Monday, December 16, 2013

Fwd: klaxon: Dictionary.com Word of the Day

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dictionary.com <doctor@dictionary.com>
Date: 2013/12/16
Subject: klaxon: Dictionary.com Word of the Day
To: "Hector William G." <hectorpinillos@gmail.com>

Word of the Day for Monday, December 16, 2013

klaxon \KLAK-suhn\, noun:

a loud electric horn, formerly used on automobiles, trucks, etc., and now often used as a warning signal.

He invented the Klaxon, a horn that relied on electricity to vibrate a metal diaphragm, emitting a sound that was shrill yet guttural, abrupt yet unending, ugly yet lifesaving.
-- Julie M. Fenster, The Spirit of Invention, 2009

Everybody has heard a klaxon on a car suddenly begin to sound; I understand it is a short circuit that causes it.
-- James Thurber, "Let Your Mind Alone!," The New Yorker, 1937

Klaxon got its name from an American manufacturing company that made horns for automobiles. It entered English in the early 1900s.

Read the full entry | See synonyms | Comment on today's word | Suggest tomorrow's word

Yesterday's word | Previous words | Help

Words of the Day? How about words of timeless wisdom?

Introducing our Quotes channel! "Life itself is a quotation." - Jorge Luis Borges
Check out the Quote of the Day ››

Jane Austen's Neologistic Contributions to English

In honor of Jane Austen's birthday on December 16, we'd like to highlight some entertaining words that appear in her books and letters. For the following terms, Jane Austen has the distinction of being the first citation in the OED; this doesn't necessarily give Austen coinage credit, though it does mean that she was an...
Read more ››

Dictionary.com Word of the Day	You are subscribed to the Word of the Day as: hectorpinillos@gmail.com
Subscriber since: June 03, 2013 Unsubscribe from the Word of the Day	To subscribe to the Word of the Day by email, please send a blank message to: join-wordoftheday@lists.lexico.com
©2013 by Dictionary.com, LLC. 555 12th Street Suite 500 Oakland CA 94607	Subscriptions to the Word of the Day can also be managed online
	Tell a friend about the Word of the Day!