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Dec 22, 2017
This week’s theme
There’s a word for it

This week’s words
ergophobia
breviloquence
exeleutherostomize
corpocracy
obdormition

coma toes
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This week’s comments
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

obdormition

PRONUNCIATION:
(ob-dor-MISH-uhn)

MEANING:
noun: Numbness in a limb, usually caused by pressure on a nerve. Also known as falling asleep.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin obdormire (to fall asleep), from dormire (to sleep). Earliest documented use: 1634.

NOTES:
There is a word even for what comes after obdormition: paresthesia. (also known as pins and needles).

USAGE:
“You end up driving with your foot on the floor beneath the clutch pedal, slowly losing the battle to obdormition.”
Ezra Dyer; A Priority of Cornering Over Horsepower; The New York Times; Aug 3, 2012.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
When all's said and done, all roads lead to the same end. So it's not so much which road you take, as how you take it. -Charles de Lint, writer (b. 22 Dec 1951)

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