Tuesday, December 07, 2004

M-W.com WORD OF THE DAY

epenthesis \ih-PEN-thuh-siss\ noun : the insertion or development of a sound or letter in the body of a word

Did you know?If you say "athlete" as "ath-a-lete," you've committed epenthesis. Some people consider the pronunciation to be unacceptable, but there's a perfectly good reason why it occurs; epenthesis is simply a natural way to break up an awkward cluster of consonants. It's easier for some people to say "athlete" as three syllables instead of two, just as it's easier for some to insert a "b" sound into "cummerbund," pronouncing that word as "cum-ber-bund." Epenthesis has even contributed to the evolution of recognized spelling variants, giving us such options as "cumberbund" and "sherbert" (for "sherbet"). The word "epenthesis" came to us by way of Late Latin from the Greek verb "epentithenai," which means "to insert a letter."
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.


I must say my rate of vocabulary expansion has slowed considerably since I started using an online dictionary. I used to see new words while I looked up other words, but now I just get what I'm looking for.

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