Word of the Day
: January 28, 2012bright-line
playWhat It Means
: providing an unambiguous criterion or guideline especially in law
bright-line in Context
The company's new reimbursement policy makes a bright-line distinction between acceptable and unacceptable travel expenses.
"The NFL needs to have a bright-line rule for the use of electronics devices during games." -- From a post by Mike Florio at nbcsports.com, January 13, 2012
Did You Know?
In the first half of the 20th century, courts began referring to a "bright line" that could or could not be drawn to make clear-cut distinctions between legal issues. Early users may have been influenced by the term "bright line," used by physicists to refer to the distinct color lines in the light spectrum. Before that, judges were content with wording that was more prosaic, such as "line of demarcation." In the second half of the 20th century, we began using "bright-line" as an adjective. Nonlegal types looking for unambiguous distinctions in other walks of life took a shine to "bright-line" sometime in the 1980s.
Test Your Memory
What recent Word of the Day can mean "a severe test" or "a situation in which forces interact to cause change"? The answer is ...
More Words of the Day
-
Apr 08
apparatchik
-
Apr 07
malleable
-
Apr 06
impresario
-
Apr 05
benign
-
Apr 04
hew
-
Apr 03
snark