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Sep 30, 2024
This week’s themeWords differing by a letter This week’s words androgenic ideophone idiophone thanatopsis thanatosis 
Illustration: Anu Garg + AI Previous week’s theme Words differing by a letter 
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu GargYou’ve likely heard of the butterfly effect -- how a tiny change, like a butterfly flapping its wings in a distant prairie, could stir up a storm on the other side of the world. Just as a small change in nature can cause a ripple, so can the smallest tweak in language create entirely new meanings. Welcome back to week two of our wordplay adventure! This week, we continue our journey by making a tiny shift -- just one letter -- to each word and see how it transforms. We begin with a change to last Fri’s androgynic. What words like this can you think of? Share below or email us at words@wordsmith.org. For even more linguistic mischief, check out the weeks where each word had two definitions, differing by just a single letter: here and here. androgenic
PRONUNCIATION:
(an-druh-JEN-ik)
MEANING:
adjective: 1. Relating to the development of male characteristics. 2. Having origin in the male sex. ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek andro- (man) + -genic (producing). Earliest documented use: 1919.
USAGE:
“[Mossy Kilcher] has finished a memoir about her young life on the
homestead, meant partly as her corrective to the androgenic versions
of Alaskan life promoted by reality television.” Grayson Haver Currin; Folk Songs for Alaska Get a Second Life; The New York Times; Jul 15, 2020. “Danazol was commonly used to treat endometriosis in the 1980s, but many cis-gender women were turned off the medication because of the androgenic effects of a deepening voice and coarse facial hair.” Christel Yardley; “Every Boy Should Know About It”; Dominion Post (Wellington, New Zealand); Dec 8, 2020. See more usage examples of androgenic in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Racism tends to attract attention when it's flagrant and filled with
invective. But like all bigotry, the most potent component of racism is
frame-flipping -- positioning the bigot as the actual victim. So the gay do
not simply want to marry; they want to convert our children into sin. The
Jews do not merely want to be left in peace; they actually are plotting
world take-over. And the blacks are not actually victims of American power,
but beneficiaries of the war against hard-working whites. This is a
respectable, more sensible bigotry, one that does not seek to name-call,
preferring instead to change the subject and straw man. -Ta-Nehisi Coates,
writer and journalist (b. 30 Sep 1975)
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