Contraction of a modo di.
a mo' di
- like, as, by way of
- Synonym: come
2007, David Foster Wallace, “La persona depressa [The Depressed Person]”, in Ottavio Fatica, Giovanna Granato, transl., Brevi interviste con uomini schifosi [Brief Interviews with Hideous Men], Einaudi:I genitori della persona depressa, ad esempio, che avevano divorziato quando lei era bambina, l'avevano usata a mo' di pedina nei loro giochi perversi, come quando la persona depressa aveva avuto bisogno di ortodonzia e ciascun genitore aveva dichiarato ─ non senza ragione, aggiungeva sempre la persona depressa, viste le ambiguità medico-legali degli accordi di divorzio ─ che doveva essere l'altro a pagarne le spese.- The depressed person's parents, for example, who had divorced when she was a child, had used her as a pawn in the sick games they played, as in when the depressed person had required orthodontics and each parent had claimed ─ not without some cause, the depressed person always inserted, given the medical-legal ambiguities of the divorce settlement ─ that the other should pay for it.
- (literally, “The depressed person's parents, for example, who had divorced when she was a child, had used her as a pawn in their perverse games, like when the depressed person had needed orthodontics and each parent had declared ─ not without reason, the depressed person always added, seeing the medical-legal ambiguities of the divorce accords ─ that it had to be the other to pay for its expenses.”)