This week’s theme
Words that violate the i-before-e rule

This week’s words
reveille
facies
mythopoeic
obeisance
conscientious

---

A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(FAY-shee-eez, -sheez)

MEANING:

noun:
1. General appearance.
2. In medicine, a distinctive appearance associated with a pathological condition.
3. In geology, a body of rock with specific characteristics.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin facies (face). Earliest documented use: 1398.

USAGE:

“The cholera victim no longer has any face: he has a facies -- a facies that could only mean cholera. The eye, sunk deep in its socket and seemingly atrophied.”
Jean Giono; The Horseman on the Roof; North Point Press; 1982.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: