A.Word.A.Day --piacular

A.Word.A.Day

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Feb 22, 2016

This week’s theme
Miscellaneous words

This week’s words
piacular
demotic
parsimony
gaucherie
valence

“All words are pegs to hang ideas on.” ~Beecher
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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

A language is a big box. It’s filled with words to describe nearly everything its speakers need, with some left over. For this week’s words, I closed my eyes, put my hand in the box, and picked five words. How many of them do you know?

Well, after this week you can say you have five more in your wordbox than you had before. Little by little the ocean is filled. Fill your own.

piacular

PRONUNCIATION:

(pie-AK-yuh-luhr)

MEANING:

adjective: Making or requiring atonement.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin piare (to appease). Earliest documented use: 1606.

USAGE:

“The piacular sacrifice took place several days later.”
Colleen McCullough; Fortune’s Favourites; William Morrow; 1993.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped. -Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher (22 Feb 1788-1860)

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