A.Word.A.Day --salmagundi

A.Word.A.Day

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Mar 15, 2010

This week's theme
Words about food and eating

This week's words
salmagundi
edacious
olla podrida
prandial
gallimaufry

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

There are times when we have to eat our words, and that's never pleasant. This week's words are all edible (and some potable), from Latin edere: to eat (and potare: to drink). Some describe food, others are used metaphorically, and in some cases, the food origin is hidden in the etymology.

And we have quite a varied menu. We serve words from French, Spanish, and Latin. Bon appétit!

salmagundi

PRONUNCIATION:

(sal-muh-GUHN-dee)

MEANING:

noun:
1. A heterogeneous mixture.
2. A mixed salad of various ingredients, such as meat, eggs, anchovies, onions, oil, vinegar, etc.

ETYMOLOGY:

From French salmigondis (originally "seasoned salted meats"), probably from salemine (salted food) + condir (to season).

USAGE:

"After a few years of musical production, the varied musical whims that have inspired their salmagundi of tracks is happily all over the place."
One-man Band Bounces Back To Originality; Gainesville Sun (Florida); Jul 1, 2007.

See more usage examples of salmagundi in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event -- in the living act, the undoubted deed -- there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. -Herman Melville, novelist and poet (1819-1891)

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