Definition: (noun) A cabinet containing an automatic record player; records are played by inserting a coin.
Synonyms: jukebox.
Usage: When they arrived at the dance hall, the professional musicians were dismayed by the presence of the popular nickelodeon.
Discuss
Category: Word of the Day
portent
Definition: (noun) An indication of something important or calamitous about to occur.
Synonyms: omen, prognostication, presage, prodigy.
Usage: The soldier looked to the sky for a portent and was gripped with fear when he read his future in the clouds.
Discuss
trawler
panpipe
Definition: (noun) A primitive wind instrument consisting of several parallel pipes bound together.
Synonyms: syrinx, pandean pipe.
Usage: When his parents refused to buy him an instrument, the industrious ten-year-old fashioned himself a makeshift panpipe out of string and some pieces of dried bamboo he found in the garage.
Discuss
surfactant
Definition: (noun) A chemical agent capable of reducing the surface tension of a liquid in which it is dissolved.
Synonyms: wetting agent, surface-active agent, wetter.
Usage: She ordered a new pair of glasses and had the lenses coated with a surfactant that would act as an anti-fogging agent.
Discuss
platitude
Definition: (noun) A trite or banal remark or statement, especially one expressed as if it were original or significant.
Synonyms: banality, cliche, commonplace, bromide.
Usage: A trite platitude about his not caring to lose her was on his lips, but he refrained from uttering it.
Discuss
incantation
Definition: (noun) A ritual recitation of words or sounds believed to have a magical effect.
Synonyms: conjuration.
Usage: Hagar, the witch, chanted an awful incantation over her kettleful of simmering toads, with weird effect.
Discuss
patella
campanile
conflux
Definition: (noun) A flowing together.
Synonyms: merging, confluence.
Usage: There was a conflux of emotions and thoughts in him.
Discuss