Today’s word of the day is cashew, the kidney-shaped seed of a tropical American evergreen tree, Anacardium occidentale.
This is the fruit that contains the nut. Photo by Joao Vicente, used under a Creative Commons license.
Tag Archives: Word of the Day
Wordnik word of the day: mell
Wordnik word of the day: muffineer
Today’s word of the day is muffineer. An overweight cast member of The Mickey Mouse Club? No! It’s a dish in which to keep hot and from which to serve toasted muffins or crumpets. Its also sometimes a vessel of metal with a perforated cover, used to sprinkle sugar or salt on muffins. We’ve heard of salting watermelons, but salting muffins? Is that like salting a mine?*
Muffins: A co-invention of Heaven and Hell for human amusement and torture.
Photo by Ginny (ginnerobot) under a Creative Commons license.
*To salt a mine is to plant bits of precious metal in it so that some sucker thinks there’s much more than there is and then pays too much money for a worthless hole in the ground.
Wordnik word of the day: hussy
Wordnik word of the day: bevue
Today’s word of the day is bevue, an inadvertent error or a small omission. It’s pronounced “beh-VIEW.” It’s from the French bévue, meaning “a blunder.”
Wordnik word of the day: falx
Today’s word of the day is falx, something that is sickle-shaped, such as the poison fangs of a serpent, a metal implement (similar to a pruning hook), or, in anatomy, something which is falcate or falciform, both which mean “sickle-shaped” or “hooked.” Because of the bird’s sharp, hooked talons, falcon probably comes from the same root as falx.
Gerfalcon
Wordnik word of the day: fascinator
Today’s word of the day is fascinator. Besides the obvious meaning of “one who or that which fascinates,” it also means “a woman’s head scarf.” As you can see by the sentence examples and the images of fascinators, they’re mostly decorative rather than functional, they’re often crocheted, knitted, or made of lace, and they are indeed rather fascinating.