This is a romp through more than 250 obscure, abstruse, wacky, and wonderful words from the founders of the world's no. 1 word-lovers' Web site. Written by the founders of the wildly popular A Word A Day Web site and daily e-mail (500,000 subscribers, worldwide), this collection of unusual, obscure, and exotic English words is a must-have for writers, scholars, crossword puzzlers, and word buffs of every ilk. Like their e-mails, the book is organized around weekly themes and offers readers a different word for each day of the week in categories ranging from "Portmanteaux" to "Words That Make Spell-Checker Ineffective." Each entry includes a concise definition, etymology, and usage example, and many entries feature fascinating and amusing commentaries by A.W.A.D. subscribers and the authors. Representing fifty-five weeks worth of words, the 273 words compiled in "A Word A Day" includes some of the most popular weekly themes that have appeared on the Web site since its founding in 1994.

Table of Contents

Introduction.1. Animal Words.2. Latin Terms.3. Words to Describe People I.4. Lesser-Known Counterparts of Everyday Words.5. Words for Odds and Ends.6. Reduplicatives.7. Discover the Theme I.8. Gender-Specific Nouns.9. Verbs.10. Coined Words I.11. Back-Formations.12. Portmanteaux.13. Short Words.14. Words That Make Spell-Checker Ineffective.15. Names for Things.16. Words Formed by Metathesis.17. Words Not to Put On Your Resume.18. A Verbal Zoo.19. Words From Medicine.20. Semordnilap.21. Words With Color as Metaphor.22. Words that Make One Say, "I Didn't Know there was a Word for That!"23. Wordpix I.24. Wordpix II.25. Wordpix III.26. Words with Offbeat Pluralizations.27. Words about Relations.28. Collective Nouns.29. Positive Words.30. Discover the Theme II.31. Lesser-Known Synonyms of Everyday Words.32. Words from Speeches.33. Words That Contain the Vowels AEIOU Once and Only Once.34. Coined Words II.35. English as a Global Language.36. Eponyms.37. Words about Words I.38. Uncommon Words with Common Suffixes.39. Words to Describe People II.40. Ordinal Words.41. Words for Odds and Ends.42. Red-Herring Words.43. Discover the Theme III.44. Newer Words in the Oxford English Dictionary.45. War of Words and Words of War.46. Words for Physical Characteristics Used to Describe People Figuratively.47. Words Evolved from Folk Etymologies.48. Words about Words II.49. Words Formed Using Combining Forms.50. Words Formed Using Combining Forms.51. Words for Body Parts That Are Used Metaphorically.52. Red-Herring Words Revisited.53. Words from Nature's Oeuvre.54. Words about People Who Love Books.55. Mondegreens and Other Linguistic Faux Pas.57. Answers to the "Discover the Theme" Chapters.Bibliography.Index of Words.

Reviews

"...Uncommon English words to enrich your vocabulary..." (India Today, 7 July 2003)

About the Author

ANU GARG is the founder of wordsmith.org, a.k.a. A Word A Day, which he has maintained since 1994. STUTI GARG is an entrepreneur and a founder of Namix, a trademark and naming solutions company. Anu and Stuti Garg live in Seattle.