It's the Word of the Day podcast for January 16th.
Today's word is parley, spelled P-A-R-L-A-Y.
Parley is a verb.
To parley something is to use or develop it in order to get something else of greater value.
Parley is often used with the word into.
Here's the word used in a sentence from The Atlantic by Laura Kelly.
Sometimes, celebrities parlay their name and following into big-time sales and hype,
though, of course, not all of them or their projects are created equal.
The word parlay originally belonged exclusively to gambling parlance,
where to parlay is to take winnings from a previous bet along with one's original stake of money and use them to make another bet or series of bets.
The verb comes from the noun paroli, a borrowing from French,
itself borrowed from Italian, that refers to a system of such betting.
After decades of this specific use,
not only did parles start to be used as a noun synonymous with paroli,
but English speakers upped the ante by using the verb figuratively in situations where someone uses or develops something,
such as a skill or hard work, for the purpose of getting something else of even greater value.
With your Word of the Day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.