Word of the Day – OUGUIYA

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Derek McKenzie

OUGUIYA /oo.GEE.uh or oo.GWEE.uh/ n. the basic currency unit of Mauritania

Above is the five-ouguiya coin. I’ve enlarged it so you can see the actual word ouguiya under the 5. Below is the full set of ouiguiya coins…

Unusually, in a world of mostly decimal currencies, the smallest coin is worth 1/5th of an ouguiya. This coin is referred to as the KHOUM.

In addition to coins, the Mauritanian currency supports five bank notes with denominations 100, 200, 500, 1000, 2000, and 5000 ouguiyas.

Note that French (a nationally recognized alternative to the official Arabic) is used to spell out the denomination on Mauritanian banknotes; MILLE = one thousand in this case.

Like many Scrabble players, I first encountered this word as one of a long list of 5-vowel 7-letter words. As none of the other members of this prestigious list have anything to do with money (this month’s theme), I ‘ll resist the temptation to talk about them here.

Although I was familiar with today’s word, I did discover today that I’ve been pronouncing it incorrectly all this time. I’ve been pronouncing the -GU- combo as -GW-, as in IGUANA (the lizard). As you hopefully noticed in the definition, however, the correct pronunciation is /oo.GEE.uh/. Like many of my daily words, this one is a good trap for spellers.

Pronunciation is something I haven’t been talking much about so far, but I do include it in most definitions for a reason. That’s right. It just might be on the test!

Word of the Day – ANOA

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Derek McKenzie

ANOA /uh.NOH.uh/ n. a small water buffalo found primarily in Indonesia

There are two species of anoa, a lowland and a mountain variety, but you’ll have to pull out your hiking gear to catch a sight of either of them. The most likely place to look is in Sulawesi, a large Indonesian island, formerly known as Celebes.

Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of it, because yesterday I put together a little map to help you plan your expedition…

But don’t get your hopes up, as both species are now endangered.

There doesn’t even seem to be much footage of this little creature in its natural habitat. I had to settle for this cute-but-somewhat-sad crowd-pleaser taken in an L.A. zoo…

If you really want to track down the anoa, the best place is probably still towards the back page of your local newspaper…

Dwarf buffalo of Indonesia
Wild Indonesian bovine
Small forest buffalo
Indonesian ox
Celebes buffalo

Word of the Day – AERIE

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Derek McKenzie

AERIE /EH.ree or EYE.ree/ n. the nest of an eagle or other bird of prey, typically situated high up in a tree or cliff

Like our old friend etui, AERIE is one of those little gems that turns up time and time again in crossword puzzles, Scrabble games, and spelling bees. It’s just one of those words the serious word buff must know.

Here are some clues you’ll be able to decode at lightning speed now you know this word…

Lofty home
Cliff dwelling
Raptor’s roost
Nursery for eaglets
Tree house
Cliff hangar?

Do you remember what a raptor is, or do you need a a quick recap? And that [Cliff hangar?] clue is a bit cute, don’t you think?

Aerie has a couple of handy variant spellings too (both allowed in Scrabble): EYRIE and EYRY. Each of these words allows you to dump an awkward combination, while scoring well in the process!

Not surprisingly, today’s word got me reading a little about nests. A particularly fruitful word I thought you might like to know about is the word NIDUS, which actually means ‘nest or breeding place’.

I say it is fruitful because, in addition to its plurals NIDI and NIDUSES, we get the following derivatives…

NIDE – v. to nest
NIDAL – adj. relating to a nest
NIDATE – v. to nest
NIDATION – n. the act of building a nest
NIDICOLOUS – adj. staying for longer than average in the nest
NIDIFY – v. to nest
NIDIFICATION – n. the act of nesting
NIDIFUGOUS – adj. leaving the nest soon after hatching

I challenge you to use at least one of these words today. If you have an older child still living under your roof, I thoroughly recommend nidicolous ;-)

P.S. If you’re a Collins/CSW/SOWPODS player, you can add NID, NIDIFICATE, and NIDULATION to your nidus list!

P.P.S. Yesterday I challenged you to find an anagram of PICTURES that contained the word ECRU, which was yesterday’s word of the day. The answer is … drumroll … PIECRUST.

Word of the Day – ALOE

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Derek McKenzie

ALOE /AL.owe/ n. a genus of succulent flowering plants encompassing around 500 species

You’ve probably heard of aloe vera (literally ‘true aloe’), because of its medicinal uses, but you may not have known that this was a single species among several hundred.

Indeed, I suspect it is really this most common aloe that crossword constructors are cluing time and time again with [Natural balm], [Shampoo ingredient], and [Soothing succulent].

BTW… Quite often dictionaries list a plant genus as capitalized and you may wonder how it makes its way into the Scrabble dictionary.

The thing is, it is a common practice (reflected in dictionaries) to allow a genus name to be uncapitalized when it is being used to refer to a generic member of a genus (i.e. to a generic species).

Here’s an example that will teach you a high probably bingo word at the same time: An ALOETIC is a medicine made from several aloes.

See how the word aloes here is not referring to the genus itself, but rather to its members?

Funnily enough, today’s word has only one anagram, and that was a word you learned just yesterday: OLEA, the plural of OLEUM (an old Latin word for ‘oil’).

P.S. For Collins players, you also get the adjective ALOED, which you can use to indicate the presence of aloes. So when you see that one, don’t think it gives you permission to go around aloeing* yourself.

Word of the Day – OLEO

Posted on April 7, 2012 by Derek McKenzie

OLEO /OH.lee.owe or OWE.lee.owe/ n. a shortened colloquial form of oleomargarine preferred in the US (over margarine used in Britain and other parts of the world) which is a butter substitute made from vegetable oils

1950s DURKEE Oleomargarine Advertisement Vintage Illustration

Here are a few crossword clues today’s word should help you solve…

Butter alternative
Marg : Brits :: ___ : Americans
It’s not butter
Spread on the table
Promise, for one

And just in case you didn’t understand that last one…

Deriving from the Latin OLEUM (plural OLEA), meaning ‘oil’, today’s word has a few handy extensions. The most widely known of these are probably OLEOGRAPH (a picture produced in oils) and OLEORESIN (a mixture of oils and resin).

The reason I’m familiar with the latter is that my Scrabble program once responded to my opening play of OLE with the ever-so-slightly jaw-dropping…

Can you even begin to imagine finding that in a game?!

P.S. here are the answers to yesterday’s puzzle…

“____ thou and peace may meet”: Shelley
“We shun it ____ it comes”: Emily Dickinson
“____ fancy you consult, consult your purse”: Benjamin Franklin
“Maid of Athens, ____ We Part”: Byron
“____ upon my bed I lay me”: Longfellow
“Blood hath been shed ____ now”: Macbeth
“A little ____ the mightiest Julius fell”: Shak.
“I hope to see London once ____ I die”: “Henry IV, Part 2″
“I kissed thee ____ I killed thee”: Othello
“___ pales in Heaven the morning star”: Lowell

Word of the Day – OGEE

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Derek McKenzie

Current Theme: Crosswordese

OGEE /OH.jee or oh.JEE/ n. an architectural molding having an S-shaped cross-section

At last you have a name for those funny bendy bits in arches…

ledges…

and other fancy thingies…

Like most crosswordese, ogee is generally clued straightforwardly with hints like [S-shaped molding], [Arch type], or [Molding shape]. But you will occasionally encounter a nasty, like Brendan Emmett Quigley’s rather ambiguous [Distinctive profile].

While researching today’s word, I also stumbled upon another couple of pieces of armory for the word gamer’s arsenal.

First was OGIVE, which often refers to ‘a pointed or Gothic arch’ (adj. OGIVAL), and also shares a complex lineage with ogee that I won’t attempt to reproduce here.

Second was SIGMOID, which I finally got around to looking up today, and which is usually used to mean ‘S-shaped’.

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For those of us who take word games a little more seriously than most…

Category Archives: Vowel Heavy Words