A.Word.A.Day --umbra

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Apr 1, 2024

This week’s theme
Eclipse

This week’s words
umbra
occultation
penumbra
umbrageous
totality

Image: Guiral Lacotte / Wikimedia

Previous week’s theme
Verbing the noun, nouning the verb

A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

What does an umbrella have in common with ellipsis? They both block or leave out something. Umbrella: rain, and ellipsis: words.

The word umbrella comes from the Latin umbra (shade) and ellipsis from the Greek ekleipein (to fail to appear) -- the same root as the word eclipse.

All this has been on my mind as we anticipate a total solar eclipse in parts of North America next week. The moon plants its face directly between the sun and the earth. There’s never been this much excitement about what is basically a photobombing.

The piddly moon is going all in and will take on the mighty sun, some 400 times wider than itself. Maybe there’s a metaphor in there somewhere. You can overshadow and overcome the mighty, you just need to find the right place and right time.

Will you be in the right place at the right time on Apr 8 to witness the eclipse? Are you an eclipse chaser, an umbraphile perhaps? We’d love to hear about it. Share below or email us at words@wordsmith.org. Include your location (city, state).

Meanwhile, this week we’ll feature five words that you can use to talk about the eclipse. But you don’t have to wait for the next eclipse event to occur. You can also use them metaphorically.

umbra

PRONUNCIATION:

(UHM-bruh)

MEANING:

noun:
1. Shade; shadow.
2. The darkest inner part of a shadow, as during an eclipse.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin umbra (shade, shadow). Earliest documented use: 1601. Some other words coined from the same Latin root are bumbershoot, umbriferous, umber, adumbrate, and umbrage.

USAGE:

“India is an emerging economy, however, its transition is taking place in the umbra of China’s yet more majestic prominence.”
India in the Era of Rising Minilateralism; Tehelka (New Delhi, India); Jan 16, 2022.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Make no judgments where you have no compassion. -Anne McCaffrey, writer (1 Apr 1926-2011)

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