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Mar 25, 2025
This week’s theme
There’s a word for it

This week’s words
whatness
fleshment
pejorism
uniquity
whereness

fleshment
Cover: Life magazine, Dec 15, 1967
The first human-to-human heart transplant happened on Dec 3, 1967

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

fleshment

PRONUNCIATION:
(FLESH-muhnt)

MEANING:
noun: Excitement resulting from a first success at something.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Old English flǣsc (flesh). Earliest documented use: 1616.

NOTES:
The verb to flesh historically referred to the practice of rewarding hunting animals, such as a hound or a hawk, with flesh, thereby instilling a desire to hunt. This connection highlights the concept of initial, visceral excitement associated with both a successful hunt and a first achievement.

USAGE:
“Lexicographers sought out the thrill of the chase as much as detectives did. She remembered her linguistic fleshment, when she’d discovered as a student that ‘thrill’ itself, in medieval times, had meant to pierce someone with a sword; only later did the ‘piercing’ move to excitement.”
Susie Dent; Guilty by Definition; Bonnier Books; 2024.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
There is nothing more agreeable in life than to make peace with the Establishment -- and nothing more corrupting. -A.J.P. Taylor, historian (25 Mar 1906-1990)

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