This week’s theme
Portmanteaux (blend words)

This week’s words
rurban
squiggle
palimony
guesstimate
contraption

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(SKUI-guhl)

MEANING:

noun:	An irregularly curling or looping line, string, etc.
verb tr., intr.:	1. To make an irregularly curling or looping line. 2. To squirm or wriggle. 3. To scribble.

ETYMOLOGY:

Perhaps a blend of squirm + wriggle. Earliest documented use: 1804.

USAGE:

“There was nothing I wouldn’t eat. Well, apart from tinned spaghetti, that is, whose loops and squiggles slopping around in that fluorescent orange sauce somehow managed to turn my stomach when nothing else did.”
Fionnuala Ward; I Was Fin-ish, But Now I’m Finished with Fish; Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland); Nov 20, 2018.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: