hypogeum

Pronounced: high-puh-JEE-uhm (alt: hip-uh-JEE-uhm), noun

Notes: I don’t think I’ve ever run across this word

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Yesterday’s word

The word degustation is “tasting samples of a variety of similar foods or drinks”

First usage

Our word came into English in the mid-1600s

Background / Comments

I saw in this word “gust”, which reminds me of the sense of taste (think “gustatory”)… but I also thought of “disgust”, so my guess was some food that was repellent to the taste. I was clearly wrong, but not quite as wrong as I thought: our word comes from the Latin word degustare (to taste), which is made up of de- (completely) and gustare (to taste). This latter word comes from a root word that also gave us “disgust”.