A.Word.A.Day --loggerhead

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Today's Word

loggerhead

PRONUNCIATION:

(LOG-uhr-hed)

MEANING:

noun:
1. A blockhead: a dull or slow-witted person.
2. A loggerhead turtle.

ETYMOLOGY:

From dialectal logger (block of wood) + head, from Old English heafod (top of the body). Earliest documented use: 1595.

NOTES:

To make it absolutely clear, the turtle is so named due to its impressive cranium, not because it’s dull or slow-witted. We don’t want to receive a nasty letter from a marine lawyer.

USAGE:

“He’s a loggerhead. Good for nothing. I hereby subtract him from my life.”
A.K.B. Kumar; All That Glitters Is Not God; Partridge Publishing; 2014.

See more usage examples of loggerhead in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

For 50 million years our biggest problems were too few calories, too little information. For about 50 years our biggest problem has been too many calories, too much information. We have to adjust, and I believe we will really fast. I also believe it will be wicked ugly while we're adjusting. -Penn Jillette, magician, actor, musician, inventor, television presenter, and author (b. 5 Mar 1955)

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