Growing up, I was a terrific speller. When asked, I could spell words I’d never heard of before. I also liked to read. When I came across words in my reading that I didn’t understand, I made an effort to write them down and learn what they meant. I didn’t always try to use them.
I burned out from reading in 2012. After a ten-year hiatus, I returned to reading—which you can read more about in this blog post. As an adult, I still come across new words that I don’t know the meaning of. I write them down, including their definitions, and that became the inspiration for lexeme.
Lexeme (pronounced lex-EEM), noun. means: a basic lexical unit of a language consisting of one word or several words, the elements of which do not separately convey the meaning of the whole.
I don’t always use the new words I find, but they still pique my curiosity. We may never regularly use “cool”, interesting, fascinating, and beautiful words; sometimes we just think they look pretty. A couple of my favourite words (that I actually use) are banal and rudimentary.
I hope you find a new word. Refresh the homepage to get a new one at random.