Republish for FreeRepublish This StoryRepublish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. An ace was originally the side of a dice marked with one spot. The word comes from Latin as, meaning ‘unit’. Since an ace is the card with the highest value in many card games, the word often suggests a sense of excellence.An ace was also a wartime … [Read more...] about ace
Johannesburg
accident
Republish for FreeRepublish This StoryRepublish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. An accident was originally simply ‘an event or mishap’.It came into English in the Middle Ages via Old French from Latin, ultimately derivind from the Latin caders, meaning ‘to fall’, which also gave us words such as cadaver, chance, decay, incident and … [Read more...] about accident
Investing and Trading for 2023: Where to for South Africans?
Republish for FreeRepublish This StoryRepublish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. South Africa finds itself emerging from the Global Epidemic and investors have struck a triple whammy of headwinds: A cost-of-living crisis, high inflation resulting in a 350 basis point increase in the REPO rate, and an ailing electricity supply which … [Read more...] about Investing and Trading for 2023: Where to for South Africans?
accolade
Republish for FreeRepublish This StoryRepublish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. The French Provençal word acolada is the source of accolade. This literally meant an embrace or clasping aorund the neck, and described the gesture of a friendly hug that was sometimes made when knighting someone, as an early alternative to the more … [Read more...] about accolade
abysmal
Republish for FreeRepublish This StoryRepublish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. The original literal sense of absymal in the 17th century, was ‘very deep’ and people did not start using it to describe something utterly appalling, ‘the pits’, until the beginning of the 20th century.The word is related to abyss, which is from the … [Read more...] about abysmal