Word of the
Day for Sunday 16th February 2014
Pluvial \PLOO-vee-uhl\, adjective:
1. of or pertaining to rain;
rainy.
2. Geology. occurring through the action of rain.
2. Geology. occurring through the action of rain.
noun:
1. Geology. a rainy period formerly regarded as coeval with a glacial age, but now recognized as episodic and, in the tropics, as characteristic of interglacial ages.
1. Geology. a rainy period formerly regarded as coeval with a glacial age, but now recognized as episodic and, in the tropics, as characteristic of interglacial ages.
Swimming
in the pluvial waters, or inert and caked over by the torrid
mud, he would have discovered what he would certainly have regarded as lowly,
specially-modified, and degenerate relations of the active denizens of the
ocean—the Dipnoi, or mud-fish.
-- H.G. Wells, “Zoological Retrogression”, 1891
-- H.G. Wells, “Zoological Retrogression”, 1891
Nothing
enters her tomb save a little moisture, pluvial in origin,
and, it may be, certain mysterious effluvia of which we do not yet know the
nature.
-- Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949), translated by Bernard Miall, The Life of the Ant, 2001
-- Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949), translated by Bernard Miall, The Life of the Ant, 2001
Pluvial is from the Latin pluvia meaning
"rain, water." It shares the Proto-Indo-European root pleu meaning
"to flow, to swim" withPluto, the name of God of the
underworld in classical mythology.
Thanks to: www.dictionary.com
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