words from Wordsmith. I find a new word and there it shows the etymology and usage of the world. Sometimes the words don't really words I want to use but sometimes they give a new word..
This week's first word is a tongue twister.
polyphiloprogenitive
PRONUNCIATION:
MEANING:
adjective: Extremely prolific.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin poly- (many) + philo- (loving) + progenitive (producing offspring), from pro- (toward) + past participle of gignere (to beget). Earliest documented use: 1919, in a poem by T.S. Eliot.
USAGE:
"Polyphiloprogenitive Joe Fallon, the needy, breedy father of seventeen, or was it nineteen? I was never sure, any more than Joe himself."
Aidan Higgins; Dog Days; Secker & Warburg; 1998.
"All spring and summer my parents ricochet from garden to garden, mulching, watering, pulling up the polyphiloprogenitive weeds, 'until', my mother says, 'I'm bent over like a coat hanger.'"
Margaret Atwood; Bluebeard's Egg; McClelland & Stewart; 1983.
Aidan Higgins; Dog Days; Secker & Warburg; 1998.
"All spring and summer my parents ricochet from garden to garden, mulching, watering, pulling up the polyphiloprogenitive weeds, 'until', my mother says, 'I'm bent over like a coat hanger.'"
Margaret Atwood; Bluebeard's Egg; McClelland & Stewart; 1983.
And here is a little video I found with some other words.
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