Word To Use Today: megamullion.

Megamullion.

Just saying this lovely word will make you feel luxuriously happy and at ease.

No, try it.

See?

What does it mean?

Well, does it matter? The mere sound is enough, isn't it?

Megamullion.

The word is a bit of a puzzle, because it sounds as if a megamullion should be something to do with a huge column dividing two windows:


Photo by Etienne.

And one of those is indeed a mullion. But a megamullion is something entirely different.

This is the only megamullion to be seen above sea level on our planet:



That's the St Peter and St Paul Rocks in the Atlantic Ocean.

A megamullion is a hump of rock formed when rock from the earth's mantle wells up from a mid-ocean ridge.


Illustration by Frink182. Sorry the labels are in French. Still, it's all educational: I thought a croûte océanique was some sort of fish pie.

As I said, the only megamullion to break the ocean surface is the St Peter and St Paul rocks, but the biggest megamullion ever discovered goes by the utterly charming name of the Godzilla Mullion.

Isn't that lovely?

I think the word megamullion could be very usefully employed to describe something which only becomes apparent some time after the triggering factor.

Hm. Yes.

It would be a really peachy new term for a hangover, wouldn't it.

Word To Use Today: megamullion. Mega is the Greek word megas which means huge or powerful. Mullion is from the Middle English word munial, and before that, perhaps, from the Old French moinel, middle, from Latin medius.

No one seems to be admitting to coming up with this gorgeous word.