Word

The >>Word of the Day<< today over at dictionary.com is >>oblation<<.

>>Oblation<< comes from the past participle form of the Latin verb* >>offerre<< meaning >>to bring<<.

So, an oblation is an offering or a gift.

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* A Latin verb is traditionally cited by giving four forms, in this case: offero, offerre, obtuli, oblatum.

Which is more useful to you: a dictionary that tells you how to use a word or a dictionary that tells you how a word is used?

I think that Word is one of these strange softwares that can do anything except what you think it can do. It's not possible to write with this thing, but you can spend your day goofing with toolbars or including all types of spreadsheets or multimedia or even use it as the worst HTML-Editor ever.

I prefer ASCII, really.

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Words like winter snowflakes.

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 – Homer (c. 700 B.C.)
 – The Iliad, bk. III, l. 222

Words derive their meaning from the surrounding words, just as human beings derive their meaning from interacting with other humans around them.

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We shall never understand one another until we reduce the language to seven words.

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 – Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)
 – Sand and Foam [1926]

mortar my words
with particles
prepositions
adverbs
and conjunctions

»Therefore« is a word the poet must not know.

(Andre Gide)

Think how much acceptance Mary showed when she said:

»Let it be done to me according to thy word.«

Words beginning with the »sn« sound in English are often unpleasant: snide, snob, snigger, sneer, snicker, snub, snert, snotty, snippy, snit, snarl, snore, sneak, snag. »Snow« is a word over which there is debate and even an annual change of heart. The first snowfall is almost always welcomed. Christmas snow is considered magical. But too much of a good thing for too long and March blizzards push »snow« into line with the rest of the »sn« words.

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There it was, word for word,
The poem that took the place of a mountain.


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 – Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)
 – The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain [1952], st. I

'Right again, quite right,' said Mr Swiveller, 'caution is the word, and caution is the act.'

And then some more words come along and a paragraph is born.

The web of words wraps round the whole wide world, concealing the secret numbers underneath.

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