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Feb 11, 2003

This week's theme
Toponyms

This week's words
canossa
tartarean
dunkirk
solecism
rubicon

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Tartarean

adjective: Hellish; infernal.

From Latin tartareus, from Greek tartareios, from Tartaros. In Greek mythology, Tartarus was the place in Hades reserved for punishing the worst.

"The hatch, removed from the top of the works, now afforded a wide hearth in front of them. Standing on this were the Tartarean shapes of the pagan harpooneers, always the whaleship's stokers."
Herman Melville; Moby Dick: Or, the Whale; Hendricks House; 1952.

"The late-afternoon skies over lower downtown Denver were Stygian dark and Tartarean dreary, as had been the Rockies in the series with the omnipotent Yankees, when Todd Zeile approached the plate in the culmination of the 10th inning, and there was a fulmination and fulguration of thunder and lightning."
Woody Paige; A Ruthian Victory For the Locals; The Denver Post; Jun 21, 2002.

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