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Nov 30, 2017
This week’s theme
Toponyms

This week’s words
faience
laconic
newgate
timbuktu
campanile

An astronomy and mathematics manuscript from Timbuktu
An astronomy and mathematics manuscript from Timbuktu

Map of Timbutu, Mali
Timbuktu, Mali
Images: Wikimedia

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

Timbuktu

PRONUNCIATION:
(tim-buk-TOO)

MEANING:
noun: A remote place.

ETYMOLOGY:
After a town in central Mali in West Africa. Earliest documented use: 1863.

USAGE:
“Her first thought was that her car had been stolen, but her gaze found the NO PARKING -- TOW ZONE sign that she must have missed last night,
maybe because she was exhausted or cranky that she had to park in Timbuktu.” Lisa Scottoline; Accused; St. Martin’s Press; 2013.

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

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Although the connections are not always obvious, personal change is inseparable from social and political change. -Harriet Lerner, psychologist (b. 30 Nov 1944)

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