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Aug 20, 2014
This week's theme
Miscellaneous words

This week's words
presentiment
fungible
plangent
deportment
puissance

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

plangent

PRONUNCIATION:
(PLAN-juhnt)

MEANING:
adjective:
1. Loud and resounding.
2. Sad or mournful.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin plangere (to beat the br- east, lament). Ultimately from the Indo-European root plak- (to strike), which also gave us plague, plankton, fling, and complain. Earliest documented use: 1666.

USAGE:
"When the two horns answered each other's plangent calls from opposite sides of the vast auditorium the effect was electrifying."
A Majestic Canon; The Economist (London, UK); Sep 4, 2003.

"Enthrallingly told, beautifully written, and so emotionally plangent that some passages bring tears."
Amanda Vaill; A Luminous Novel of Children in War ("All the Light We Cannot See"); The Washington Post; May 6, 2014.

See more usage examples of plangent in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Creative minds are uneven, and the best of fabrics have their dull spots. -HP Lovecraft, short-story writer and novelist (1890-1937)

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