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This week's theme Toponyms. This week's words Chinese puzzle Toronto blessing Bristol fashion Roman nose Glasgow kiss Roll the dice Get a random word from A.Word.A.Day archives Discuss Feedback RSS/XML A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg Toronto blessing PRONUNCIATION: (tuh-RON-toh BLES-ing) MEANING: noun: A form of religious rapture marked by outbreaks of mass fainting, laughter, shaking, weeping, fainting, speaking in tongues, etc. ETYMOLOGY: After Toronto, Canada, where the phenomenon was experienced in a church in Jan 1994. USAGE: "[The movie Pan's Labyrinth] was received in awestruck rapture by the world's press, and left me feeling a little like a Roman Catholic prelate at a pentecostal ceremony, smiling with thin politeness while all around congregants were getting a Toronto Blessing full in the face." Peter Bradshaw; Hellboy II: The Golden Army; The Guardian (London, UK); Aug 15, 2008. "We'd have the Toronto Blessing 24/7, hooting away at our own puffed-up selves, and our imagined separation from others -- and laughing in the final realization that we're all in this together." Geoff Olson; The Great Whatever; Vancouver Sun (Canada); Apr 14, 2001. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: You can't be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet. -Hal Borland, journalist (1900-1978)

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