This week's theme
Words derived from hand

This week's words
manumit
chiral
handsel
mano a mano
palmer

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(KY-ruhl)

MEANING:

adjective: Not superimposable on its mirror image.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Greek cheir (hand). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ghes- (hand), which also gave us cheiromancy/chiromancy (palmistry), surgeon (literally, one who works with hands), and enchiridion (handbook). Earliest documented use: 1894.

USAGE:

"She handed me chopsticks, left hand to left hand. The knot I always had inside me seemed to loosen. Her other-handedness, my true inheritance. Back in Eden's Prairie, it had been an abnormality, an asymmetricality, like a chiral molecule, one that has the same basic structure as others, but doesn't fit in anywhere."
Marie Myung-Ok Lee; Somebody's Daughter; Beacon Press; 2005.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: