Monday, August 30, 2021

Word of the Day -- Grubstake

 Here's a word that just sounds cool.  And the meaning will make you think so as well.  It just seems to fit the sounds and of course, "stake" doesn't hurt either.  

Grubstake -- to provide with material assistance (such as a loan) for launching an enterprise or for a person in difficult circumstances

Grubstake is a linguistic nugget that was dug up during the famous California Gold Rush, which began in 1848. Sometime between the first stampede and the early 1860s, when the gold-seekers headed off to Montana, prospectors combined grub ("food") and stake, meaning "an interest or share in an undertaking." At first grubstake was a noun, referring to any kind of loan or provisions that could be finagled to make an undertaking possible (with the agreement that the "grubstaker" would get a cut of any profits). By the 1870s, grubstake was also showing up as a verb meaning "to give someone a grubstake," and, since at least 1900, shortly after the Klondike Gold Rush, it has been applied to other situations in which a generous benefactor comes through with the funds. 

From Merriam Webster

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