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<dc:date>2008-08-06T22:33+37:00
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<item rdf:about="http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Aug.06.2008">
<title>visage</title>
<link>http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Aug.06.2008</link>
<description><![CDATA[
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 06, 2008 is:

	visage &#149; \VIZ-ij\&nbsp; &#149; noun
*1    :  the face, countenance, or appearance of a person or sometimes an animal 2    : aspect, appearance 


	Example sentence:
	The model's fierce, smoldering visage appears to gaze with contempt from billboards throughout the city.


	Did you know?
	The word &quot;face&quot; may be a pretty generic word, but it has several high-flown synonyms. &quot;Physiognomy,&quot; for instance, refers to facial features thought to reveal qualities of temperament or character (&quot;I thought I could detect in his physiognomy a mind owning better qualities than his father ever possessed. . . .&quot; -- Emily Bront&euml;, Wuthering Heights). &quot;Countenance&quot; is often used to refer to the face as an indication of mood or emotion (&quot;Mina struggled hard to keep her brave countenance. . . .&quot; -- Bram Stoker, Dracula). &quot;Visage&quot; can refer to the face of a person or an animal, and it can also refer to the appearance of nonliving things, as in &quot;the dirty visage of the old abandoned factory.&quot;

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Aug.05.2008">
<title>steadfast</title>
<link>http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Aug.05.2008</link>
<description><![CDATA[
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 05, 2008 is:

	steadfast &#149; \STED-fast\&nbsp; &#149; adjective
1  a : firmly fixed in place : immovable*b  :  not subject to change 2    : firm in belief, determination, or adherence : loyal 


	Example sentence:
	Maureen knew she could count on the steadfast support of her best friend even in the hardest of times.


	Did you know?
	&quot;Steadfast&quot; has held its ground in English for many centuries. Its Old English predecessor, &quot;stedef&aelig;st,&quot; combined &quot;stede&quot; (meaning &quot;place&quot; or &quot;stead&quot;) and &quot;f&aelig;st&quot; (meaning &quot;firmly fixed&quot;). An Old English text of the late 10th century, called &quot;The Battle of Maldon,&quot; contains our earliest record of the word, which was first used in battle contexts to describe warriors who stood their ground. Soon, it was also being used with the broad meaning &quot;immovable,&quot; and as early as the 13th century it was applied to those unswerving in loyalty, faith, or friendship. Centuries later, all of these meanings endure.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Aug.04.2008">
<title>cicerone</title>
<link>http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Aug.04.2008</link>
<description><![CDATA[
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 04, 2008 is:

	cicerone &#149; \sih-suh-ROH-nee\&nbsp; &#149; noun
1    : a guide who conducts sightseers *2    :  mentor, tutor 


	Example sentence:
	After I bought my first set of golf clubs, Jerry acted as my cicerone, enthusiastically teaching me the basics of the challenging sport.


	Did you know?
	Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 - 43 B.C.) was renowned in Rome as a statesman, lawyer, and writer, and he is remembered today for his skills as an orator and rhetorician. The Ciceronian style of rhetoric placed special emphasis on the rhythms and cadences of phrases and sentences and their ability to appeal to the speaker's audience. It is believed that Cicero's eloquence and learning influenced the use of his Italian name, &quot;Cicerone,&quot; to refer to sightseeing guides, themselves known for their talkativeness and eloquence, and later, to persons who serve as mentors or tutors to others.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Aug.03.2008">
<title>divagate</title>
<link>http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Aug.03.2008</link>
<description><![CDATA[
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 03, 2008 is:

	divagate &#149; \DYE-vuh-gayt\&nbsp; &#149; verb
 : to wander or stray from a course or subject : diverge, digress 


	Example sentence:
	The novel divagates and meanders through a labyrinth of subplots and asides.


	Did you know?
	&quot;Divagate&quot; hasn't wandered far in meaning from its Latin ancestors. It descends from the verb &quot;divagari,&quot; which comes from &quot;dis-,&quot; meaning &quot;apart,&quot; and &quot;vagari,&quot; meaning &quot;to wander.&quot; &quot;Vagari&quot; also gave us &quot;vagabond,&quot; meaning &quot;a wanderer with no home,&quot; and &quot;extravagant,&quot; an early, now archaic, sense of which was &quot;wandering away.&quot; Latin &quot;vagari&quot; is also probably the source of our noun &quot;vagary,&quot; which now usually means &quot;whim or caprice&quot; but originally meant &quot;journey, excursion, or tour.&quot; Even the verb &quot;stray&quot; may have evolved from &quot;vagari,&quot; by way of Vulgar Latin and Middle French. Today, &quot;divagate&quot; can suggest a wandering or straying that is literal (as in &quot;the hikers divagated from the trail&quot;), but it is more often used figuratively (as in &quot;she tends to divagate from the subject&quot;).

]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Aug.02.2008">
<title>cursory</title>
<link>http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Aug.02.2008</link>
<description><![CDATA[
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 02, 2008 is:

	cursory &#149; \KER-suh-ree\&nbsp; &#149; adjective
 : rapidly and often superficially performed or produced : hasty 


	Example sentence:
	A cursory reading of the syllabus made it clear that Professor Leary's sociology class was not going to be as easy as we had anticipated.


	Did you know?
	&quot;Cursory&quot; and its synonyms &quot;superficial&quot; and &quot;shallow&quot; all mean &quot;lacking in depth or solidity&quot; -- but these words are not used in exactly the same way in all cases. &quot;Cursory,&quot; which comes from the Latin verb &quot;currere&quot; (&quot;to run&quot;), implies speed and stresses a lack of attention to detail. While &quot;cursory&quot; suggests a lack of thoroughness, &quot;superficial&quot; implies a concern only with surface aspects or obvious features. An analysis of a problem might be labeled &quot;superficial&quot; if it considers only the obvious and fails to dig deeper into the issue. &quot;Shallow&quot; is more generally derogatory in implying lack of depth in knowledge, reasoning, emotions, or character, as in &quot;insensitive and shallow comments.&quot;

]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Aug.01.2008">
<title>progeny</title>
<link>http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Aug.01.2008</link>
<description><![CDATA[
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 01, 2008 is:

	progeny &#149; \PRAH-juh-nee\&nbsp; &#149; noun
1  a : descendants, children*b  :  offspring of animals or plants 2    : outcome, product 3    : a body of followers, disciples, or successors 


	Example sentence:
	The champion thoroughbred passed on his speed, endurance, and calm temperament to his progeny, many of whom became successful racehorses themselves.


	Did you know?
	&quot;Progeny&quot; is the progeny of the Latin verb &quot;progignere,&quot; meaning &quot;to beget.&quot; That Latin word is itself an offspring of the prefix &quot;pro-,&quot; meaning &quot;forth,&quot; and &quot;gignere,&quot; which can mean &quot;to beget&quot; or &quot;to bring forth.&quot; &quot;Gignere&quot; has produced a large family of English descendants, including &quot;benign&quot; (meaning &quot;mild&quot; or &quot;harmless&quot;), &quot;congenital&quot; (meaning &quot;inherent&quot;), &quot;engine,&quot; &quot;genius,&quot; &quot;germ,&quot; &quot;indigenous,&quot; &quot;ingenuous,&quot; and &quot;malign.&quot; &quot;Gignere&quot; even paired up with &quot;pro-&quot; again to produce a close relative of &quot;progeny&quot;: the noun &quot;progenitor,&quot; which can mean &quot;an ancestor in the direct line,&quot; &quot;a biologically ancestral form,&quot; or &quot;a precursor or originator.&quot;

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Jul.31.2008">
<title>oldster</title>
<link>http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Jul.31.2008</link>
<description><![CDATA[
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 31, 2008 is:

	oldster &#149; \OHLD-ster\&nbsp; &#149; noun
 : an old or elderly person 


	Example sentence:
	More and more oldsters are embracing the Internet and connecting and interacting using social networking Web sites.


	Did you know?
	&quot;Youngster&quot; has been used since the 16th century as a word for a young person with a lot of spunk. It has also long been used by maritime people as a word for a midshipman who has served less than four years. This use is connected with the Dutch word &quot;younker,&quot; which, like &quot;youngster,&quot; refers to a young person as well as a young seaman. &quot;Oldster&quot; came about as a word used to differentiate the inexperienced midshipmen, or youngsters, from the experienced ones. To be exact, an oldster is a midshipman of four years' standing. Charles Dickens gets credit for the earliest known use of &quot;oldster&quot; in the general sense of &quot;an old person.&quot; In his 1848 novel Dombey &amp; Son he wrote, &quot;Her eyes would play the Devil with the youngsters before long -- 'and the oldsters too, Sir, if you come to that,' added the Major.&quot;

]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Jul.30.2008">
<title>wangle</title>
<link>http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Jul.30.2008</link>
<description><![CDATA[
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 30, 2008 is:

	wangle &#149; \WANG-gul\&nbsp; &#149; verb
1    : to adjust or manipulate for personal or fraudulent ends *2    :  to make or get by devious means : finagle 


	Example sentence:
	Steve didn't tell Sharon how he'd wangled an extra week of vacation, and she didn't care as long as it meant they could go to Greece for their honeymoon.


	Did you know?
	&quot;Wangle,&quot; a verb of uncertain origin, has been used in its newest sense, &quot;to obtain by sly methods,&quot; since at least the early 20th century. Occasionally, one sees &quot;wrangle&quot; used similarly, as in &quot;wrangle a huge salary,&quot; but more typically it means &quot;to argue or engage in controversy.&quot; Did the &quot;obtain&quot; sense of &quot;wrangle&quot; evolve through confusion with &quot;wangle&quot;? Not exactly. &quot;Wrangle&quot; was used with the meaning &quot;to obtain by arguing or bargaining&quot; as early as 1624, long before &quot;wangle&quot; appeared in the language. The sense had all but disappeared until recent decades, however, and its revival may very well have been influenced by &quot;wangle.&quot; The &quot;obtain&quot; sense of &quot;wangle&quot; is currently more common than that of &quot;wrangle,&quot; but both are considered standard.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Jul.29.2008">
<title>impecunious</title>
<link>http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Jul.29.2008</link>
<description><![CDATA[
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 29, 2008 is:

	impecunious &#149; \im-pih-KYOO-nee-uss\&nbsp; &#149; adjective
 : having very little or no money usually habitually : penniless 


	Example sentence:
	My impecunious uncle, who could not afford to buy his own books, usually ended up borrowing mine.


	Did you know?
	If &quot;impecunious&quot; means &quot;penniless,&quot; then it stands to reason that &quot;pecunious&quot; can describe someone who has a lot of money. That is true, but &quot;pecunious&quot; is used with far less frequency in English than its opposite and is not found in many dictionaries. What's more, on the rare occasion when &quot;pecunious&quot; is put to use in English, it often means not &quot;wealthy&quot; but &quot;miserly or ungenerous,&quot; as in &quot;a pecunious attitude toward the less fortunate.&quot; &quot;Impecunious&quot; describes somebody who lacks the money to buy necessities, but it does not carry the connotation of desperation found in such words as &quot;indigent&quot; or &quot;destitute.&quot; Both &quot;pecunious&quot; and &quot;impecunious&quot; derive via Middle English from the Latin &quot;pecunia,&quot; meaning &quot;money.&quot;

]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Jul.28.2008">
<title>Xanadu</title>
<link>http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Jul.28.2008</link>
<description><![CDATA[
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 28, 2008 is:

	Xanadu &#149; \ZAN-uh-doo\&nbsp; &#149; noun
 : an idyllic, exotic, or luxurious place 


	Example sentence:
	To Arthur, the beach house was a Xanadu, the perfect spot for the romantic tropical vacation he had dreamed of for years.


	Did you know?
	&quot;In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure-dome decree.&quot; Those lines are from the poem &quot;Kubla Khan&quot; (published in 1816) by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Coleridge's fantastic description of an exotic utopia fired public imagination and ultimately contributed to the transition of &quot;Xanadu&quot; from a name to a generalized term for an idyllic place. The Xanadu in the poem was inspired by Shang-tu, the summer residence of Mongolian general and statesman Kublai Khan (grandson of Genghis Khan). You might also recognize &quot;Xanadu&quot; as the name of the fantastic estate in Orson Welles's 1941 film Citizen Kane.

]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Jul.27.2008">
<title>permeate</title>
<link>http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Jul.27.2008</link>
<description><![CDATA[
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 27, 2008 is:

	permeate &#149; \PER-mee-ayt\&nbsp; &#149; verb
*1    :  to diffuse through or penetrate (something) 2    : to pass through the pores or interstices of 


	Example sentence:
	The scent of lilacs permeated the air as soon as the bushes bloomed outside my window.


	Did you know?
	It's no surprise that &quot;permeate&quot; means &quot;to pass through&quot; something -- it was borrowed into English in the mid-17th century from the Latin &quot;permeatus,&quot; which comes from the prefix &quot;per-&quot; (&quot;through&quot;) and the verb &quot;meare,&quot; meaning &quot;to go&quot; or &quot;to pass.&quot; &quot;Meare&quot; itself comes from an ancient root that may have also led to Middle Welsh and Czech words meaning &quot;to go&quot; and &quot;to pass,&quot; respectively. Other descendants of &quot;meare&quot; in English include &quot;permeative,&quot; &quot;permeable,&quot; &quot;meatus&quot; (&quot;a natural body passage&quot;), and the relatively rare &quot;irremeable&quot; (&quot;offering no possibility of return&quot;).
 *Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.medterms.com/guide.asp?s=rss&#x26;k=WordOfTheDay&#x26;a=11851">
<title>Umbilical cord</title>
<link>http://www.medterms.com/guide.asp?s=rss&#x26;k=WordOfTheDay&#x26;a=11851</link>
<description><![CDATA[Umbilical cord: The cord that connects the 
developing embryo or fetus with the placenta and through which run the umbilical arteries and vein. The matrix (the substance) of the umbilical cord is
known as Wharton's jelly and is a rich source of stem cells. At birth the umbilical cord measures about 20 inches (50 cm) in length. The cord is clamped and cut after birth and its residual tip forms the umbilicus (bellybutton).
MedTerms (TM) is the Medical Dictionary of MedicineNet.com.We Bring Doctors' Knowledge To You]]></description>
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