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Yours to discover

This week's words
orotund
draggle
trunnel
pinnate
lability

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AWADmail 114

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A.Word.A.Day--lability

lability (luh-BIL-i-tee) noun

Susceptibility to change, lapse, error or instability.

[Via French/Middle English from Late Latin labilis (prone to slip), from labi (to slip). Other words from the same root are avalanche, lapse, and lava.]

"Water, that is, can itself be thought of as an element without qualities, and in its lability it is a strikingly appropriate subject for Ulrich's sympathetic attention. Always itself yet always adaptable to multiple ways of manifesting itself ..."
Michael Andre Bernstein; The Man Without Qualities; The New Republic (Washington, DC); May 29, 1995.

"Most of us have heroes, I guess. Mine is Lance Armstrong, who beat testicular cancer to become the greatest cyclist in the world. Watching him pedalling through the fields of pain in the Tour de France, I was struck by the absence of any sign of emotional lability."
David Beresford; Education: Operation Countdown; The Guardian (London, UK); Jul 23, 2002.

This week's theme: yours to discover.

In case you missed some of this week's words, they were orotund, draggle, trunnel, pinnate, and lability. The challenge was to find a common pattern among them. If you can spot it, email garg AT wordsmith.org.

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