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A.Word.A.Day--adamite

Pronunciation Sound Clip RealAudio

This week's theme: eponyms.

adamite (AD-uh-myt) noun

1. A nudist.

[After the name of some Christian sects who professed to imitate the first human, Adam, in not wearing any clothes.]

2. A human being.

[After Adam, the prototypical human.]

3. A mineral (zinc arsenate hydroxide) usually yellow and green in color.

[After mineralogist Gilbert Joseph Adam (1795-1881).]

-Anu Garg (garg AT wordsmith.org)

"Among the curious assembly in this utopian community were British transcendentalist Charles Lane and his ten-year-old son; Isaac Hecker, who founded the Roman Catholic Paulist Fathers; and an adamite." Laurie Morrow; The Philosopher's Daughter; The World & I (Washington, DC); May 2002.

X-Bonus

We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. -Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

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