[word-lover] 【整理】2016-04-29 How to Use a Word

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wordlover-2016-04-29

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由cristianjey在 整理的参考文本：
Transcript.

Today's word is mulct, spelled M-U-L-C-T.

Mulct is a verb that means to punish by a fine. It can also mean to defraud especially of money, to swindle. Mulct also means to obtain by fraud, duress, or theft. Here is the word used in a sentence by Michael Hiltzik from The Los Angeles Times.



"Attacking these firms is a crowd-pleasing sport for lawmakers, in part because every constituent has a story about being mulcted by a card issuer."



A fine assessed as a penalty for an infraction is generally considered justifiable. Fraud, on the other hand, is wrong - it's just the sort of thing that deserves a fine. So in the word mulct we have a unique word, one that means both "to fine" and "to defraud." The "fine" sense came first. Mulct was borrowed from the Latin word for a fine, which is multa or mulcta. The "fine" sense is still in use, mostly in legal contexts as in "the court mulcted the defendant for punitive damages," but these days mulct is more often used for an illegal act. It has been speculated that the use may have come about by association with the verb milk, in its sense "to exploit, to coerce profit from" as in "she was milked by the lawyers for everything she had," but that speculation has never been proven.

I'm Peter Sokolowski with your Word of the Day.

cristianjey

Today's word is mulct, spelled M-U-L-C-T.

Mulct is a verb that means to punish by a fine. It can also mean to defraud especially of money, to swindle. Mulct also means to obtain by fraud, duress, or theft. Here is the word used in a sentence by Michael Hiltzik from The Los Angeles Times.

Attacking these firms is a crowd-pleasing sport for lawmakers, in part because every constituent has a story about being mulcted by a card issuer.

A fine assessed as a penalty for an infraction is generally considered justifiable. Fraud, on the other hand, is wrong - it's just the sort of thing that deserves a fine. So in the word mulct we have a unique word, one that means both to fine and to defraud. The fine sense came first. Mulct was borrowed from the Latin word for a fine, which is multa or mulcta. The fine sense is still in use, mostly in legal contexts as in the court mulcted the defendant for punitive damages, but these days mulct is more often used for an illegal act. It has been speculated that the use may have come about by association with the verb milk, in its sense to exploit, to coerce profit from as in she was milked by the lawyers for everything she had, but that speculation has never been proven.

I'm Peter Sokolowski with your Word of the Day.

This post was generated by put listening repetition system,  Check the original dictation thread!