This week’s theme
Long words

This week’s words
chintz
sesquipedalian
dermatoglyphics
hemidemisemiquaver
supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(hem-ee-dem-ee-SEM-ee-kway-vuhr)

MEANING:

noun: A sixty-fourth note.

NOTES:

It’s a long word about the shortest note in music. For another example of prefixes gone wild, see preantepenultimate (fourth from the last).

ETYMOLOGY:

From Greek hemi- (half) + French demi- (half) + Latin semi- (half) + quaver (an eighth note), from Middle English quaveren (to shake or tremble). Earliest documented use: 1853.

USAGE:

“‘Commissaire, you have a foreigner’s ear for our glorious language. Their names are completely different, CAYO and CAYOo,’ Martiniere said, lingering the merest hemidemisemiquaver on the final imagined phoneme of the second ‘YO’.”
Alexander Campion; Killer Critique; Kensington; 2012.

See more usage examples of hemidemisemiquaver in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: