One of the new trends in parenting lately is getting children to eat more vegetables by disguising them in other foods kids love: adding pureed beetroot or spinach to a chocolate cake, mixing shredded zucchini into a beefburger or meatloaf, providing dips and spreads for fresh carrot and celery strips, or just covering everything with cheese. With especially picky eaters, such subterfuge may be necessary at every meal. A subterfuge (SUB-ter-fyuj) is a trick or strategy designed to fool someone in order to accomplish a goal. The word comes from the Latin roots subter (“under [cover]”) and fugere (“to flee”), and initially was used only to refer to military actions.

Example: After allowing the Austrian spy to escape carrying the false battle plans, the Prussian generals sent a small company to attack the western wall of the city, while bringing their main force behind the Austrian troops; this subterfuge led to their success in the Battle of Mollwitz.*

There are several other common English words that share the same Latin root fugere, including refuge (REH-fyuj), or a place to “flee back” to; centrifuge (SEN-trih-fyuj), which is used to make things “flee the center”; and fugitive (FYU-jih-tihv), someone who is fleeing or escaping.

What tricks and stratagems do you use to make difficult study sessions more enjoyable? Our equivalent of a verbal chocolate cake is poetry – the lines and phrases are so deliciously descriptive that it’s a pleasure learning how the new vocabulary words fit in them. There’s no escaping the need to practice and review in English vocabulary study, but you can reward yourself with a well-chosen work to read (or a piece of candy, if you prefer!).

* probably not historically accurate, but a good example of the word in context