Pronounced: pol-ih-TESS (alt: poe-lee-TESS), noun
Notes: You might be able to guess the meaning of this word
Yesterday’s word
The word esemplastic means “shaping or having the power to shape disparate things into a unified whole”
First usage
Our word came into English in the early 1800s
Background / Comments
I was very surprised to see the early date of this word, as I was under the impression that plastic was invented after World War II (incidentally, I was wrong). However, the word plastic predates (by a long way) the invention of plastic. Our word was coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It was a combination of the Greek phrase es hen (into one) with plastic (capable of being molded), which came from the Latin word plasticus (that which may be molded) which came from the Greek word plastikós.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 