![]() Rowling’s books camping outside of bookstores to get new installments hot off the presses. Mythical beasts were a mainstay of the wizarding world that had captured popular imagination by 2001: Pottermania was in full swing with fans of J.K. The word chimera comes from Greek mythology, where it refers to a fire-breathing monster with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail. “a horrible or unreal creature of the imagination.” Bush or Al Gore and wearily watched as the tallies triggered a recount in Florida.ĭeus ex machina, from Latin meaning “god from a machine,” is usually used in a pejorative sense to refer to an implausible and seemingly superficial or oversimplified resolution in a book, play, or film, as in “It was all a dream!” chimera Novemis the date that millions of voters cast their ballot for either George W. “any artificial or improbable device resolving the difficulties of a plot.” This throwback term translates from French as “end of century” and connotes a world-weariness characteristic of art and literature in the 1880s and ’90s. On the final day of the millennium, Word of the Day fans were taking the longview with fin de siècle. ![]() The hypothetical computer meltdown known as Y2K, which threatened to unleash logistical horrors of biblical proportions, was looming large in 1999. “of, relating to, or characterized by concepts of art, society, etc., associated with the end of the 19th century.” In Part I of this two-part retrospective, we’re serving up ten favorites from the first decade of Word of the Day: 1999–2008. The synchronicities are nothing short of-oh, we have so many wonderful words to choose from- superlative, serendipitous, and scintillating. To celebrate this vigesimal birthday, we took a stroll through the Word of the Day archives to see what words were featured on notable dates and reflect on some of the memorable moments and trends of the last two decades. What started as a small audience of intrepid logophiles, who braved spotty dial-up connections for their quotidian word fix in 1999, has blossomed into a vibrant community of Word of the Day devotees, who bring context, conversation, inspiration, and personal connections to our selections every day. It’s hard to believe, but this month marks 20 years of daily lexical morsels from Word of the Day.
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