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Nov 28, 2002

This week's theme
Kangaroo words

This week's words
indolent
rapscallion
amicable
frangible
scion

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frangible

adjective: Readily broken; breakable.

[From Middle English, from Old French, from Medieval Latin frangibilis, from Latin frangere (to break). The same Latin root is responsible for breaking in a number of other words, such as chamfer, defray, fraction, refract, infringe, and fracture.]

The word "frangible" has three generations of kangaroos: its joey "fragile" which in turn has its own little one "frail". Can you think of other words like that?

"Wax discs are frangible: a lost flake is an irretrievable snippet of sonic memory."
Alan Burdick; Now Hear This; Harper's Magazine (New York); Jul 2001.

"I can never read reviews of my own movies. I'm terrified to find out what the barbaric world thinks of my trembly filmic dreams and, by extension, my overly frangible soul."
Guy Maddin; Very Lush and Full of Ostriches; The Village Voice (New York); Aug 7, 2001.

Check out the story in today's New York Times: A Word of the Day Keeps Banality at Bay.

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