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Jan 22, 2010
This week's theme
Miscellaneous words

This week's words
asperity
obscurantism
sedulous
surcease
lineament

Next week's theme
Words made with combining forms

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

lineament

PRONUNCIATION:
(LIN-ee-uh-muhnt)

MEANING:
noun:
1. A distinctive feature, especially of a face.
2. A linear topographic feature, as of the earth.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin lineamentum (contour, outline), from lineare (to draw a line), from linea (line). Ultimately from the Indo-European root lino- (flax) that is also the source of line, align, lineage, linen, lingerie, lint, and linseed.

USAGE:
"A gleam of exultation shot across the darkly painted lineaments of the inhabitant of the forest."
James Fenimore Cooper; The Last of the Mohicans; 1826.

"The possibility that the lineament is a fault, and the possibility that it extends under Mt. Natib need urgently to be explored."
Kelvin S. Rodolfo; The Geological Hazards of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant; The Philippine Star (Manila); Mar 5, 2009.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Sometimes, exhausted / with toil and endeavour, / I wish I could sleep / for ever and ever; / but then this reflection / my longing allays: / I shall be doing it / one of these days. -Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)

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