REPAIR

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Dr. Goodword
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REPAIR

Postby Dr. Goodword » Mon May 21, 2012 10:51 pm

• repair •

Pronunciation: ree-payrHear it!

Part of Speech: Verb, intransitive

Meaning: To betake oneself to a place or person, to proceed to, to sojourn (for those who do not condescend to simply 'go' places).

Notes: After dinner you may repair or retire to the library, but what is the difference? To retire to a place implies that you withdraw from company and go there for seclusion or solitude. Repair originally meant "return" and often implies returning to a place often frequented. You may repair to your favorite bar every weekend, but you would hardly retire there. You might want to repair to the garage to repair your car after dinner, but remember: these are two unrelated words coincidentally spelled the same, as the Word History shows. Today's Good Word is only intransitive, which is to say, you cannot repair a device in this sense of this verb.

In Play: OK, so this Good Word is a bit dated, but it is still in the dictionaries and vocabularies of most English speakers and has that comfortable feel of your favorite cardigan: "My professor announced today that if we have any problems with our papers, we may repair to his office for assistance." He will no doubt suggest ways to repair them. "When my car broke down on the road, I quickly repaired to the nearest garage for a quick repair." Get the idea?

Word History: Today's Good Word comes from repairier, the Old French makeover of Latin repatrire "to return to your native land", the same verb that gave us repatriate. This verb consists of re- "back" + patria "country, fatherland", a noun taken from the patrius "paternal", the adjective of pater "father". This word is an excellent example of how [p] and [t] in Proto-Indo-European became [f] and [th], respectively, in Germanic languages for in English the same root is now father. The transitive verb repair comes via French reparer from Latin reparare "restore, renew" made up of re- "back, again" + parare "to prepare". The fact that they are spelled the same today is simply fortuitous. (We are grateful today to Peter Evans of London, Ontario for repairing to us with today's still useful and usable word.)
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Slava
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Postby Slava » Mon May 21, 2012 11:15 pm

Ah, Doctor Goodword, you left one out:

If your vocabulary is in need of reparation, repair yourself to alphaDictionary.com for repairs.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.

LukeJavan8
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Postby LukeJavan8 » Tue May 22, 2012 12:28 pm

And I suppose the same would apply to atonement
for sins in those "confessional" denominations.
-----please, draw me a sheep-----

Philip Hudson
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Postby Philip Hudson » Tue May 22, 2012 1:32 pm

Luke, I am not sure how you mean atonement to be similar to reparation. How do you define a confessional denomination? I don't think I belong to one, although we do confess. Repair is used in a 19th century hymn from, I believe, a confessional German church. The hymn is "When Morning Gilds the Skies" and one line is "to Jesus I repair."
It is dark at night, but the Sun will come up and then we can see.

LukeJavan8
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Postby LukeJavan8 » Tue May 22, 2012 1:50 pm

Something like you repair yourself to God/Church/Confessional
for atonement for sin, I guess. Just using the word.
Confessional denominations: I was think of the Roman
Catholic and others that use a "rite" for forgiveness of
sins, but I do know others use a form of confession of
sin too, I just don't know how it works.
-----please, draw me a sheep-----


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