Word of the Day

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

pandiculation

\pan-dik-yuh-LEY-shuhn\ , noun;

an instinctive stretching, as on awakening or while yawning

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Quotes:

"Pandiculate for Health! Grow Tall! Get Well! Be Young!" Exuberant ads like this, running in health-fad magazines since 1914, have proclaimed the virtues of a spine-stretching device called the "Pandiculator."

-- Time, 1942-04-12

Origin:

by 1611 from French pandiculation from Latin pandiculari "to stretch oneself" and French suffix -ion.