Word of the Day!

Recrudescence [ree-kroo-des-uhns or rə-kruh-desuhns]
noun

Definition:
A recurrence, breakout, or revival of something after a previous period of abatement or inactivity.

Etymology:
From the Latin, recrudescentia, 'to break out again', formed from re-, 'to happen again', and crudescere 'to become raw'.

Usage:
Recently, there has been a recrudescence of people who form a large part of their diet from home-grown food.

Also, hopefully this posting has sparked a recrudescence of me posting words on my assigned day. =D

Agroof, Agrufe, or Agruif [uh-gruef]
adverb

Definition:
To fall flat on one's face, or to be face downwards and prone.

Etymology:
From the Norse, á grúfu, 'face-down' or 'on the belly'.

Usage:
My roommate has absolutely no coordination skills and is often found agroof, moaning piteously.

Extra info:
This word is obscure, but I find it quite awesome that there is a single word that represents a rather common phrase. Cue the roommate commenting about how much she dislikes me in 3, 2, 1...

Melisma [mi-liz-muh]
noun

Definition
Singing a single syllable while changing over notes in succession.

Etymology
From the Hellenistic Greek melisma, 'song', 'air' or 'melody', which comes from the ancient Greek, melos, 'song', and isma, '-ism'.

Usage
Beyonce is well known for her use of melisma in her music.

Extra Information
A classic example of melisma is in the well-known carol Gloria. Mariah Carey is also known for her use of melisma. Some people find melisma to be indicative of a singer's ability while others find it detracts from a song.

Embolalia, Embololalia [em-bə-lā-lē-ə, -lal-ē; em-bə-lō-lā-lē-ə, -lal-ē]
noun

Definition
The conscious or unconcious use of meaningless sounds or words in speech such as filler words or stammerings.

Etymology
From the Greek (most likely derived from Latin) embolo- or emboli-, 'that which is thrown into something else'.

Usage
I, um, may have a slight, uh, problem with embolalia, which, I'm like, trying to overcome before I, er, speak in front of a large audience, um, tonight at the awards, ah, banquet.

Notes
So this word gave me some issues. I can't find a clear etymology  on the word itself, just its roots, and I can't find a history of when this word came to into use. Oxford English Dictionary doesn't acknowledge that either variation exists, so it may be a word limited to American English. The first variation seems to be the more commonly used one. And that's all I know!

Tessellate [tes-uh-leyt]
verb

Definition
To form a pattern using plane figures or polygons so that there are no gaps or overlaps, such as in a mosaic.

Etymology
From Latin tessellatus, 'mosaic', which comes from tessella, 'small cube', a dimunitive form of tessera, 'square'.

Usage
I'm trying to figure out how to tessellate these tiles into an appealing design for my bathroom floor.

Further Exploration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessellation Explains more of the mathematics behind tessellating.
http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/Tessellate/# Go! Have fun using this java script application to tessellate to your heart's content!


This is my first post, so please let me know anything I can do to make this post better! Thanks!