suborn

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 12, 2010 is: suborn • \suh-BORN\ • verb 1 : to induce secretly to do an unlawful thing 2 : to induce to commit perjury; also : to obtain (perjured testimony) from a witness Examples: "In the first place, a jury could not easily be suborned by any one." (Theodore Dreiser, The Financier) Did you know? The Latin word that gave us "suborn" in the early part of the 16th century is "subornare," which translates literally as "to secretly furnish or equip." The "sub-" that brings the "secretly" meaning to "subornare" more commonly means "under" or "below," but it has its stealthy denotation in the etymologies of several other English words, including "surreptitious" (from "sub-" and "rapere," meaning "to seize") and the verb "suspect" (from "sub-" or "sus-" and "specere," meaning "to look at"). The "ornare" of "subornare" is also at work in the words "ornate," "adorn," and "ornament." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.