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This week's theme Yours to discover This week's words aphotic plashy procellous scrabble balsamic Missed a word? Check the archives chronological alphabetical plaintext or search the site Discuss Feedback RSS/XML A.Word.A.Day--aphotic It's that time of the year again when you get to don your word-sleuth hat. There's something common among this week's words but we're not telling -- it's your task to find the property that applies to all five words this week. Each day this week brings a new word that on the surface may not appear to share a trait with the others, but does. Will you be first to solve the mystery theme? If you think you have the answer, scribble it down and email it to wordsATwordsmith.org (replace AT with @). Only one answer per person, please. aphotic (ay-FO-tik) adjective Lightless, especially without sunlight. [From Greek a- (not) + phot- (light). Ultimately from Indo-European root bha- (to shine) that's also the source of beacon, beckon, phantom, phenomenon, and phosphorous.] Today's word in Visual Thesaurus. The aphotic zone of an ocean or lake is the part that's not exposed to sunlight. At such depths plants grow without photosynthesis. -Anu Garg (garg AT wordsmith.org) "In fact, Larry's craven musings and jaundiced view of the world is so aphotic, Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer seem like cheery philanthropists." Vinay Menon; Think Seinfeld Only Darker; The Toronto Star (Canada); Feb 12, 2003. X-Bonus We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. -Edward R. Murrow, journalist (1908-1965)

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