If you register for the Word of the Day by email, here's a sample of what you could be reading each day.
Note - not all entries have pronunciation.
• noun
1. historical the metal point of a scabbard.
2. the metal pin of a buckle.
— origin Middle English (in the general sense ‘plate of metal overlaying or trimming something’): from Old French, literally ‘cape, hood’, from late Latin cappa ‘cap’.
• noun [mass noun] a style of abstract painting developed by Piet Mondrian, using only vertical and horizontal lines and rectangular shapes in black, white, grey, and primary colours.
— origin 1920s: coined by Piet Mondrian.
• noun [mass noun] the right to operate sea, air, or other transport services within a particular territory.
• restriction of the operation of sea, air, or other transport services within or into a particular country to that country's own transport services.
— origin mid 19th cent. (in the sense ‘coastal trade’): from French, from caboter ‘sail along a coast’, perhaps from Spanish cabo ‘cape, headland’.
• noun (pl. mantellettas or mantellette) a sleeveless vestment reaching to the knees, worn by cardinals, bishops, and other high-ranking Catholic ecclesiastics.
— origin mid 19th cent.: from Italian, from a diminutive of Latin mantellum ‘mantle’.
• noun (the sudd) an area of floating vegetation in a stretch of the White Nile, thick enough to impede navigation.
— origin Arabic, literally ‘obstruction’.
All entries for the AskOxford Word of the Day are taken from the latest edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English
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