Words to Your Mother: Avast

Yep.  It's my belated "Talk Like a Pirate Day" entry. (The actual day was September 19th.)

"Avast" means to "stop and give attention".  Wiktionary defines this meaning (or, more specifically, "listen, pay attention") as "a parody of pirate slang", giving the main definition as "hold fast".

Interestingly enough, it would appear that "avast" may also be Italian for stop or "enough".  Unfortunately, I'm having trouble confirming this outside of Wiktionary.  Perhaps it's imported from the English word, and thus not listed in most cross-language dictionaries.

technorati tags:words, vocabulary, avast, pirates, Talk Like a Pirate Day, Italian

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