WORD OF THE DAY
A moiety is one of two equal parts. If you cut a sandwich in half, you can have one moiety for lunch and give the other moiety to a pigeon.
One moiety plus one moiety equals a whole. Moiety is a synonym for the noun half; a semicircle or your better half can be referred to as a moiety. In anthropology, moiety is used to describe one of two distinct groups of a tribe. Moiety can also mean "a part" in general, as Shakespeare used it in Antony and Cleopatra: "The death of Antony / Is not a single doom; in the name lay / A moiety of the world."
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Vocabulary lists containing moiety
Words selected by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionaries. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
Shakespeare's famous tragedy tells the story of a Danish prince who must decide whether or not to avenge his father's death.
In this short story, a king sets up an unusual judicial process to determine the guilt or innocence of accused criminals. When her beloved faces this trial, the princess must decide whether to help him or send him to his death. Read the complete text here.
On March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney delivered the majority opinion in the Dred Scott Case. Scott, a slave, had been brought from a slave territory to a free territory and demanded his freedom. The Court ruled that as an enslaved person, Scott was not a citizen and could not sue in the courts. The decision further polarized the North and the South and ended any chance of compromise. This pro-slavery Supreme Court decision illuminates how the issue of slavery brought the nation to the brink of the Civil War. Read the full text here.
San Diego's citywide celebration of Poe included this tribute from a local columnist. Drawn from The Gory, Glorious Words of Edgar Allan Poe: Shades of Poe voiceofsandiego.org April 16, 2012
