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Jan 16, 2013
This week's theme
Words derived from bodily fluids

This week's words
sang-froid
lymphatic
seminal
salivate
melancholy

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

seminal

PRONUNCIATION:
(SEM-uh-nuhl)

MEANING:
adjective:
1. Highly original and proving influential on later work.
2. Of or relating to semen or seed.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin semen (seed). Ultimately from the Indo-European root se- (to sow) which also gave us seed, sow, season, seminary, and disseminate. Earliest documented use: 1398.

USAGE:
"It was in 1962 that Rachel Carson published the seminal book of the environmental movement, Silent Spring."
What's New at the A.K. Smiley Public Library; Redlands Daily Facts (California); Dec 29, 2012.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends imprisoned by an enchanter in paper and leathern boxes. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

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