This week’s theme
Illustrated words

This week’s words
velutinous
eldritch
kludge
xeric
transpicuous


This week’s comments
AWADmail 858

Next week’s theme
Words for Hangman

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(tran-SPIK-yoo-uhs)

MEANING:

adjective: Easily seen through or understood.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin transpicere (to see through), from trans- (across) + specere (to look). Ultimately from the Indo-European root spek- (to observe) which also gave us suspect, spectrum, bishop (literally, overseer), espionage, despise, telescope, spectator, spectacles, conspectus, frontispiece, omphaloskepsis (navel gazing), perspicaciousness, perspicuous, prospicient, soupcon (a very small amount), speciesism, specious, and speculum. Earliest documented use: 1638.

USAGE:

“I recognize it at once, when in a history text I first read William Penn’s dreamy yet transpicuous instructions for the layout of Philadelphia.”
Andrea Lee; Altered State; The New Yorker; Jun 30, 2008.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: