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Mar 19, 2019
This week’s theme
Words that violate the i-before-e rule

This week’s words
reveille
facies
mythopoeic
obeisance
conscientious

facies
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

facies

PRONUNCIATION:
(FAY-shee-eez, -sheez)

MEANING:
noun:
1. General appearance.
2. In medicine, a distinctive appearance associated with a pathological condition.
3. In geology, a body of rock with specific characteristics.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin facies (face). Earliest documented use: 1398.

USAGE:
“The cholera victim no longer has any face: he has a facies -- a facies that could only mean cholera. The eye, sunk deep in its socket and seemingly atrophied.”
Jean Giono; The Horseman on the Roof; North Point Press; 1982.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
It's best to give while your hand is still warm. -Philip Roth, novelist (19 Mar 1933-2018)

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