This week's theme
Words and Medicine

This week's words
apheresis
syncope
aspirate
prolepsis
agglutinate


This week's comments
AWADmail 583

Next week's theme
Words borrowed from Japanese

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(verb: uh-GLOOT-n-ayt, adjective: uh-GLOOT-n-it, -ayt)

MEANING:

verb tr., intr.:
1. To form words by combining words or word elements.
2. To join or become joined as if by glue.
3. To clump or cause to clump, as red blood cells.

adjective:
1. Joined or tending to join.
2. Relating to a language that makes complex words by joining words or word elements extensively. For example as in Turkish.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin gluten (glue). Earliest documented use: 1541.

USAGE:

"Like Turkish, Tuyuca is heavily agglutinating, so that one word, hóabãsiriga means 'I do not know how to write.'"
Tongue Twisters: In search of the world's hardest language; The Economist (London, UK); Dec 17, 2009.

"There were two kinds of blood on that laboratory floor, and they do not agglutinate."
Arthur B. Reeve; The Dream Doctor; Echo; 2007.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: