At Whose Expense?

[cherydactyl]

Wordsmith says:
Do you ever wonder about the meaning of all those company names on
billboards, taxis, supermarket floors, movies, clothing, even in your
children's school books? While some of these are coined names (Sony,
Novartis, Intel), many of them are bona fide words from the dictionary.
This week we feature five such words. And no, none of them is an AWAD
sponsor.

cingular (SING-gyuh-luhr) adj: 1. Of or pertaining to a cingulum, an anatomical band or girdle on an animal or plant. 2. Encircling, girdling, surrounding.

[From Latin cingulum (girdle), from cingere (to gird). Other words derived from the same root are cincture, precinct, shingles, and succinct.]

"Differs ... in the greater degree of cingular development on cheek teeth, especially molars."
Daniel L Gebo, et al; A Hominoid Genus; Science (Washington, DC); Apr 18, 1997.

Comments

[bitter-lily.livejournal.com]

Wow, you just expanded my vocabulary! I can't wait to find a place to use cingular, and have people tell me I misspelled it!

Are we going to get the other four in subsequent days?

[cherydactyl.livejournal.com]

Probably. I like tweaking corporations. :)

This is from the word-a-day email list from wordsmith.org, by the way.

[jixel.livejournal.com]

somehow i liked it better when i thought it was a fake word lol

[orogeny2000.livejournal.com]

hmm, kind of unrelated, but I believe 'ginormous' is now in the dictionary. *sigh* I know language is dynamic..but..