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Aug 28, 2008
This week's theme
Why use a simple word?

This week's words
dactylogram
apograph
argillaceous
maquillage
pleonexia

“There is no material with which human beings work which has so much potential energy as words.” ~Earnest Calkins
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

maquillage

PRONUNCIATION:
(ma-kee-AAZH)

MEANING:
noun: Makeup or cosmetics.

ETYMOLOGY:
From French maquillage (makeup), from maquiller (to apply makeup). Ultimately from the Indo-European root mag-/mak- (to knead, to fit) that is also the source of words make, mason, mass, match, and mingle.

USAGE:
"Wearing black boots and black Levi's, chains around his wrist and neck, a striped vest, a goatee, and a Caesar haircut, Kevyn Aucoin, 31, the Michelangelo of maquillage, stares intently at his canvas, brush in hand. The canvas is the delicate face of Kate Moss."
James Servin; The Face Maker; Harper's Bazaar (New York); Jan 1994.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Poets are soldiers that liberate words from the steadfast possession of definition. -Eli Khamarov, author (b. 1948)

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