Methuselah

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The Word of the Day for January 1 is: 

Methuselah   \muh-THOO-zuh-luh\   noun
          1 : an ancestor of Noah held to have lived 969 years 
    *2 : an oversize wine bottle holding about six liters

Example sentence:
          William's colleagues brought him a Methuselah of champagne to 
celebrate his retirement, and there was still half a bottle left after all the 
glasses were poured. 

Did you know?
          What do Jeroboam, Methuselah, Salmanazar, Balthazar, and 
Nebuchadnezzar have in common? Larger-than-life biblical figures all, yes (four 
kings and a venerable patriarch), but they're all also names of oversized wine 
bottles. A Jeroboam is the equivalent of about four 750-milliliter bottles 
(about 3 liters). One Methuselah holds about eight standard bottles' worth, a 
Salmanazar 12, a Balthazar 16, and a Nebuchadnezzar a whopping 20. No one knows 
who decided to use those names for bottles, but we do know that by the 1800s 
"Jeroboam" was being used for large goblets or "enormous bottles of fabulous 
content." Later, sometime early in the 20th century, "Methuselah" and all the 
other names were chosen for specific bottle sizes.





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