Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus

Wednesday, October 1st arrhythmia Got Rhythm? Word of the Day:

When your heart skips a beat you can fairly describe it as an arrhythmia, because this noun means, in its simplest sense, an alteration or irregularity in the heart's rhythm. If your fingers fumble as you type the word, it could be because arrhythmia (along with its adjective arrhythmic) are unique in having two sets of triple consonants, separated only by the quasivowel y.

Thursday, October 2nd factious Divide and Conquer Word of the Day:

The bad news about today's word is that you will get nowhere by associating it with fact. The good news is that, though unrelated, its meaning is quite similar to fractious, another adjective that differs by a single letter. Factious means "tending to dissent." If enough folks do this, you end up with factions, which is the closest kin of factious.

Friday, October 3rd rubble Trash Talk Word of the Day:

Though it has the look and feel of a Germanic word, today's noun is from French and is closely related to a word with a similar meaning -- namely, rubbish. The two words share the element of applying to things that are of little or no value. Rubble specifically denotes the pieces that are left when something is destroyed or broken up, such as a building.

Saturday, October 4th egress This Way Out Word of the Day:

All of the -gress words in English (such as congress, digress, progress, regress, transgress) are children, via various long and convoluted routes, of Latin gradi, "go." Egress, looked at in this way, simply means "go out," and it doesn't get too much more complicated: as a noun it means the act of coming or going out, or a place where you can do this; an exit.

Sunday, October 5th kith Sounds Familiar Word of the Day:

Since we know this word mainly from its slot in the phrase kith and kin, it has the feel of an orphan and a fossil: an old word that would disappear entirely if not for its supported use in a phrase. But in fact kith, which means "familiar people" (friends, neighbors, and the like) is related to couth, a word known mainly from its slot in uncouth. Both words have ancestors in Old English.

Monday, October 6th verdigris Test Your Metal Word of the Day:

In the spirit of having a word for everything, today's noun is the name for the greenish-blue deposit that develops on some metals (such as copper and bronze) when they're exposed to the elements for some time. Verdigris is also a pigment used in paints that is made from this substance. The word was borrowed from French in the 14th century, and literally means "green of Greece."

Tuesday, October 7th rankle Here Be Dragons Word of the Day:

No one likes things that rankle (that is, make you resentful or angry), but you might be content with rankling if its etymon were the alternative. Rankle derives ultimately, via various twists and turns, from dracunculus, the Latin diminutive of draco, which means, and gives us, "dragon." An intermediate meaning of this word route was "festering sore," which suggests a little more clearly how rankle came to its modern meaning.

Wednesday, October 8th polemic This is War! Word of the Day:

Words that aim to inflame, provoke, or aggravate come in many flavors in English. When you wish to oppose someone directly, openly, and unambiguously, polemic may be the right genre for you: it comes from polemos, the Greek word for war. Modern usage of the word is often with a negative connotation, to characterize the belligerent statements of someone other than yourself.

Thursday, October 9th chord Follow the Curve Word of the Day:

There are chords, and then there are cords. How do you keep them all separate? With great difficulty, because the two words have a somewhat incestuous history, and the spelling chord, to boot, represents two different words. Three or more notes sounded together is a chord; that's one word. A line connecting two points on a circle is a chord; that's another word. Vocal cords and spinal cords are different things, though anatomical structures sometimes use the spelling chord, and you can use your vocal cords to produce chords. Just so you know.

Friday, October 10th intubate Insert Here Word of the Day:

If you're a fan of hospital dramas you'll know that this verb is in the "don't try this at home" category. It means "insert a tube into" and you would guess that pretty easily by looking at its components. We think of tube as being a very English sort of word, but it has Latin ancestors: tuba -- which we use for a musical instrument, as the Romans did, and tubus, "tube."

Saturday, October 11th bedlam Things Get Crazy Word of the Day:

The first thing to know about today's word is that it doesn't have anything to do with beds -- though in an indirect way, there's a connection with hospital beds because bedlam is the Middle English version of Bethlehem. There was once a hospital called Saint Mary of Bethlehem in London, popularly called Bedlam, which was an asylum for the mentally disturbed. It wasn't an orderly place by any account and from that we get the meaning of bedlam today, "chaos."

Sunday, October 12th clement For Mercy's Sake Word of the Day:

If you could time-travel back to the Roman Empire you'd probably be at a loss verbally, but today's adjective is one that might work for you: it's little changed from the Latin original, which also meant gentle or merciful. Today we probably see this word more often in its negative form, as inclement, a favorite for characterizing weather that is not to our liking.

Monday, October 13th anneal Light My Fire Word of the Day:

This rather nondescript looking verb carries with it an ancient pedigree -- all the way back to Old English -- where it meant "kindle." Today it has retired into a small handful of technical meanings, all having to do with heating and cooling things such as glass or metal in order to strengthen them.

Tuesday, October 14th chameleon Color My World Word of the Day:

The unusual qualities possessed by the lizard that today's word labels are many: prehensile tail, independently rotating eyes, and projectile tongue, for example. But its show-stopping trick is the ability to change color to suit its surroundings, and from that ability the figurative sense of a person who adapts beliefs or views at will to suit the occasion has developed. Chameleon is from Greek roots for "lion on the ground."

Wednesday, October 15th patrician Dear Old Dad Word of the Day:

Today's word does duty as both noun and adjective, with meanings all connected with folks at the top: that is, aristocrats or those from respected, wealthy, and established families. If you see an echo of the name "Patrick" here, that's no accident; it has the same origin in Latin. Pater, Latin for "father," lies at the root and gives some weight to the idea that your Dad can have a big influence on your lot in life.

Thursday, October 16th buxom For Ladies Only Word of the Day:

Today's adjective gets high marks for sensible spelling -- it might easily have ended up as bucksome, since the -xom ending is in fact the same one etymologically that you see in handsome and winsome. The adjective characterizes a woman who is plump, cheerful, and lively. Its root is the same one that gives us the verb "bow"; the original sense of the word was "compliant."

Friday, October 17th nonetheless By Way of Contrast Word of the Day:

The three components of this compound word are not difficult to spot, but why it means what it does requires more investigation. Nonetheless came along slightly later than its synonym lookalikes nevertheless and the now defunct nathetheless and noughtheless. They all express the idea that something is not less true or important in light of some other existing fact or situation. In other words, these adverbs have about the same job as however.

Saturday, October 18th bulwark On the Defensive Word of the Day:

Today's word has the peculiar distinction of being the only common noun in English ending in -wark, and for that we can blame, or thank, the Dutch, from whose stores the word was borrowed. Its literal meaning is a raised structure built for defense, from which is derived the more common meaning today, any person or thing viewed as a support in a challenging situation.

Sunday, October 19th idiolatry Mirror, Mirror Word of the Day:

When you see -latry at the end of a word you should get all worshipful. That's what etymologists do, because the suffix is derived from a Greek root that means "worship." Practitioners of idiolatry are extremely practical in that they worship something that's never very far away: themselves.

Monday, October 20th waffle Two for One Word of the Day:

Today's word is a twofer: there's the noun, from Dutch, denoting a flat cake with indentations, and there's the verb, a Scots word, that means to speak, write, or think equivocally. The startling upshot is that you could, if you were inclined, waffle about waffles. The verb is a frequentative of waff, a now defunct word that is replaced by woof (that is, make the sound that dogs make).

Tuesday, October 21st ruse Tricked Out Word of the Day:

If you've been had by someone, it's possible that they employed a ruse -- that is, a subterfuge by which to gain an advantage. Dictionaries differ on the preferred way to pronounce this noun, but most of them go with the 'z' pronunciation. Ruse is from French and was originally a maneuver of an animal to evade capture.