arrha means money or some other valuable item given to evidence a contract; a pledge or earnest. It carries an Arena rating of 1398, earned across 6 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, arrha ranks #3,714 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #3,783 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #5,834 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #6,375 of 17,142 for Most Ingenious Words.
Why “arrha” is a great word
Money or a valuable item given as a pledge to evidence a contract, especially in the context of marriage or sale. From Latin arrha, a shortening of arrhabō, from Ancient Greek ἀρραβών (arrhabṓn, "pledge, deposit"), a Semitic loanword, likely from Biblical Hebrew. Unlike "earnest," the general term for a good-faith payment, or "pledge," a broad security for any obligation, arrha is the specific, binding token sealed at a contract's birth in Roman and canon law. It is the heavy gold coin pressed into a father's palm to secure a daughter's future, the engraved ring left on the merchant's scales to hold the price of spices, the first silver placed as a tangible fragment of the future given in trust—a small, cold anchor for a vast and uncertain tomorrow.
Etymology
From Latin arrha (“deposit, pledge”).
noun
- Money or some other valuable item given to evidence a contract; a pledge or earnest.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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