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Feb 23, 2011
This week's themeWords with unusual plurals This week's words stele eidos fomes lacuna miasma Have your say on our bulletin board Wordsmith Talk 
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Gargfomes
PRONUNCIATION:
(FOH-meez)
 plural fomites (FOM-i-teez, FOH-mi-teez)
MEANING:
noun: An object (for example, clothing or bedding) capable of absorbing and transmitting infectious organisms from one person to another.
NOTES:
The word is usually used in its plural form fomites, which has led to
the back-formation of a new singular form fomite. Another example of a word
coined in a similar way is pea (from pease, which was erroneously believed
to be a plural).
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin fomes (kindling wood), from fovere (to warm). Earliest documented use: 1658.
USAGE:
"The sitters didn't catch the virus at all. The cuddlers did, and so did
the touchers, pointing up the importance of direct contact with secretions,
but especially of fomites -- objects and surfaces with infectious viral
particles still on them."Perri Klass; When to Keep a Child Home?; The New York Times; Feb 9, 2009. See more usage examples of fomes in Vocabulary.com's dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
In matters of conscience the law of majority has no place. -Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)
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