A.Word.A.Day --hypogeusia

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Today's Word

hypogeusia

PRONUNCIATION:

(hy-puh-GOO/GYOO-zee/zhee-uh, -zhuh)

MEANING:

noun: A diminished sense of taste.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Greek hypo- (under) + -geusia (taste). Earliest documented use: 1888.

NOTES:

A complete lack of taste is ageusia (feel free to use the word metaphorically). And an extremely keen sense of taste is oxygeusia, from Greek oxy- (keen or sharp). How does the word oxygen fit in here? In 1778, Lavoisier named a newly discovered gas oxygen (literally, sharp giving) because he mistakenly believed that it was part of all acids. He was guillotined, not for the misnaming, but for the charge of adulterating France’s tobacco with water. He was exonerated posthumously.

USAGE:

“It’s lucky that the vic [victim] had that medical condition, hypogeusia, leaving him unable to taste food properly.”
Morgana Best; Any Given Sundae: Australian Amateur Sleuth; 2016.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

What I want to happen to religion in the future is this: I want it to be like bowling. It's a hobby, something some people will enjoy, that has some virtues to it, that will have its own institutions and its traditions and its own television programming, and that families will enjoy together. It's not something I want to ban or that should affect hiring and firing decisions, or that interferes with public policy. It will be perfectly harmless as long as we don't elect our politicians on the basis of their bowling score, or go to war with people who play nine-pin instead of ten-pin, or use folklore about backspin to make decrees about how biology works. -PZ Myers, author, biology professor (b. 9 Mar 1957)

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