Today's Word

Yesterday's Word

Archives

FAQ

Jun 30, 2005

This week's theme
Archaic words

This week's words
caliginous
quotha
cark
crasis
enow

---

crasis

noun:
1. Composition; constitution; blending.
2. Contraction of two vowels into one long vowel or into a diphthong.

From Greek krasis (mixture, blend), from kerannynai (to mix).

"However, I do not wish to condemn the Greek-Latin crasis. After all I have used it to mould my surname (Latro=thief [Latin], Nike=victory [Greek]) into a more palatable form (victory over the thieves) than might be inferred from its slanderous (for me) Latin stem!"
Nicola Latronico; Making Sense; The Lancet (London, UK); Mar 30, 1996.

X-Bonus