A.Word.A.Day --col

A.Word.A.Day

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Sep 25, 2008

This week's theme
Words from geology and geography.

This week's words
archipelago
monadnock
shoal
col
isthmus

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

col

PRONUNCIATION:

(kol, rhymes with doll)

MEANING:

noun: A mountain pass.

ETYMOLOGY:

From French col (neck), from Latin collum (neck). Ultimately from the Indo-European root kwel- (to revolve) that is also the source of words such as colony, cult, culture, cycle, cyclone, chakra, and collar.

USAGE:

"Car rental presented the first obstacle. No major company allows its vehicles on Saddle Road, which runs across the 6,600-foot-high col between the two peaks, much less anywhere near the summits themselves."
James Dannenberg; Trying for a peak experience on Big Island; San Francisco Chronicle; Aug 24, 2008.

See more usage examples of col in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

True remorse is never just a regret over consequences; it is a regret over motive. -Mignon McLaughlin, journalist and author (1913-1983)

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