This week’s theme
Eponyms

This week’s words
gnathonic
bovarism
Mrs. Grundy
struwwelpeter
gargantua


This week’s comments
AWADmail 763

Next week’s theme
American eponyms

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(gar-GAN-choo-uh)

MEANING:

noun: A giant in size, feats, stature, or (physical or intellectual) appetites.

ETYMOLOGY:

After Gargantua, a voracious giant, the father of Pantagruel, in a series of novels by François Rabelais (c. 1490-1553). The son also has given a word to the English language: pantagruelian. Earliest documented use: 1571.

USAGE:

“In Io’s sky, Jupiter crawls like a gargantua, a bright, vast, streaked disk eating the blackness of space, so huge it seems intent on crushing everything under it.”
Dana Wilde; Io Roars and Shakes Its Fires in Empty Space; Bangor Daily News (Maine); Apr 23, 2007.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: