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Jul 4, 2008
This week's themeWords from medicine This week's words costive roborant catholicon atrabilious linctus This week's comments AWADmail 314 Next week's theme Words made using combining forms Discuss Feedback RSS/XML A.Word.A.Day
with Anu GarglinctusPRONUNCIATION:
(LINGK-tuhs)
MEANING:
noun: A syrupy liquid medicine, especially for treating coughs.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin lingere (to lick). Ultimately from the Indo-European root
leigh- (lick) that is also the source of lichen (apparently from the way
it licks its way around a surface), and lecher, but not lingerie (which
is from the root lino: flax).
USAGE:
"The audience emitted a few throaty cackles, as if they had collectively
drunk too much cough linctus."Simon Hoggart; Labour Conference; The Guardian (London, UK); Sep 24, 2007. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
It was our own moral failure and not any accident of chance, that while preserving the appearance of the Republic we lost its reality. -Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 BCE)
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