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Jul 9, 2024
This week’s theme
Misleading words

This week’s words
adulterate
metromania
sexennial
placer
psychrophobia

metromania
Illustration: Anu Garg + AI

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metromania

PRONUNCIATION:
(met-ruh-MAY-nee-uh)

MEANING:
noun: A mania for writing poetry.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek metro- (measure, meter) + -mania (excessive enthusiasm or craze). Earliest documented use: 1791.

USAGE:
“The entire lot of thirty poems was composed this morning, and to tell you the truth, I found rather nasty the task of parodying the product of metromania.”
Vladimir Nabokov; The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov; Vintage; 1997.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
I wanted to live my life so that people would know unmistakably that I am alive, so that when I finally die people will know the difference for sure between my living and my death. -June Jordan, writer, teacher, and activist (9 Jul 1936-2002)

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