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Dec 30, 2022
This week’s theme
Words with world records

This week’s words
eunoia
scraunch
limnophilous
pharmacopoeia
oxygeusia

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Misc words
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

oxygeusia

PRONUNCIATION:
(ok-see-GOO/GYOO-zee/zhee-uh, -zhuh)

MEANING:
noun: An acute sense of taste.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek oxy- (sharp) + -geusia (taste). Earliest documented use: 1848.

NOTES:
Oxygeusia is the shortest word with all six vowels (including the sometime-vowel y). The opposite is hypogeusia (a diminished sense of taste), which also has all six vowels, but is one letter longer. A complete lack of taste is ageusia. Example: People who like to cover everything around them in fake gold show their ageusia.

USAGE:
“Don’t you see, Watson? If the thief had oxygeusia as he had claimed, he wouldn’t have partaken of so much of that bland corn at the supper. Can you believe it, six bowel movements?”
Anu Garg, channeling Arthur Conan Doyle; The Adventure of Slivered Maize; 2022.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
In religion, faith is a virtue. In science, faith is a vice. -Jerry Coyne, biology professor (b. 30 Dec 1949)

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