Lest

[M. Henri Day]

This is perhaps one of the shortest words ever proposed for GWotD status, and I should not have made the suggestion had I not recently stumbled upon an error I had never encountered previously - «least» for our word «lest» (the two words are, of course, closely related, with the same Indo-European root leis[sup]-2[/sup]).

Here's the offending example, from an otherwise interesting blog article on the fate of Sgt Kevin Benderman (emphasis added) :

Kevin had to be silenced, least others follow suit and also start saying no—thereby bursting the bubble of the Washington consensus of high troop support for this war of choice in Iraq, among other issues about just what are we doing in Iraq.

Lest fellow Agorists commit the same solecism, I copy the American Heritage Dictionary entry here infra :

lest Listen: [ l&#283st ]
conj.

For fear that: tiptoed lest the guard should hear her; anxious lest he become ill.
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[Middle English, from Old English (thȳ) lǣs the, (whereby) less that, so that not : lǣs, less ; see less + the, relative conjunction; see to- in Indo-European roots.]

[Slava]

I vote to renew this suggestion. It's a good word.

[LukeJavan8]

I second the motion. It seems you and I are the only
ones on these however. You sure are digging deep
and finding lots of good words that have been suggested
in the past. Good work!