Some 16th-century Italian clergymen tried to ban coffee because they believed it to be “satanic.” However, Pope Clement VII loved coffee so much that he lifted the ban and had coffee baptized in 1600.
GREENMAIL
greenmail
(noun) (corporation) the practice of purchasing enough shares in a firm to threaten a takeover and thereby forcing the owners to buy those shares back at a premium in order to stay in business
Source: WordNet® 3.1
Etymology
Noun
greenmail (countable and uncountable, plural greenmails)
Profiting from an attempted hostile takeover by forcing the target company to buy back the hostile bidder's shares at an inflated price.
Verb
greenmail (third-person singular simple present greenmails, present participle greenmailing, simple past and past participle greenmailed)
To profit from an attempted hostile takeover by forcing the target company to buy back the hostile bidder's shares at an inflated price.
Anagrams
• Megrelian, marine leg
Source: Wiktionary
Recent Word Finds
Word of the Day
19 April 2025
CATCH
(verb) grasp with the mind or develop an understanding of; “did you catch that allusion?”; “We caught something of his theory in the lecture”; “don’t catch your meaning”; “did you get it?”; “She didn’t get the joke”; “I just don’t get him”
Coffee Trivia
