circumvallate

Pronounced: sir-kuhm-VAL-ate, verb

Notes: Well, I knew part of the word, but not the whole thing

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Yesterday’s word

The word amaranthine means

• of or relating to an amaranth (ANNOYING definition!!)
• not fading or dying: immortal
• being dark reddish purple

First usage

This word showed up in the mid-1600s

Background / Comments

I don’t like it when the definition of a word uses a different form of that word (like in the first definition above). A long time ago, poets had the idea of a flower that never faded and called it amaranth, from the Greek words amarantos (immortal, unfading) and anthos (flower). Thus, our word came to be the adjective that described this imaginary flower. By extension, it came to mean anything that has an undying quality. Oddly enough, there is now a real plant called an amaranth; it is a herb that some consider a weed and others grow on purpose because of it’s colorful leaves and spikes of flowers. In chemistry, an amaranth is also a purplish red water-soluble powder that can be used an an azo dye; thus, our word (the adjective) can refer to something of this color.