foist
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\n \n Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 31, 2024 is:\n \n
\n \n\n foist • \\FOIST\\ • verb
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Foist, which is almost always used with on or upon, is used when someone forces another person to accept something, usually something that is not good or is not wanted. Foist can also mean \u201cto pass off as genuine or worthy.\u201d
\n\n// I don\u2019t want to foist anything on you, but if you like this old quilt you\u2019re welcome to have it.
\n\n// Faulty parts have been foisted on unwitting car owners.
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\u201cSince the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act during the New Deal era, employers have had to pay most of their workers for 40 hours of work even when business was slow. That was just the cost of doing business, a risk capitalists bore in exchange for the upside potential of profit. Now, however, employers foist that risk onto their lowest-paid workers: Part-time employees, not shareholders, have to pay the price when sale volumes fluctuate.\u201d \u2014 Adelle Waldman, The New York Times, 19 Feb. 2024
\n \n \n\n Did you know?
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That the word foist is commonly used today to mean \u201cto force another to accept by stealth or deceit\u201d makes sense given its original\u2014now obsolete\u2014use in talking about a bit of literal sleight of hand. When it first rolled into English in the mid-1500s, foist was all about dice, dice, baby, referring to palming\u2014that is, concealing in one\u2019s hand a phony die so as to secretly introduce it into a game at a convenient time. The action involved in this cheating tactic reflects the etymology of foist: the word is believed to have come from the obsolete Dutch verb vuisten, meaning \u201cto take into one\u2019s hand.\u201d Vuisten in turn comes from vuyst, the Middle Dutch word for \u201cfist,\u201d which itself is distantly related to the Old English ancestor of fist. By the late 16th century, foist was being used in English to mean \u201cto insert surreptitiously,\u201d and it quickly acquired the \u201cforce to accept\u201d meaning that is most familiar today.
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