blackbird

Pronounced: just like it looks, noun/verb

Notes: I think most of us know the bird called a blackbird, but there is another definition as a noun. In addition, did you know that this word was a verb?

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Yesterday’s word

The word tumescent means “pompous and pretentious, especially in one’s speech; filled with ideas; teeming”

First usage

Our word came into English in the late 1800s.

Background / Comments

I don’t like the first part of the definition; pompous and pretentious are good things to ignore, but “filled with ideas” and “teeming” seem quite positive. In fact, some dictionaries have the negative and positive aspects as separate definitions. As you might guess, our word comes from Latin – specifically from the word tumēscent, a stem of tumēscēns, the present participle of tumēscere (to begin to swell)