Words you didn't know | Monday, May 16, 2022
| | | | | | | Presented By TechNet | | | | Axios Finish Line | | By Mike Allen, Erica Pandey and Jim VandeHei ·May 16, 2022 | | May 16, 2022 | | Welcome back. Send your feedback and questions to FinishLine@axios.com. - Smart Brevity™ count: 256 words ... 1 min.
| | | | | | 1 big thing: New words for your repertoire |  | | | Illustration: Rebecca Zisser/Axios | | | | Jim's daughter, Sophie, a college student, dropped a new word on us — "apricity," the sun's warmth in winter. That inspired a bigger conversation about cool, rare words we should make mainstream. The big picture: A linguist tells the BBC that 75% of our daily speech comes from as few as 800 words. - We all fall into language patterns and ruts. So we asked Axios' staff to give us their favorite underused words to lengthen our lists.
Here are some fun ones worth elevating — and their Merriam-Webster definitions: - protean: "displaying great diversity or variety," like an actor who can do both comedy and tragedy.
- doyen: a person considered to be uniquely skilled and experienced in a certain field.
- petrichor: the pleasant smell of the earth after a rainstorm following a long dry period.
- spindrift: sea spray.
- susurrus: "a whispering or rustling sound." (It sounds like what it means!)
- avuncular: "suggestive of an uncle especially in kindliness or geniality."
- frabjous: wonderful, extraordinary, joyous. (Fun fact: Axios chief financial correspondent Felix Salmon once used frabjous in a story.)
The bottom line: We can always expand our vocabularies to communicate our ideas with more precision — or just find new words that make us smile. |     | | | | | | A message from TechNet | | Rep. Swalwell: Antitrust bills need CIA, FBI, NSA hearings | | |  | | | | In remarks during a recent event, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) highlighted the national security risk of tech antitrust bills. Swalwell lamented that Congress has "never had a hearing with the FBI, the NSA, or the CIA about what risks there are with this legislation." Learn more here. | | | | | | 💬 What are your favorite words? |  | | | Illustration: Megan Robinson/Axios | | | | What are the coolest words you wish were used more? - Send your candidates to FinishLine@axios.com. We'll publish the most dazzling ones in a future edition.
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