thanatology

****************************************************************
Calling all new word spotters! Now there's a forum for your
lexical discoveries--join Merriam-Webster Unabridged today! 
http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged_sub.pl?refr=U_wod
****************************************************************

The Word of the Day for June 28 is: 

thanatology   \than-uh-TAH-luh-jee\   noun
     : the description or study of the phenomena of death and of psychological 
mechanisms for coping with them

Example sentence:
     Those who work in the field of thanatology address not only the needs of 
the dying but the effects of death on the families as well.

Did you know?
     In Greek mythology, Thanatos was the personification of death, the twin 
brother of Hypnos (Sleep). The ancient Greeks eventually came to use "thanatos" 
as a generic word for "death." "Thanatology" is a direct linguistic heir of the 
Greek term and it was first documented in English in the mid-1800s. In 1935, 
the name "Thanatos" made a comeback in English, ushered in with psychoanalytic 
theory and describing an unconscious tendency toward self-destruction.