Pronounced: kuh-NOR-us, adj
Notes: I didn’t know the meaning, but after seeing it, it made sense
Yesterday’s word
The word rostrum is
- a platform, stage, dais, etc, for public speaking
- a beaklike projection on a warship, used for ramming another ship
- a snout, beak, or bill of an animal
First usage
Our word came into English in the mid-1500s
Background / Comments
As I noted yesterday, I knew the first definition above, but the others were strange to me. In ancient Rome, a speaking platform was decorated with the beaks of captured ships… and thus, the first definition. The word comes from the Latin word rostrum (snout; bill; beak), from came from rodere (to gnaw), which explains the other meanings.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 