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A.Word.A.Day--bagatelle

Pronunciation Sound Clip RealAudio

This week's theme: a medley of words.

bagatelle (bag-uh-TEL) noun

1. Something unimportant.

2. A kind of pinball game in which balls are struck with a cue to send them to holes at the other end.

3. A short, light piece of verse or music.

[From French bagatelle (trifle), from Italian bagattella (trifle), possibly from Latin baca (berry).]

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

-Anu Garg (garg AT wordsmith.org)

"The climate chaos that would unleash would make the mere collapse of industrial society a sideshow bagatelle." Robert Newman; It's Capitalism or a Habitable Planet - You Can't Have Both; The Guardian (London, UK); Feb 2, 2006.

X-Bonus

I am malicious because I am miserable. ... If any being felt emotions of benevolence towards me, I should return them a hundred and a hundred fold (words of Frankenstein monster). -Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, author (1797-1851)

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