This week’s theme
Yours to discover

This week’s words
quidditative
microcephalic
chrysocracy
lachrymogenic
pleniloquence

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(my-kro-suh-FA-lik)

MEANING:

adjective:
1. Having an abnormally small head.
2. Small-minded.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Greek micro- (small) + -cephalic (having a head), from kephale (head). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ghebh-el- (head), which also gave us the word gable. Earliest documented use: 1857. The opposite of today’s word is macrocephalic.

USAGE:

“The dwarves weren’t infants, they had beards, though that one -- Sleepy? Dopey? -- seemed microcephalic, with a tiny pointed head and huge ears.”
Tama Janowitz; They Is Us; HarperCollins; 2016.

“Olga was amazed. What imbeciles men were! A country at the mercy of this microcephalic uncle of hers.”
Rufino Blanco-Fombona (Translation from Spanish by Isaac Goldberg); The Man of Gold; Brentano’s; 1920.

“Mr Hay’s letter today is symptomatic of the microcephalic xenophobia which characterises the debate (or lack of it) on entry to the EEC.”
Scotsman (Edinburgh, Scotland); May 20, 1971.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: