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Today's Word "voraginous"

voracious or ravenous on

Published in Vocabulary

voraginous \veh-RAE-ji-nehs\ (adjective) - 1 : Of, related to, or resembling a gorge, chasm, or abyss; 2 : voracious, ravenous: capable of ingesting as much as a chasm or abyss.

"Neil woke in the morning to discover that his car had vanished in a voraginous sinkhole that had opened up in his back yard."

 

The noun which gave us today's word, "vorago," comes from Latin vorare to "devour," the same root that provided v?rax, voracis "devouring," the source of English voracious "enormously hungry." This suggests that "vorago" originally referred to a whirlpool. The Proto-Indo-European root behind these words is *gwer-/gwor- (+ -g), which lost its initial [g] in Latin; so, the same root is behind English "gorge." In fact, the same association of voracity and canyons is found in the English verb, "to gorge," that is, to consume as much as a gorge. The same root, gave English "gorge" and Russian gorlo "throat. Believe it or not, "gorgeous" arose from the same origin via Old French gorgias "elegant, enjoying elegance," the noun gorgias "neckerchief, necklace" (from French gorge "throat") used as an adjective.


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