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May 2, 2014
This week's theme
Homonyms

This week's words
quiff
gird
mew
feral
bole

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Next week's theme
Biblical characters who became words
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

bole

PRONUNCIATION:
(bohl)

MEANING:
noun:1. The trunk of a tree.
 2. Any of various kinds of soft fine clays typically of a reddish color.
 3. A reddish brown color.

ETYMOLOGY:
For 1: From Old Norse bolr (trunk). Ultimately from the Indo-European root bhel- (to blow or swell), which also gave us ball, balloon, boll, bulk, bowl, boulevard, boulder, ballot, folly, and fool. Earliest documented use: 1314.
For 2-3: From Latin bolus (lump), from Greek bolos (clod). Earliest documented use: 1558.

USAGE:
"In the midst of each room and hall, a living tree grows and holds up the roof, and its bole is hung with trophies and with antlers."
J.R.R. Tolkien; The Book of Lost Tales; George Allen & Unwin; 1983.

"Rub off some gold to let the red bole show through."
Martin Cruz Smith; Gorky Park; Random House; 1981.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
All the time a person is a child he is both a child and learning to be a parent. After he becomes a parent he becomes predominantly a parent reliving childhood. -Benjamin Spock, pediatrician and author (1903-1998)

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