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Dec 26, 2016
This week’s themeLong words This week’s words chintz sesquipedalian dermatoglyphics hemidemisemiquaver supercalifragilisticexpialidocious 
A dress in chintz
Photo: Hugo Maertens/Wikimedia
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu GargSomeone sent me a picture of this tattoo that says “I see God in birds and Satan in long words.” It’s a splendid tattoo and I love our feathery friends. What I was really intrigued about was what the owner of this artwork had against long words. Turns out the line is from a song. Not sure I agree with it. Just as all living beings, human and non-human, of all shapes and sizes, of all colors and stripes, enrich our world, so do words, short and long, homegrown and imported, plain and exotic, enrich our language. About 10 years ago we did a week of long words. This week we’ll feature another set of long words, except that these words are long in some special manner. For example, today’s word is the longest word with all letters in alphabetical order. There are others with the same length, but they are everyday words, such as “almost” and “begins”. chintz
PRONUNCIATION:
(chints)
MEANING:
noun: A printed and glazed cotton fabric, typically with a flowery pattern.
ETYMOLOGY:
From chintz, a printed cotton fabric imported from India, from Hindi chheent
(spattering, stain). Earliest documented use: 1614. The word has resulted in
the adjective chintzy meaning gaudy or stingy.
USAGE:
“Caspian fingered the edge of the chintz curtain.” Beatriz Williams; Tiny Little Thing; Berkeley Books; 2015. See more usage examples of chintz in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and
willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea,
whether a good one or a bad one. -Henry Miller, writer (26 Dec 1891-1980)
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