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Jul 9, 2009
This week's theme
Words with three letters in alphabetic sequence

This week's words
defenestrate
limnology
panoply
somnolent
Sturm und Drang

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

somnolent

PRONUNCIATION:
(SOM-nuh-lent)

MEANING:
adjective:
1. Sleepy; drowsy.
2. Sleep-inducing.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin somnus (sleep). Ultimately from the Indo-European root swep- (to sleep) that is also the source of insomnia, hypnosis, soporific (inducing sleep), and somnambulate (to walk in sleep).
Somnopathy, a variant of somnipathy, the word for a sleep disorder, has four consecutive letters from the alphabet.

USAGE:
"It is encouraging to see such curiosity from the traditionally somnolent panel."
The House Eyes the Swamp; The New York Times; Jul 2, 2009.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Absence in love is like water upon fire; a little quickens, but much extinguishes it. -Hannah More, writer (1745-1833)

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