Better Living Through Thinking

catachresis

Thu, 03 Nov 2005

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day (3 November 2005)

<www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/mwwodarch.pl?Nov.03>

catachresis \kat-uh-KREE-sis\ noun

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Phlegm

Thu, 16 Jan 2003

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates theorized that human personalities were controlled by four humors: blood (dominant in cheerful, optimistic types), black bile (which rendered a soul gloomy and melancholy), yellow bile (the source of irritable, angry attitudes), and phlegm (ruling cool, unemotional types). When the Greeks related these humors to their four elements (air, earth, fire, and water), phlegm was linked to water. But from an etymological standpoint, the word "phlegm" is more closely linked to fire — it comes from a Greek word that means "flame" or "inflammation."