Sunday Rest: filose. Word Not To Use Today.

You say this word FI-lohss, to rhyme with...well, nothing I can think of at the moment.

Hi, dose?

Or you can pronounce it FI-lohzz, but obviously that's even worse.

This word's saving grace is that practically everyone has gone about their lives quite happily without missing it; which I suppose means that by drawing attention to the loathsome thing I'm only making things worse.

Still.

Filose is a term used in biology describing something that looks like, or possesses, a thread or thread-like object.

Now, I'm not going to pretend you're not going to come across filose antennae, for instance, from time to time, but filose, ugh. 

Can't they be delicate, thin, fine, attenuated, frail, or, indeed, thread-like?

Actually, forget attenuated, that's nearly as bad as filose.

But fine is, well, fine. So is thread-like. People would understand those.

And they wouldn't make you look nearly so much of a dork, either.



Those amoeboid pseudopodia look pretty filose to me.

Good grief, that's a sentence I'd hoped never to type. Ah well.

Word Not To Use Today: filose. This word comes from the Latin fīlum, which means thread.