For some reason, mainly the daily influence of this forum, I keep paying attention to etymology of the words I encounter. Thus it was in browsing the NYT today, I came across the word "cusp." Now I first remember meeting that word in Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, and I had thought he had made it up. Not so. Astronomers used the term as early as 1580 to refer to the points of a crescent moon. Derives from Latin for the point of a spear. It can also refer to the point of a tooth, so I'm pretty sure it is hidden in "bicuspid."
I do think the dictionary does not point out the most frequent use I find, the sense of a turning point or a critical point in decision making.
Cusp
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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Cusp
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- Great Grand Panjandrum
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Re: Cusp
Pseudosciences such as astrology can use scientific words like cusp. Just like using angst makes psychiatry, another pseudoscience, look scientific.
It is dark at night, but the Sun will come up and then we can see.
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