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Jun 4, 2021
This week’s theme
Gold

This week’s words
Fort Knox
hallmark
midas
golden parachute
pyrite

pyrite
Photo: Didier Descouens / Wikimedia

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Next week’s theme
Nursery rhymes
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

pyrite

PRONUNCIATION:
(PY-ryt)

MEANING:
noun:
1. A shiny yellow mineral of iron disulfide. Also known as iron pyrites or fool’s gold.
2. Something that appears valuable but is worthless.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin pyrites (flint), from Greek pyrites lithos (stone of fire, flint), from its shiny surface and its use for starting fire. Earliest documented use: 1475.

JOKE:
This man was too busy golfing to pray. So he held his Bible upside down and tweeted to God:
“God, can you make everything around me pyrite. Who would know?”
“I would, and at least 81 million people would, but whatever. I’d grant you the wish if you promise never to bring My holy name on your lips again.”
“Deal!”
And God answered his prayers too.

USAGE:
“Consider some successes, and what came after them. The Beatles were gold; Wings were pyrite. Bruce Lee is a legend; Bruce Li is a punchline.”
Kurt Blumenau; MJ Cafe to Follow the Loop, But with a Different Menu; Morning Call (Allentown, Pennsylvania); Apr 17, 2007.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you've got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference. -Robert Fulghum, author (b. 4 Jun 1937)

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