Pronounced: ROO-bih-kon, noun
Notes: If you are good at history, you may know the meaning of this word
Yesterday’s word
The word zeugma is “the use of a word to modify or govern two or more words in such a way that it applies to each in a different sense”
First usage
Our word came into English in the early 1500s
Background / Comment
An example of zeugma may be useful: “On his fishing trip, he caught three salmon and a cold” — “caught” is a zeugma, as it applies to both the salmon and the cold, but there is a different sense for each. Our word came from the Greek word zeugma (a yoking; a bond; a joining). Have you heard of zeugmatography? That was the name chosen by chemistry professor Paul Lauterbur for a technique he developed to produce images of internal organs. He was awarded a Nobel prize, but the name of his technique didn’t stick: today we call it MRI (magnetic resonance imaging).
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 