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Today's Word "Maquiladora"

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maquiladora \meh-ki-leh-DO-reh\ (noun) - A US- or foreign-owned assembly plant just south of the US-Mexico border that employs low-cost labor to assemble products and ship them back, usually tariff-free, to the country of origin.

"Nathan was less than three years away from early retirement when his entire division was eliminated and the work shipped down to some maquiladora where the salaries were a tiny fraction of what he had been making."

 

From American Spanish meaning "the place where the miller's fee is paid." "Maquiladora" is from Spanish "maquila," referring to the portion of the flour or meal received by the miller in return for milling grain. It comes from Old Spanish, which got it from Arabic makila "measured, measure of capacity" from kala "to measure." Since this is a rather long, borrowed wordand one borrowed recentlyit has no derivatives. The plural is, as you would expect, "maquiladoras." Just remember that the [k] sound is represented by "qu" when you write it.


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