Pronounced: FAR-dl, noun
Notes: An interesting word to know – it’s new to me
Yesterday’s word
The word hummock is
- a rounded knoll or hillock
- a ridge of ice
- a fertile area in the southern United States (especially Florida)
First usage
Our word came into English in the mid-1500s
Background / Comments
As you can see, the definition has nothing to do with a hammock, so how is one “right” who thinks of “hammock”? It turns out that “hammock” is an alternate form of our word, but it not related at all to the swinging bed made of canvas that we call a “hammock” (that comes from the Spanish word hamaca, which came from Taino (a language spoken by the original inhabitants of the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas). Getting back to our word, the exact etymology is unclear, but it is related to the Middle Low German word hummel (small height).
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 