Today's word of the day from Wordsmith is interesting :

valorize (VAL-uh-ryz) verb tr.

To maintain the price of a commodity at a high level through government action.

[From Portuguese valorizar, from valor (value, price), from Medieval Latin, from Latin valere (to be strong).]

Valorizing is, in fact, price-fixing by government. A few other words that derive from the same root (wal-) are valence, valiant, valid, value, avail, and convalesce.

"This leads to a tendency for realized earnings to fall below the level that would validate or re-valorize the capitalized values of corporate equities and debt service costs."
James Ronald Stanfield and Michael Carroll, The Monopoly Capital School And Original Institutionalist Economics, Journal of Economic Issues (Reno, Nevada), Jun 1997.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 16, 2002 8:44 AM