Friday, October 10, 2008

Oooooo Preeeeetty

When I was five years old, my dad gave me my first real dictionary. It wasn't one of those "kid" dictionaries with small words and big pictures. It was a big, thick, grown-up Webster's. The cover was red. Inside, my dad wrote: "To Sandra Lynn. Love Daddy!" I would open the sturdy cover and flip the delicate pages, taking in the glorious words. Even into my 20's, I would still sit and read the dictionary for fun. For my birthday a few years ago, Todd bought me a behemoth Unabridged Dictionary. Heaven!

I guess you could say I have this thing about words. I love them. I collect them. I get A Word A Day and save my favorites in their own little folder. Today's word I found exceptionally good, so I'm sharing it with you here. Pay attention to the meaning; love that! There's also a quote at the end; sometimes they're fabulous and sometimes just okay. Today's is pretty good. Enjoy!

(This is completely copied from the AWAD email; hope that's okay, Anu!)

A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg


serein
PRONUNCIATION:
(suh-RAN [the second syllable is nasal])

MEANING:
noun: Fine rain falling from an apparently cloudless sky, typically observed after sunset.

ETYMOLOGY:
From French serein, from Old French serain (evening), from Latin serum (evening), from serus (late).


USAGE:
"She must have caught a chill from the serein, that's all!"
Raphael Confiant; Mamzelle Dragonfly; Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 2000.


A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Journalism is publishing what someone doesn't want us to know, the rest is propaganda. -Horacio Verbitsky, journalist (b. 1942)



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1 holla'd back:

Anonymous said...

It's dictionary readers like you who make Scrabble a miserable game......lol.

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