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Nov 30, 2011
This week's theme
Illustrated words

This week's words
redolent
equable
terrene
hegemony
antediluvian

terrene
Illustration: Leah Palmer Preiss

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

terrene

PRONUNCIATION:
(teh-REEN, TER-een)

MEANING:
adjective: Relating to the earth; earthly; worldly; mundane.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin terra (earth). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ters- (to dry), which is also the source of territory, terrace, turmeric, and toast. Earliest documented use: 1300s.

USAGE:
"It was just a twitch of the earth, a routine shudder, one of many such minor terrene adjustments recorded in a millennium."
Jerry Carroll; Fifteen Seconds Seemed Like Forever; The San Francisco Chronicle; Oct 17, 1990.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
With respect to the number of deaths, arms manufacturers are charitable institutions compared to cigarette manufacturers. -Silvio Garattini, doctor, researcher, professor, and founder of the European Organization for Research on Treatment of Cancer (b. 1928)

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