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Permanent link for this word: verisimilitude

Nov 14, 2011

This week's theme
Words with unusual arrangements of letters

This week's words
verisimilitude
syzygy
yob
kine
spendthrift

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

What is special about the word DIOXIDE? You don't have to be a chemist to know that it reads the same upside down. What has six Is? Maybe Martians do, but here we are primarily interested in the words indivisibility and indistinguishability. In this week's selection, we'll feature five words with unusual arrangements of letters.

The word verisimilitude has alternating consonants and vowels. Can you find a longer word with this property?

verisimilitude

PRONUNCIATION:

(ver-uh-si-MIL-i-tood, -tyood)

MEANING:

noun:
1. The quality of appearing to be true or real.
2. Something that has the appearance of being true or real.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin verisimilitudo, from verum (truth) + similis (like). Earliest documented use: 1603.

USAGE:

"There are moments in the new musical The Burnt Part Boys that mirror recent events with haunting verisimilitude."
David Rooney; Fictional Mining Town; The New York Times; May 19, 2010.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day. -A. A. Milne author (1882-1956)

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