Pronounced: KWA-lee (alt: KWA-lay), noun
Notes: Interesting plural form (qualia); not a word I knew
Yesterday’s word
The word mithridate is “an antidote against poison; especially a confection held to be effective against poison”
First usage
Our word came into English in the 1500s
Background / Comments
It wasn’t until I read the etymology that our word sounded familiar. Around three months ago, we have a similar word, with the same background – mithridatism and, almost a year ago, we had mithridatize. And yet the meaning of our word is slightly different. Since I’ve given the story twice, I won’t repeat it again; you can read about Mithridates the Great in those links.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 