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Reading the Scrabble Dictionary: Week 31

8/27/2014

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More about pogonip, or ice fog, because I found it interesting: it comes from Shoshone paγi̵nappi̵h, meaning, unsurprisingly, "cloud." American settlers in the early days called it the "white death," because they thought the ice crystals would kill them if it entered their lungs. Humidity has to be around 100% as the temperature drops below freezing for the ice crystals to form in the air and start to settle on things.
⚛ Units of the Week
    Phon: a unit of loudness
    Phoneme: a unit of speech
    Phonon: a quantum of vibrational energy
    Phot: a unit of illumination
    Photon: an elementary particle
    Phratry: a tribal unit among primitive peoples
    Phyton: a structural unit of a plant
    Piaster: a monetary unit of several Arab countries
    Picayune: a former Spanish-American coin
    Pice: a former coin of India and Pakistan
    Picogram: one trillionth of a gram
    Picomole: one trillionth of a mole
    Picul: an Asian unit of weight
    Pion: a subatomic particle
    Pistole: a formerly used European gold coin
    Pixel: a basic unit of a video image
    Plack: a former coin of Scotland
    Polaron: a type of electron

!!! Unexpected Words of the Week
    Pheresis: withdrawal of blood from a donor, removing some components, and returning the remaining blood to the donor
    Phreak: to gain illegal access to a long-distance telephone service to avoid tolls (this word is a lot cooler than its definition)
    Picaroon: to act as a pirate
    Pinder: an official who formerly impounded stray animals
    Pisher: a young or inexperienced person
    Pishogue: an evil spell
    Pismire: an ant
    Plugugly: a hoodlum
    Plumbum: lead

♡ Favorite Words of the Week
    Philtrum: the indentation between the upper lip and the nose
    Playa: the bottom of a desert basin
    Pleonasm: the use of needless words
    Plumeria: a flowering shrub (one of my favorite smells from the Marshall Islands)
(Pages 421–434)

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