToGrammar Text Analyzer is a free-to-use web app that will analyse the difficulty level of a piece of text. To use it, simply go t... -
One of the most popular PDF downloads on Roadtogrammar is the set of 100 Warm-up questions. It is now available as a web page with a prese... -
In English writing, repetition is considered to be a bad style. Look at the following example: Bad: We look forward to your participat...
-
If you've never tried a Rebus Puzzle before, it's a play on words presented as a picture. Here are some examples: ...
No comments:
Post a Comment