I enjoyed seeing this word of the day as I taught Spanish and Spanish literature...I have a special place in my heart for Lazarillo de Tormes...but this word always makes me smile because I remember a student who ,when I said "picaresque" said ,quite haughtily, "don't you mean 'pictur...

ah..I always thought that the "essen" part had something to do with "eating" from the German "essen" to eat

Interestingly related to scaffold, one used to transport and display the dead, one to create them.

A great word for October, the month of Halloween.

thanks..I thought so...
it is interesting that it is related to scaffold

yes, I have a Nat Geographic here about the Neanderthal
esp interesting since we were there!

also, recently in Bermuda..they took American dollars..(but the Bermudian money is very pretty!)

we were in the Neander Valley in 2007..that is when I learned "tal" or "thal" was valley..
they say "Neandertal"...we were staying in Wuppertal
We visited the Neandertal Museum

We were driving in Schenectady when the GPS announced to turn on "Catafalque Street"...surprised to see it as a street name , as I was to see it in a book written in English..another word I knew first from Spanish:"catafalque" is a platform for a coffin..part of the Dia de muerto...

I had just written down "myrmidon" to look up..found it in a book I am reading.."Ex Libris" by Ross King...
thanks..now I know!

thanks..I missed that one, before I "came on board" ..and I neglected to check the archives, which I usually do...

I was surprised to see the word "comestible" used in an English language book..I knew the word from Spanish.."something you would eat,foodstuff"
It was in a novel by an Irish author, he referenced a store for "dry goods and comestibles"

LukeJavan..love the Little Prince reference...
I always liked "words are the source of misunderstanding..it is only with the heart that one can see rightly"

That Monika is a smart woman!!

I had always understood that "snob" came from "sine nobilitate", that is "without nobility". The story I recal is that births were recorded with these abbreviations: "nob" for nobility and "s.nob" for non-nobles. A "snob" then was someone w...

I am reminded of the Spanish "contar" which is both "to tell" and "to count"...tell/recount....count/account

intr.v. Midwestern & Western U.S., -lat·ed, -lat·ing, -lates.

To depart in a hurry; abscond: “Your horse has absquatulated!” (Robert M. Bird).
To die.
To argue.
[Mock-Latinate formation, purporting to mean “to go off and squat elsewhere”.]

19th century American

I saw in in a Diana Gabaldon book

I tried to find you there..the link just brought me to my own Facebook page..a search did not turn up "alphadictionary"