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March 20, 2023 Tweet Word of the Week Like Word of the Week on Facebook


Word of the Week--"knead"
Definition--to massage (flesh) with firm finger-movements.

Discussion--Knead is a "kneat" word pronounced the same as "need". You need the word knead both to describe a massaging finger movement and using that movement to make a uniform mass, as in kneading bread dough.
 
Etymology--Knead comes from the Middle English kneden which comes from the Old English cnedan. These terms are believed to be derived from the Indo-European base, gen-, which means to compress into a ball. The English term is probably a derivative of the Germanic term, kneth.
 
You can see these roots below in the German and Dutch equivalents. The Romance languages (French and Spanish) don't have a direct equivalent; they are based on the French term masser, from the Arabic mass, which means to touch or handle. The Italian term is based on the word for dough.

���Foreign Translations
German: durchkneten
Dutch: kneden
French: (muscle) masser,
(dough) p�trir
Italian: impastare
Spanish: amasar, masajear
 

Jane Ellis      Tweet Word of the Week Like Word of the Week on Facebook

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