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esculent: msg#00021

culture.language.word-of-the-day

Subject: esculent

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The Word of the Day for March 23 is:

esculent \ESS-kyuh-lunt\ adjective
: edible

Example sentence:
Sonia is a chef at The Wild Asparagus, a top-notch restaurant whose claim
to fame is that every dish on the menu features an esculent native plant.

Did you know?
One appealing thing about "esculent" is that this word, which comes from
the Latin for food ("esca"), has been around for 375 years. If we give you just
one more tidbit of etymology -- that "esca" is from Latin "edere," which means
"to eat" -- can you pick which of the following words is NOT related to
"esculent"?

comestible edacious edible escalade escarole obese

"Comestible" (meaning "edible"), "edacious" (meaning "voracious"), "edible,"
"escarole" (a type of salad green), and "obese" are all descendants of "edere."
Only "escalade" (meaning "an act of scaling walls") doesn't belong on the list.
It descends from the Italian "scalare," meaning "to scale."





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