Word of the day

Tribology (noun)

1. (physics, engineering) The science and technology of friction, lubrication, and wear.

Jararaca (noun)

1. A venomous snake of species Bothrops jararaca, found in South America.

xerotic (adj)

1. dry

Yardarm (noun)

1. The outer end of a yard, often equipped with blocks for reeving signal halyards.

Kistvaen (noun)

1. A stone coffin in the form of a pit covered with earth and surrounded by stones.

Hirudinean (noun)

1. Any leech of the subclass Hirudinea.

Apercu (noun)

1. A clever insight.
2. An outline or summary; also, words that summarize.

Gazetteer (noun)

1. A person who writes for a gazette or newspaper; a journalist; (specifically) a journalist engaged by a government.
2. A gazette, a newspaper.
3. A dictionary or index of geographical locations.
4. A descriptive list (often alphabetical) of any subject.

gazetteer (verb)

1. Synonym of gazette (“to announce the status of (someone) in an official gazette”)
2. To report about (someone) in a gazette or newspaper.
3. To describe the geography of (a country or other place) in a gazetteer.

glebous (adj)

1. Earthy; full of clods.

monostylar (adj)

1. or monostyle.
2. having or comprising a sole upright or pillar.

Cithara (noun)

1. An ancient Greek stringed instrument, which could be considered a forerunner of the guitar.

Idiolect (noun)

1. The language variant used by a specific individual.

helicoid (adj)

1. Having the form of a flattened helix.
2. Screw-shaped; like a coil.

embale (verb)

1. To bind up; to enclose, or make into a pack.
2. To make into a bale.

Snottite (noun)

1. A colony of single-celled extremophilic bacteria that hangs in a sheet (having the consistency of snot or nasal mucus) from the ceilings of some caves like stalactites.

fulmineous (adj)

1. Of, like or pertaining to thunder.

Herm (noun)

1. A rectangular pillar bearing a bust of Hermes, once used as a boundary marker and later as decoration.

uncial (adj)

1. Of or relating to an ounce, or an inch, especially to letters printed an inch high.
2. Of or relating to a majuscule style of writing with unjoined, rounded letters, originally used in the 4th–9th centuries.

Kurtosis (noun)

1. A measure of "heaviness of the tails" of a probability distribution, defined as the fourth cumulant divided by the square of the variance of the probability distribution.
2. Excess kurtosis: the difference between a given distribution's kurtosis and the kurtosis of a normal distribution.

Shide (noun)

1. A piece of wood (a thin board or plank, or a strip of wood split off); a measure of firewood, variously defined as e.g. four feet long and between 16 and 38 inches in circumference.

Logomania (noun)

1. Great enthusiasm for words.
2. A disorder of the faculty of language in an individual.
3. Fashion design in which a brand's logo is conspicuously repeated across an article of clothing.

Katabasis (noun)

1. A mytheme or trope in which the hero embarks on a journey to the underworld.
2. Any journey downwards or fall.
3. A retreat, especially a military one.
4. A journey from the interior of a country to the coast.
5. The presence of downward (drainage or katabatic) winds.

umbe (adv)

1. Around.
2. About.

Engrenage (noun)

1. Gear (a wheel with grooves)
2. Inescapable sequence of events; slippery slope.

basial (adj)

1. Relating to the basion.
2. Of, like or pertaining to kissing.

exodromy (theorem)

1. Stabilizing movement of exchange.

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