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The ordinary-sized words are for everyone, but the big ones are especially for children.



Sunday 2 January 2022

Sunday Rest: sistroid.

 This word, sistroid, sounds unpleasant, painful, and possibly something nasty to do with having a sister, like having your nail varnish or boyfriend stolen.

In fact, the word sistroid describes a shape. Imagine two overlapping circles, as in a Venn diagram:

image by Bin im Garten 

The overlapping bit is sistroid. You can get sistroid areas with other curved shapes - any two curved lines that cross each other might enclose an area that can be described as sistroid.

Heaven only knows why anyone would, though.

Sunday Rest: sistroid. This word has a cool origin, being named after the sistrum, which is a musical instrument. Well, if you can call it musical: it's an Ancient Egyptian rattle: 

Nefertari holding a sistrum

The word seiein means to shake in Greek. The word sistroid is to do with the shape of the rattle.


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