[Ads-l] "sellsword", mercenary

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Wed Nov 21 23:36:42 UTC 2018


But not "ghostwriter"? I.e. "sells-word."😜

On Wed, Nov 21, 2018 at 6:28 PM Barretts Mail <mail.barretts at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Not in the English OLD.
>
> Wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sellsword <
> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sellsword>) has two definitions, going
> back to 1969 with citations:
>
> • (usually fantasy) A mercenary.
> • (hence figuratively, often derogatory) Someone who only works for money,
> in the manner of a mercenary.
>
> Benjamin Barrett
> Formerly of Seattle, WA
>
> > On 21 Nov 2018, at 15:21, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> > I just came across this word in the wild. I was reading a WSJ article
> from
> > Tuesday about chess players changing allegiance:
> >
> > "Critics say the knights of American chess are nothing but sellswords."
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


-- 
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

------------------------------------------------------------
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