

Jan 12, 2015 This week’s theme

There’s a word for it



This week’s words

apricate

ascesis

senary

arenicolous

pregustator



Photo: Fadzly Mubin There’s a word for it A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg



Every reader who unsubscribes receives a brief survey form. Readers mention all sorts of reasons for unsubscribing in their feedback. The most common is: information overload. Sometimes a reader suggests sending a word a week instead.



I hear them. I, too, feel information overload from everything that pours in over the ether. But to me, one cannot have too many books in one’s library, too many dictionaries among one’s books, or too many words in one’s vocabulary.



A large vocabulary is like an artist having a large palette of colors. You don’t have to use all those colors in a single painting but it helps to have just the right shade when you need it. Each word brings its own shade of meaning. Each word helps us to describe our world just the way we see it.



With that, I present to you five more colors to add to your verbal palette, words that might make you say: I didn’t know there was a word for it. apricate PRONUNCIATION: (AP-ri-kayt)

MEANING: verb intr.: To bask in the sun.

verb tr.: To expose to the sun.

ETYMOLOGY: From Latin apricari (to bask in the sun). Earliest documented use: 1691. Despite a similar spelling, the word apricot has a different origin. It’s from Latin praecox (early-ripening). See also, apricity

USAGE: “I was also biting into that part of his body that must have been fairer than the rest because it never apricated.”

André Aciman; Call Me by Your Name; Picador; 2007.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: People's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. -Haruki Murakami, writer (b. 12 Jan 1949)





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