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A.Word.A.Day--rialto

Pronunciation RealAudio

rialto (re-AL-to) noun

1. A theatre district.

2. An exchange or marketplace.

[After Rialto, an island of Venice which was the commercial center of the city. The Rialto bridge was the first bridge on the Grand Canal.]

"It was this... that made it some forty or fifty years ago the rialto of the West Indian islands."
Daily Chronicle; Sep 23, 1901.

This week's theme: words derived from Italian landmarks.

X-Bonus

No society that feeds its children on tales of successful violence can expect them not to believe that violence in the end is rewarded. -Margaret Mead, anthropologist (1901-1978)

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