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A.Word.A.Day--glossal

glossal (GLOS-uhl) adjective

Of or pertaining to the tongue.

[From Greek glossa (tongue).]

"Anthony Herrel, a researcher at the University of Antwerp, wondered how chameleons capture creatures nearly one-sixth their size-- the equivalent of a human bagging a large turkey--using only their glossal appendages. Granted, the lizards' slingshot tongues are comparatively longer than humans' tongues, but that still doesn't account for chameleons' prodigious snaring abilities." Mark Cheater, Slip of the Tongue, National Wildlife (Washington), Apr/May 2001.

"An ironic consequence of Rudd's apprenticeship as an Ivy Leaguer playing Dixieland, a style that demands of its horn players a vocalized approach, was that he became the first (and, until the emergence of George Lewis, Ray Anderson, Craig Harris, and several Europeans in the seventies and eighties, the only) trombonist capable of matching split tones and glossal outbursts with saxophonists who were bidding their horns to speak in tongues." Borscht-Belt Trombone, The Atlantic (Boston), Sep 1992.

This week's theme: terms related to the body.

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