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Jul 31, 2008
This week's theme
Words with hidden connections to animals

This week's words
popinjay
croupier
boustrophedon
sommelier
haggard

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

sommelier

PRONUNCIATION:
(sum-uhl-YAY)

MEANING:
noun: A wine steward in a restaurant.

ETYMOLOGY:
From French sommelier, from somm(er)ier (one charged with transporting supplies), from sommier (beast of burden), from somme (burden). From driving a pack animal to drafting wine lists, a sommelier has come a long way. A sommelier is to wine as a cicerone is to beer, though the latter has recently been introduced and is not widespread.

USAGE:
"First class passengers, who will pay about $20,000 a ticket to Europe, will have their own onboard sommelier to guide them through an array of wines to accompany their five-star meals."
'Superbird' Flights Offer Five-star Luxury; Gold Coast News (Queensland, Australia); Jun 17, 2008 .

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through. -Paul Valery, poet and philosopher (1871-1945)

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