Word of the Day
: April 4, 2021hare
playWhat It Means
: to go swiftly : tear
hare in Context
"I was just in time to see a feller in motorcycle gear pull away from the wire and run down the street. The dogs hared off after him." — Liza Cody, Bucket Nut, 1992
"Take the recent frenzy around the Super Bowl, or more specifically, that clip of The Weeknd desperately haring around a mirror maze, wild-eyed and wobbly legged. Everyone and their dog on Twitter has been doing their best to chip in with a good 'me, when…' caption…." — Charlie Teasdale, Esquire, 9 Feb. 2021
Did You Know?
You're most likely familiar with Aesop's fable about the speedy hare and the plodding tortoise. The hare may have lost that race due to a tactical error (stopping to take a nap before reaching the finish line), but the long-eared mammal's overall reputation for swiftness remains intact. It's no surprise, then, that hare is used as a verb meaning "to move quickly." The noun hare (which refers, in its most specific zoological sense, to a member of the genus Lepus, whose young are usually able to hop a few minutes after birth) is a very old word. It first appeared as hara in a Latin-Old English glossary around the year 700. The verb was in use by the end of the 19th century, and people have been "haring off" and "haring about" ever since.
