These words from the Lives of the Stoics (p. 18) made me smile (and remember my Aunt Bonnie. I think the words describe me, since this is what I do with my books every day: "...poring over lines of written text ... A masticator of words..." My aunt is the only person I have ever heard actually use the word "masticate."
Word of the Day
mas·ti·cate / verb = chew (food). Masticate is a technical word meaning to chew. The word masticate is almost always used in a scientific or technical context. In the everyday context of eating, people usually just say "chew." Here's a chart I found about the use of the word "masticate" over time:
My aunt was born in 1904, when using "masticate" was at its height. I wonder where she heard the word. I wasn't born until 1940. If you can't read the small dates along the bottom, they show 1800 — 1850 — 1900 — 1950 — 2019.
No comments:
Post a Comment