Happy Monday, everyone! It’s me, Lilly! Now that we’re all home from our summertime travels, I’ve started some online courses to teach me how a true journalist studies and writes. I want to be writer, you see, just like you. If I’m to become a better colonist, I mean columnist, I have to start somewhere. So Mee-maw says I can do my practicing here, on Mondays… well, at least for now.

Thankfully, I love to read, because there’s a great big world of words out there to learn. I do alright for the most part, but sometimes, it gets quite confusing for such a tiny brain. But I’ve been told that it’s not my size that counts, but how well I use my brain. I’m learning the art of reading, one page at a time.

Let me tell you about the morning I’ve had, thus far, in my reading and writing adventures…

Have you ever been reading a thing, and suddenly notice that a particular word you’ve read seems like it might be spelled wrong? You read it once more, and then again. You keep going back to look at the word, because you’re certain they meant something different.

So, what do we do when this occurs? Any reader worth their salt would never presume to know more than the original author. That’s bad form, I think. The right thing to do when encountering a wordage dilemma, is to grab a dictionary, encyclopedia, or thesaurus, if necessary.

Sometime, during this last weekend, I came across the word endued while reading scripture. My brain began arguing that the word should have been embued, imbued, or even endured. Strange, I know. It was like giving a mouse a cookie, that word! Or an ant…

Off to Google, I went, but that was more of a rabbit hole than I was prepared for. Not only couldn’t I find the passage I’d just read it from, but when I asked the computer where to find that word in scripture, it never gave me any verses that were near the place I’d been reading.

Anyways, I ended up spending nearly an hour this morning, just comparing spellings, translations, and the definitions that were attached to them, just so that I could understand which meant what!

Check this out…

Did you mean: embue vs imbue vs endue

AI Overview

Imbue means to saturate, instill, or inspire something with a quality, emotion, or belief, like a sponge soaking up water. Endue (or endued) means to provide or endow someone with a quality or ability, like a person being endowed with rights. Embue is an obsolete and incorrect form of imbue and should not be used. 

Here’s a breakdown of each word:

Imbue

• Meaning: To deeply affect or permeate something, often with an emotion, quality, or color, as if soaking it throughout. 

Origin: From the Latin imbuere, meaning “to dye, wet, or moisten”. Examples:

• “A feeling of optimism imbues her works”. 

“The new leader was imbued with the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi”. 

Endue (and Endued) 

• Meaning: To give qualities or abilities to someone or something. The past participle, endued, means to have been provided with these qualities.
• Origin: Influenced by the Latin induere, meaning “to put on”.
• Examples:
  • “The workers were endued with the spirit of camaraderie”.
  • “They were endued with the rights of a citizen”.

Embue 

• Meaning: An obsolete form of imbue.
• Usage: This word is no longer in common use and should be avoided. Stick to the modern form, imbue.

So, what have I hopefully learned, here?

Well, aside from the cheeky response about not using the spelling embue, I do think I may have learned the difference between endue and imbue. I believe that one means the feeling, and the other means the actual quality, itself. Now, I said that I believe it to mean this, but the jury is still out. If I were you, I wouldn’t put all your money on me.

Besides, I sometimes feel like those literary rabbit holes are more trouble than their words… I mean worth!