Word of the Day
Ganymede
noun
the largest moon of the planet Jupiter.
Why the Museum of Science chose Ganymede
Ganymede is not only the largest of Jupiter's moons, it's also the largest moon in our Solar System! To find out more about Ganymede, watch this video from science communicator, Alex Dainis, PhD.
Learn more fun facts at the Museum of Science.
More about Ganymede
Ganymede is named for a teenage boy in Greek mythology whom the gods chose, because of his beauty, to be their cup-bearer. One possibility is that Ganymede comes from the Greek words gánymai, “to be glad,” and mḗdea, “art, counsel, plans.” The second of these elements is also the origin of numerous names of Greek origin that contain med-, such as Archimedes and Medea. Ganymede was first recorded in English in the 1550s.
EXAMPLE OF GANYMEDE USED IN A SENTENCE
Though Galileo discovered Ganymede, his telescope was far too weak to detect the craters and ice that cover the moon’s surface.
xeriscaping
noun
environmental design of residential and park land using various methods for minimizing the need for water use.
More about xeriscaping
Xeriscaping, “environmental design based on minimal water use,” is based on xeric, “of a dry environment,” on the pattern of landscaping. Xeric comes from Ancient Greek xērós, “dry,” which resembles English sere, “dry,” and the Word of the Day rizzar, but this resemblance is purely coincidental. Though landscape comes from the Dutch equivalents of land and -ship, landscaping was falsely analyzed as land compounded with “scaping,” with a sense roughly like “aesthetic improvement of a space,” and combined with xeri- to form today’s word. A similar phenomenon happened with hamburger, which literally means “of Hamburg” but was falsely analyzed as ham compounded with “burger,” with a sense roughly like “patty on a bun,” and combined with cheese to form cheeseburger. Xeriscaping was first recorded in English in the early 1980s.
EXAMPLE OF XERISCAPING USED IN A SENTENCE
Xeriscaping transformed their rugged yard into an oasis.
roentgenize
verb (used with object)
to subject to the action of x-rays.
More about roentgenize
Roentgenize, “to subject to the action of X-rays,” is named for Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845–1923), who discovered X-rays in 1895. As we learned from the Word of the Day foehn, oe is an alternative way of representing ö in German when the umlaut (the horizontal pair of dots, also known as a dieresis) is not readily available. The same applies to German ä and ü, which may be written as ae and ue; compare the Word of the Day gemütlich. The surname Röntgen is, unfortunately for us language detectives, of uncertain origin. Roentgenize was first recorded in English in the late 1890s.
EXAMPLE OF ROENTGENIZE USED IN A SENTENCE
After Wilhelm Röngten roentgenized the hand of his wife, Anna, she examined her finger bones in the resulting image and chillingly remarked, “I have seen my death.”