ziggurat: Dictionary.com Word of the Day

[Dictionary.com]

	Word of the Day for Thursday, February 28, 2013 ziggurat \ZIG-oo-rat\, noun: (among the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians) a temple of Sumerian origin in the form of a pyramidal tower, consisting of a number of stories and having about the outside a broad ascent winding round the structure, presenting the appearance of a series of terraces. The social structure of our summer world was as fixed and hard of climbing as a ziggurat. -- John Banville, The Sea After talking for a moment about the new strawberry bed, a kind of earthen ziggurat in the middle of the garden, Alice hung up, unable to tell them after all. -- Jane Smiley, Duplicate Keys Born in 1877, ziggurat is derived from the Assyrian ziqquratu meaning "height," or "pinnacle." Read the full entry | See synonyms | Comment on today's word | Suggest tomorrow's word Yesterday's word | Previous words | Help Words of the Day? How about words of timeless wisdom? Introducing our Quotes channel! "Life itself is a quotation." - Jorge Luis Borges Check out the Quote of the Day ›› Lexical Investigations: Balaclava A motley combination of Anglo-Saxon, Latin, and Germanic dialects, the English language (more or less as we know it) coalesced between the 9th and 13th centuries. Since then, it has continued to import and borrow words and expressions from around the world, and the meanings have mutated. (Awesome and awful once meant nearly the same... Read more ›› Dictionary.com Word of the Day You are subscribed to the Word of the Day as: e-dict...@googlegroups.com Subscriber since: January 06, 2008 Unsubscribe from the Word of the Day To subscribe to the Word of the Day by email, please send a blank message to: join-wor...@lists.lexico.com ©2013 by Dictionary.com, LLC. 555 12th Street Suite 500 Oakland CA 94607 Subscriptions to the Word of the Day can also be managed online   Tell a friend about the Word of the Day!