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Book Club Lovers: Time to wind up your reading on Undaunted this week. The book discussion and December 2013 MIP Book Selection posts will be up this Friday!

Last week’s WOW (Word of the Week) was ephebic. I just love (NOT!) when the dictionaries do what Merriam-Webster Online does with ephebic: “of, relating to, or characteristic of an ephebe or ephebus.” Um….yeah. Okay. I have absolutely no idea what an ephebe or ephebus is…how about you? So, of course, that meant I had to look up ephebe and ephebus.

An ephebe is a young person or youth. (Or “yeut,” if you’re a Joe Pesci fan.) An ephebus is a young person in ancient Greece, especially one who is training for full citizenship in Greece. Since we’re talking a youth from ancient Greece, wouldn’t that make that person, well, ancient? And therefore, that person would no longer be an ephebus, right??? In fact I don’t think I know any Athenians from ancient times that are still around, so that would make that person dead, right???? I think I’m starting to understand why we don’t often use the word ephebic.

This week’s word is booboisie. My numerous years in French class make me suspect that this word is French in origin, so you’ll have to forgive me if I reach into my French archives for some definition guesses this week:

booboisie: (büb-ˌwä-ˈzē) 1. being scared in Boise 2. scaring a French forest 3. the result of a female running into something with her chest region.

What’s your definition guess for booboisie? Submit your guess in the comment box below!

Wednesday’s Post: Adages that have proven to be true…

You might also like: Word of the Week: ephebic; Word of the Week: frisson; Word of the Week: jape; Word of the Week: rowel; and Word of the Week: redound