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Sep 16, 2015
This week’s theme
Words coined after animals

This week’s words
doryphore
ratty
pullulate
winkle
capriole

chick
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

pullulate

PRONUNCIATION:
(PUHL-yuh-layt)

MEANING:
verb intr.:
1. To sprout or breed.
2. To swarm or teem.
3. To increase rapidly.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin pullulare (to sprout), from pullulus, diminutive of pullus (chicken, young animal), from Latin pullus (young animal). Ultimately from the Indo-European root pau- (few, little), which is also the source of few, foal, filly, pony, poor, pauper, poco, puerile, poltroon, punchinello, and catchpole. Earliest documented use: 1602.

USAGE:
“You know less than you think you do. The constant reinforcement of that sorry idea has become a drumbeat under parenting, as advice books of every kind pullulate like toadstools after a storm.”
Andrew Solomon; Go Play Outside; The New York Times; Dec 14, 2014.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation. Tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. -Jean Arp, artist and poet (16 Sep 1886-1966)

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