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quincunx: msg#00009culture.language.word-of-the-day
**************************************************************** Put the whole realm of human knowledge on Dad's desktop with Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Encyclopedia. http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/book.pl?collency.htm&9 **************************************************************** The Word of the Day for June 10 is: quincunx \KWIN-kunks\ noun : an arrangement of five things in a square or rectangle with one at each corner and one in the middle Example sentence: The tables were arranged in a quincunx, with the hosting family at the center table and guests at the four corner tables. Did you know? In ancient Rome a "quincunx" was a coin whose name comes from the Latin roots "quinque," meaning "five," and "uncia," meaning "one twelfth." The weight of the coin equaled five twelfths of a "libra," a unit of weight similar to today's pound. The ancients used a pattern of five dots arranged like the spots on dice as a symbol for the coin, and English speakers applied the word to arrangements similar to that distinctive five-dot mark. |
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