prebuttal

Pronounced: prih-BUH-tl, noun

Notes: I didn’t know that this was a word

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Yesterday’s word

The word struthious means “of or relating to the ostriches or other ratite birds”

First usage

Our word came into English in the mid-1700s

Background / Comments

The definition given above is the scientific sense of our word (by the way, “ratite” refers to birds that have a flat, unkeeled sternum, such as the ostrich, emu, moa, and cassowary). Our word can also be used in a figurative sense meaning “ostrich-like”. I have heard all my life about an ostrich’s habit of burying its head in the sand; however, it turns out that this is a myth – they don’t do this. Instead, they lie down and flatten their neck and head against the ground. Our word came from the Late Latin word strūthiō (ostrich), which came from the Late Greek word strouthíōn, which came from the Greek word struthós (sparrow; bird). In Greek an ostrich is struthòs ho mégas – literally, “the big bird”.