mulct

<font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica"> <p> <strong> <font color="#000066">Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 8, 2021 is:</font> </strong> </p> <p> <strong>mulct</strong> &#149; \MULKT\&nbsp; &#149; <em>verb</em><br /> <p><strong>1 :</strong> to punish by a fine</p> <p><strong>2 a :</strong> to defraud especially of money <strong>:</strong> <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/swindle">swindle</a></p> <p><strong>b :</strong> to obtain by fraud, duress, or theft</p> </p> <p> <strong>Examples:</strong><br /> <p>Francis was barred from the securities industry when it was discovered he had been <em>mulcting</em> investors for years.</p> <p>"Second, the book peels back, like the skins of an onion, layer after layer of the elaborate series of disguises, aliases and outright false identities by which the subject neatly <em>mulcted</em> sizable fortunes from hundreds of gullible investors in her schemes." — <a href="https://roanoke.com/entertainment/book-review-a-civil-war-swindler-celebrity-and-schemer---and-what-was-her/article_65017d71-923d-5bdf-a6a2-322227f33554.html">Richard Raymond III, <em>The Roanoke (Virginia) Times</em>, 19 Feb. 2017</a></p> </p> <p> <strong>Did you know?</strong><br /> <p>A fine assessed as a penalty for an infraction is generally considered justifiable. Fraud, on the other hand, is wrong—it's just the sort of thing that deserves a fine. So in <em>mulct</em> we have a unique word, one that means both "to fine" and "to defraud." The "fine" sense came first. <em>Mulct</em> was borrowed from the Latin word for a fine, which is <em>multa</em> or <em>mulcta</em>. The "fine" sense is still in use, mostly in legal contexts ("the court mulcted the defendant for punitive damages"), but these days <em>mulct</em> is more often used for an illegal act. It has been speculated that the "defraud" use may have developed from an association with the verb <em><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/milk#h2">milk<