penumbra | Word of the Day

November 01, 2018 penumbra [pi-nuhm-bruh] noun 1. a shadowy, indefinite, or marginal area. 2. Astronomy. a. the partial or imperfect shadow outside the complete shadow of an opaque body, as a planet, where the light from the source of illumination is only partly cut off. b. the grayish marginal portion of a sunspot. ways-to-say How To Stop Saying These Annoying Words word-trends It's OK To Use "They" To Describe One Person: Here's Why WORD OF THE DAY penumbra continued... QUOTES ... I couldn't figure out why I was hearing it in the penumbra of an old-growth floodplain forest in South Carolina, a forest that once stretched as far north as Upper Virginia and as far west as East Texas. -- Rosalind Bentley, "Among the Majestic Trees in Congaree, Slipping Into Silence," New York Times, July 16, 2018 ORIGIN The noun penumbra is composed of the Latin adverb paene "almost" and the Latin noun umbra "shadow." Paene is not usual in Latin compounds, the most frequent being paeninsula (paeneinsula) "peninsula" and paenultimus (pēnultimus) "almost last, second last," especially the "second last syllable" (penultimate is often misused in English to mean "ultimate, last"). Penumbra (paenumbra) does not occur in Classical or Medieval Latin; it is a New Latin coinage by the German mathematician and astronomer Johann Kepler (1571-1630). Penumbra entered English in the 17th century. MORE FOR YOU 1 Locked Up Lingo: 8 Terms That Summarize Prison Slang On "the inside," which is to say, in prison, people use their own special forms of lingo and communication. The unique slang used by prisoners reflects this. We've collected a few of the terms we find most interesting. Hopefully, you'll never have to use any of them yourself ... 2 We Asked People To Translate These Emojis Into English Can you guess the meaning of these emoji combinations? Some of them are creative enough to be put in the dictionary. How'd you do? 3 We Asked: What Is The State Of The Country In 5 Words? We asked people what they thought the state of the country was ... their answers may surprise you. 4 It Will Be Coup De Foudre Once You Start This Quiz! No legerdemain here ... this Word of the Day Quiz is straightforward, wordy fun. 5 F Scott Fitzgerald Quotes And His Thoughts On Life The Jazz Age's favorite author shares his musings on life, love, and writing. © 2018 Dictionary.com, LLC. ABOUT CONTACT You are subscribed to the Word of the Day as: matzom229@gmail.com Subscriber since: September 06, 2017 Unsubscribe Dictionary.com, LLC. 555 12th Street Suite 500 Oakland CA 94607 Manage your subscription Terms & Privacy