curfew: M-W's Word of the Day

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The Word of the Day for August 19 is:

curfew \KER-fyoo\ noun
*1 : a regulation requiring the withdrawal of specified persons from the streets or the closing of business establishments at a stated hour
2 : a signal to announce the beginning of a curfew
3 a : the hour at which a curfew becomes effective b : the period during which a curfew is in effect

Example sentence:
Bar owners were happy when the mayor of New Orleans lifted the 2 a.m. curfew imposed after Hurricane Katrina.

Did you know?
Some 700 years ago, in medieval Europe, a bell rang every evening at a fixed hour, and townspeople were required by law to cover or extinguish their hearth fires. It was the "cover fire" bell, or, as the French called it, "coverfeu" (from their verb meaning "to cover" and their word for "fire"). By the time the English version, "curfew," appeared, the authorities no longer regulated hearth fires, but an evening bell continued to be rung for various purposes -- whether to signal the close of day, an evening burial, or enforcement of some other evening regulation. This "bell ringing at evening" became the first English sense of "curfew." Not infrequently, the regulation signaled by the curfew involved regulating people's movement in the streets, and this led to the modern senses of the word.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

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