A Word a Day

It is estimated that on average an English-speaking adult has acquired a functioning vocabulary of 25,000 words by the time they reach middle age. That sounds like a lot—and more than enough for the daily purposes of communicating with each other in speech and writing. However, it is hard to feel quite so sanguine about our word power when considering those 25,000 words account for less than 15% of the total words in current usage in the English language. Furthermore, new words are created all the time and, as the word pool flourishes, can we afford to allow our vocabulary to stagnate? Logophile Joseph Piercy has the answer: a simple challenge to learn a word a day from this user-friendly onomasticon (that’s a word list designed for a specific purpose—in case you were wondering …). Each of the 365 words has been carefully selected for its elegance and pertinence in everyday situations and every entry contains a clear and concise outline of meaning, origin and sample usage in context, alongside fascinating word related facts and trivia.