This week's theme
Words derived from hand

This week's words
manumit
chiral
handsel
mano a mano
palmer

This week's comments
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Next week's theme
Verbs

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(PAH-muhr)

MEANING:

noun:	1. A pilgrim.
	2. An itinerant monk.
	3. One who conceals a card or another object in a magic trick or in cheating in a game.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin palma (palm tree, palm of the hand). The name of the palm tree derives from the resemblance of the shape of its frond to the palm of a hand. In Medieval Europe, a pilgrim brought back a palm branch as a token of his pilgrimage. Earliest documented use: 1300. Also see palmy & palmary.

USAGE:

"For the profane palmer the tour might indeed have been little more than a grand debauch, but for a devoted pilgrim like Jefferson it was something more."
Michael Knox Beran; Jefferson's Demons; Free Press; 2003.

"That was magic -- not the apparent magic of the silk-hatted card-palmer, or the bold, brute trickery of the escape artist, but the genuine magic of art."
Michael Chabon; The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay; Random House; 2000.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: