"That's a great deal to make one word mean," Alice said in a thoughtful tone. "When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."

Thursday 11 June 2009

Phratry

 
Here's a good word for Scrabble players - phratry. A phratry is people descended from a common ancestor; kinfolk; brotherhood; in its original Greek it was an anthropological term for a kinship division consisting of two or more distinct clans which are considered a single unit,

So far as I know it's not in common usage.
 
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2 comments:

  1. shabby girl11 June 2009 at 03:24

    Oooooo! A scrabble word! You're always thinkin!!!

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  2. The Archduchess11 June 2009 at 05:01

    Interesting... In French, "fratrie" means "siblingship" or "brotherhood" -- I'm assuming it stems from "frère," brother. And here in the United States, "fraternities" are groups of young men living together in colleges (and mostly partying and getting drunk rather than going to class, but that's another story.)

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