infinitesimal

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The Word of the Day for February 28 is:

infinitesimal   \in-fin-ih-TESS-uh-mul\   adjective 
     1 : taking on values arbitrarily close to but greater than 
zero
   *2 : immeasurably or incalculably small  

Example sentence: 
     The days get longer in seemingly infinitesimal increments, 
but by the end of February we've gained two whole hours of 
sunlight since the winter solstice.

Did you know?
     "Infinite," as you probably know, means "endless" 
or "extending indefinitely." It is ultimately from 
Latin "infinitus," the opposite of "finitus," meaning "finite." 
The notion of smallness in "infinitesimal" derives from the 
mathematical concept that a quantity can be divided endlessly; 
no matter how small, it can be subdivided into yet smaller 
fractions, or "infinitesimals." The concept was still in its 
infancy in 1710 when Irish philosopher George Berkeley observed 
that some people "assert there are infinitesimals of 
infinitesimals of infinitesimals, etc., without ever coming to 
an end." He used the adjective in a mathematical sense, too, 
referring to "infinitesimal parts of finite lines." Less than a 
quarter century later, the adjective had acquired a general 
sense applicable to anything too small to be measured.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.