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Feb 16, 2026
This week’s themeWords that sound dirty, but aren’t This week’s words 
Image: Amazon 
Invagination in a sea urchin
Image: Wikimedia Previous week’s theme Is it a noun or a verb? Both! 
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu GargHere’s a riddle for you: What’s a four-letter word that ends in U-N-T and applies to a woman? It is AUNT, of course. What were you thinking? This week’s words are like this riddle: they may cause a momentary blush at first glance, but each is impeccably respectable. Every word this week is 100% safe for work. If the office email filter blocks A.Word.A.Day it’s only revealing its limited vocabulary. Welcome to a week of words that sound dirty, but aren’t. invaginate
PRONUNCIATION:
(in-VAJ-uh-nayt)
MEANING:
verb tr.: 1. To enclose or to put into a sheath. 2. To fold inward so an outer surface becomes an inner surface, forming a cavity or pouch. ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin invaginare (to sheathe), from vagina (sheath). Earliest documented use: 1656.
USAGE:
“[The stadium lights] loomed like the illuminated spacecraft in Close
Encounters of the Third Kind, invaginating me from on high.” Wayne C. Cooper; There’s No Place to Hide; Philadelphia Inquirer (Pennsylvania); Jan 8, 2000. “[Patricia Highsmith] cleverly seduces the reader into identifying with Ripley until by the end our moral responses have been so invaginated, we are actively on the side of the killer.” Andrew Wilson; The Beautiful Shadow; The Guardian (London, UK); May 17, 2003. See more usage examples of invaginate in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the
systematic organization of hatreds. -Henry Adams, historian and teacher (16
Feb 1838-1918)
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