This week’s theme
Words derived from food

This week’s words
tzimmes
gravy train
cold turkey
nothingburger
plain-vanilla

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(PLAYN vuh-NIL-uh)

MEANING:

adjective: Basic, plain, or bland.

ETYMOLOGY:

From plain + vanilla, from Spanish vainilla (little pod), from vaina (sheath), from Latin vaginα (sheath) + -illa (diminutive suffix). Earliest documented use: 1942.

NOTES:

Once vanillin, the organic compound that gives vanilla its flavor, was synthesized, it became cheap to use vanilla flavor. It became the default flavor of ice-cream and soon the term was used for anything basic, unadorned, without any extras.

USAGE:

“Dad was expecting your plain-vanilla legislative report. Instead, Paul bound it in a four-color magazine stock cover with a beach scene and with the title ‘Footprints ... on the Sands of Time’.”
Mimi Swartz; Remembering Paul Burka; Texas Monthly (Austin); Oct 2022.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: