This week’s theme
Weird plurals

This week’s words
stigma
ala
stratum
gutta
charisma

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(STRAY-tuhm, STRAT-uhm)
plural strata (STRAY-tuh, STRAT-uh) or stratums

MEANING:

noun: A layer of something, as rock, tissue, people at an economic level, etc.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin stratum (cover), past participle of sternere (to spread). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ster- (to spread), which also gave us structure, industry, destroy, street, Russian perestroika, stratagem, and stratocracy. Earliest documented use: 1599. Nowadays, the word is often seen in its plural form used as a singular, similar to agenda, errata, etc.

USAGE:

“On the highway from Damascus to Aleppo, towns and villages lie desolate. A new stratum of dead cities has joined the ones from Roman times.”
Smaller, in Ruins, and More Sectarian; The Economist (London, UK); Jun 30, 2018.

See more usage examples of stratum in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: