03-04-2006, 04:58 PM
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#1
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Polly thinks you are tiggeriffic!!!
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Virginia Beach, Virginia
Posts: 4,805
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Who knew?
Today's Word:
Haulm (Noun)
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Pronunciation: [halm or hawlm]
Definition 1: The stalks or bushy parts of vegetables, grains, grasses, and flowering plants especially if used for animal litter or thatching on your roof.
Usage 1: Have you ever needed a word for stalky plants that are more plant than flower? Or garden vegetables that develop large bushes but bear little fruit (in either sense)? Now you have it: they are haulmy plants. Roses with long stems but small blossoms? Haulmy. If you ever cover your garden beds with haulm, you can tell your neighbors that you are haulming them. Won't they be surprised?
Suggested usage: Here is a word you can use over the backyard fence if you live in the country, "The rain made the corn a bit haulmy this year" (the stalks are large but the ears are small). But city-folk need not be deprived of this useful word. Since haulm today is an unimportant by-product of farming, its name spreads a metaphorical banquet before us all: "I thought Chastity's talk today was all haulm and no grain. How about you?"
Etymology: Today's is an original Germanic word, e.g. Dutch and German halm "stem," Danish halm "straw." It is akin to "culm" from Latin culmus "stalk," which is now used more to refer to the refuse of coal production, such as the lovely culm banks of central Pennsylvania. The original stem *k'olêm- also underlies Greek kalamos "reed," Serbian slama "straw" and Russian soloma "straw." Because the Romans wrote with reeds (Latin calamus), and the inkwell was the place for them, a Roman inkwell was a "calamarium." This word survives today as calamari "squid," the tasty little ocean-going inkwell.
—Dr. Language, yourDictionary.com
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