A Word a Day

I wish I had more time to read my Word-a-Day emails. They often make me smile. Recently the word for the day was sanguine. Not something I often say, but I love the look and the sound of that word. Here's how AWAD defined it for their readers (color addition is mine):

sanguine (SANG-gwin) adjective 1. Cheerfully optimistic or confident. 2. Having a healthy reddish color. 3. Blood-red.[From Old French sanguin, from Latin sanguineus (bloody), from sanguis (blood).]

Today's word in Visual Thesaurus: http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=sanguine-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

And here is a comment that came along in today's email:

"It now feels apt that a vampire in the book Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is named Sanguin."

Words Each Day

I've been a big fan of Anu Garg's A.Word.A.Day emails for a long time. Sometimes I delete but frequently I put them in a special folder to savor later. Today I read it and remembered.

When I was in high school (click here for a link to the school's Centennial. All the other links to the school bear no resemblance to my memories), I studied Latin with an amazing teacher, Mrs. Garrett. We chanted our Latin declensions. (Amo! Amas! Amat!) That I can remember this and can't remember a friend's phone number puzzles me. 

So when today's Wordsmith word was CIRCA it brought back a lot of memories. Mrs. Garrett taught us to recognize and decipher many English words by considering their Latin roots. Something that's served me well. And circa is just one of those fun words to say. Covers a lot of ground. Makes up for incomplete knowledge.

Earlier in the week, the word of the day was MAUGRE/ Mauger. Despite its supposed Latin roots, I had no clue to its meaning. You really do learn something new every day.