A.Word.A.Day --autokinesy

A.Word.A.Day

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Mar 8, 2021

This week’s theme
Euryvocalic words

This week’s words
autokinesy
hypogeusia
sanguinolency
coequality
enunciatory

“There is no material with which human beings work which has so much potential energy as words.” ~Earnest Calkins
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Previous week’s theme
Gulliver’s Travels

A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

This Sunday, March 14, marks 27 years of Wordsmith.org. Time flies when you’re having fun. 3³ years and we’re still having fun, still playing with words, discovering new words, and sharing them with you.

Thank you for being with us and joining in the fun whether you signed up last week or decades ago. Speaking of fun, someone recently asked:

Can you think of a word that uses all the vowels including the y?
Unquestionably!

Yes, we can think of hundreds of words like this. Each of this week’s words has the usual vowels and the sometime-vowel y. Such a word is known as a euryvocalic, from Greek eury- (wide) + vocalic (relating to vowels).

Euryvocalic Headline Contest

What newspaper headline, real or imaginary, can you come up with that makes use of all six vowels? Email it to contest@wordsmith.org or post it below by Fri, Mar 12, 2021 (include your location).

PRIZES: Winners will receive their choice of a copy of any of my books or a copy of the word game One Up!

Did you notice that all sentences in this intro, yes, including this one, have all six vowels?
Do you have a euryvocalic name? Do you live in a euryvocalic place? Any other euryvocalic connections? Drop us a line.

A word that has all five vowels is known as a supervocalic and a word that makes use of only one of the vowels is a univocalic.

See results here

autokinesy

PRONUNCIATION:

(au-toh-KIN-uh-see)

MEANING:

noun: Self-propelled or self-directed motion or energy.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Greek auto- (self) + kinein (to move). Earliest documented use: 1678.

USAGE:

“There may be a simple internal energy or vital autokinesy.”
Journal of the History of Ideas; Johns Hopkins University Press; 1962.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging; it is the skin of living thought and changes from day to day as does the air around us. -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., US Supreme Court Justice (8 Mar 1841-1935)

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