Famulus is a noun that refers to a private secretary or assistant.

Coming from the Latin word for ‘servant,’ our word of the day may be used to describe any kind of assistant, but is especially common in referring to the assistant of a magician or scholar.

You’d think after all those years of being a magician’s famulus, my sister would be skilled at magic. But when I ask her to make something disappear she reminds me that a magician’s assistant doesn’t actually perform the tricks.

Pelage is a noun that refers to the fur, hair or wool of a mammal.

Our word of the day day comes from a variation on the French word for hair. It’s commonly used to describe hairy animals like bears or dogs. Here’s an example:

I’ve always been a fan of the lovely pelage on that breed of dog. But having to groom all of that hair can be a challenge after a while.

Foozle is a verb that means to bungle or play clumsily.

Our word of the day is derived from the German word fusein (FOOZ een) which means ‘work badly.’ It often refers to a botched attempt at something.

Because I hadn’t played golf in over a decade, my first swing wound up being a real foozle. Not only did the ball not go where I wanted it to, it wound up landing on a completely different golf course.

Terraqueous is an adjective that means consisting or formed of land and water.

Our word of the day combines the Latin words for ‘land,’ terra (TARE uh) and ‘water,’ aqua (AWK wah). It may be used to describe specific substances comprised of land and water or it may even refer to something larger as in this example:

This terraqueous world of ours consists of both water and land. But because we spend so much time on the land, we forget that it’s mostly water.

Terpsichorean is an adjective that means related to dancing.

Our word of the day takes its origin from a dancing female figure in Greek mythology. In addition to being used as an adjective to mean anything connected to dancing, it can also be used as a noun to refer to a dancer. Here’s an example of terpsichorean as an adjective:

Something about the pulsating rhythm of that music brings out terpsichorean impulses in me. It always feels great, but I get the feeling my family wishes I would stop immediately.

Diegesis is a noun that refers to a narrative or plot, typically in a movie.

Our word of the day comes directly from the Greek word for narrative. Here’s an example of diegesis in use:

According to the critics, the diegesis of my film was too derivative of the storyline of other movies. I guess maybe I should try to come up with my own story ideas instead of copying others.

Dulcify is a verb that means to make sweet.

The latin word dulcis (DOOL sis) means ‘sweet.’ The word later joined English in the form of the word dulce, a noun that refers to a sweet candy or drink. Our word of the day could be thought of as the verb version of this. For example:

I used to wonder what would happen if I tried to dulcify tuna fish by adding honey to it. The result was as sweet as I expected, but I would say it was satisfying.

Emulous is an adjective that means eager to emulate.

The Latin word aemulus (EYE moo loose) means ‘rival.’ This gave birth to the word emulate, a verb that means to mimic or imitate something else. Emulous is the adjective version of this.

At times Chuck’s band could be a little too emulous. On any given performance, you never knew who they were going to try to rip off.

Innominate is an adjective that means not named or anonymous.

The Greek word onoma (OH no ma) means ‘name.’ It’s where we get words like anonymous an eponymous. Our word of the day combines this word with the prefix I-N, which means ‘not’ or ‘no.’ Together it gives us a word that means ‘not named.’

The project was submitted to us innominate, but I get a feeling it was all Randy’s idea. Even without a name attached to it, we could tell anything that weird and brilliant could only come from Randy’s head.

Grabble is a verb that means to search with the hand.

Derived from the Dutch word for grab, our word of the day entered English in the late 16th century. Here’s an example of grabble in use:

As kids, we didn’t keep all of our halloween candy. He had to stick our hands in the bag and grabble for only one piece. Lucky me, I always wound up with something healthy.