Word of the Day:

“Let me give you a rose. Well, just an imaginary rose. ‘What?’ ‘What’s the occasion?’ ‘What for?’ Because I want to participate in an act of kindness. ... It’s impossible, even for a blustering, clumsy oaf like me, to ignore the positive effects of a rose in hand.” — Anthony Campbell, The Advertiser-Gleam (Guntersville, Alabama), 24 Oct. 2025

More example sentences

In long-ago England, it was believed that elves sometimes secretly exchanged their babies for human babies—a belief that served as an explanation when parents found themselves with a baby that failed to meet expectations or desires: these parents believed that their real baby had been stolen by elves and that a changeling had been left in its place. The label for such a child was auf, or alfe, (meaning “an elf’s or a goblin’s child”), which was later altered to form our present-day oaf. Auf is likely from the Middle English alven or elven, meaning “elf” or “fairy.” Today, the word oaf is no longer associated with babies and is instead applied to anyone who appears especially unintelligent or graceless.