Good evening and welcome to Word of the Day! A journey through the English vocabulary and the words that piqued my interest, in WotD we'll be learning a new word for each working day of the week, bar holidays, unless there's a holiday special...
Today's word is:
dole ¹
|dōl|
noun
1. (usu. the dole) chiefly Brit., informal benefit paid by the government to the unemployed : she is drawing on the dole.
- dated. A charitable gift of food, clothes, or money.
2. Poetic/literary a person's lot or destiny.
verb [ trans. ] ( dole something out)
- Distribute shares of something : the scanty portions of food doled out to them.
ORIGIN: Old English dāl [division, portion, or share,] of Germanic origin; related to deal. The sense [distribution of charitable gifts] dates from Middle English ; the sense [unemployment benefit] dates from the early 20th cent.
dole ²
|doʊl| |dəʊl|
noun archaic or poetic/literary
- Sorrow; mourning.
ORIGIN: Middle English : from Old French doel 'mourning,' from popular Latin dolus, from Latin dolere 'grieve.'