contiguous

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The Word of the Day for March 31 is: 

contiguous   \kun-TIG-yuh-wus\   adjective
     : being in contact : touching; also : next, adjoining 

Example sentence:
     The new airline will fly to all of the 48 contiguous 
states in the United States, but it will not have any flights 
to Alaska or Hawaii.

Did you know?
     You probably aren't surprised to learn that the 
word "contact" is a relative of "contiguous," but would you 
believe that "contagion" and "contingent" are too? All of those 
words derive from the Latin "contingere," meaning "to have 
contact with." The words "contact" and "contiguous" are fairly 
easy to connect with "contingere," but what of the other two? 
In its early days in English, "contingent" was used as a 
synonym of "touching," and if you remember that touching 
something can pollute it (and that another meaning 
of "contingere" was "to pollute"), "contagion" logically ties 
in too.