This time my new word is in English, not French. It comes courtesy of David Miliband, who has said that Gordon Brown would also have invaded Iraq had he been Prime Minister at the time. Well, thank arse that’s cleared up. Diplomats of the world, stand down.

Miliband’s words were as follows:

[David Miliband] conceded that decisions taken since the war “could have been done better” but insisted: “No one is resiling from the original decision.”

Resiling? I thought. Isn’t it funny when you hear a word you have literally never heard before. I mean, not just heard before and not understood, or heard before, adopted as your own and casually used in circumstances where the fact that you don’t really know what it means doesn’t matter. Just never heard before at all. I’d heard Gadarene, but not resiling.

From Merriam-Webster:

RESILE
Pronunciation:
\ri-ˈzī(-ə)l\
Function:
intransitive verb
Inflected Form(s):
re·siled; re·sil·ing
Etymology:
Late Latin & Latin; Late Latin resilire to withdraw, from Latin, to recoil
Date:
1529

Is the Foreign Secretary playing “Use this word in a sentence in a policy announcement this week” with himself?

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