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Aspersion Asperse Verb Holy Reports Shakespeare's Means Word

Front asperse \uh-SPERSS\
Back verb
1. To sprinkle; especially to sprinkle with holy water.
2. To attack with evil reports or false or injurious charges.

["No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall / To make this contract grow." In this line from Shakespeare's The Tempest, "aspersion" literally refers to a sprinkling of rain, but figuratively means "blessing." Shakespeare's use is true to the heritage of the term. "Aspersion" comes from the Latin word "aspersus," itself a derivative of the verb "aspergere," which means "to sprinkle" or "to scatter." When "aspersion" first appeared in English in the 16th century, it referred to the type of sprinklings (for instance, of holy water) that occur in religious ceremonies. But English speakers noted that splatterings can soil and stain, and by the end of the century "aspersion" was also being used for reports that stain or tarnish a reputation.]

"Then and in the war years that followed, EM Forster was a quiet but doughty spokesman for civil liberties, a fact forgotten now that it is fashionable to slight his fiction and asperse the nature of his sympathies for Britain's colonised." - AC Grayling; The Last Word On - Freedoms; The Guardian (London, UK); Nov 24, 2001.

"Mr. Moon and his wife, Hak Ja Han, called the 'true parents' of mankind by his Unification Church, aspersed the couples with water as they passed in rows to the strains of Mendelssohn's Wedding March." - Paul L. Montgomery; 4,000 Followers of Moon Wed at the Garden; The New York Times; Jul 2, 1982. 

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