WOW Fans: Today I begin a new, fun “perk” of this feature. Those who submit a guess for the Word of the Week (WOW) will be entered into a little (emphasis on the word “little”) ongoing contest to see who gets closest to the real, online Merriam-Webster guess of the word. NO FAIR looking the word up in any sort of dictionary or thesaurus! The person getting closest to the actual definition will receive 5 MIP Points. The person with the most creative definition will receive 3 MIP Points. The person getting the next closest to the correct definition will get 1 MIP Point. (This could happen a lot since many words have 2 or more meanings!)

I thought about having you submit a comment for the guess, but others may copy or put in a similar definition based on previous guesses and “copying” is just not fair. Thus, you must send me an email via the Contact Me page here at MIP to be eligible. The person with the most points by 12-31-14 will receive an MIP t-shirt….even if I have to make the T-shirt myself. When I’m rich and famous, the winner will be able to say they had the very first WOW t-shirt. By 2114 it might be worth enough for the winner to cash it in for a Starbucks latte (which will probably cost $ 500 by then). I would love to give you the Taj Mahal, but it was hard to fit a large Indian castle into my MIP budget this year. Have YOU ever tried to squeeze a building onto a spreadsheet with only 3 columns???

Ready to play? Good! Then, let’s get down to business and explore the true meaning of the last WOW from way back in January. It was orotund which Merriam-Webster defines as: marked by fullness, strength, and clarity of sound. It can also mean pompous or bombastic. (Some of you just looked up one of those last words, didn’t you! Caught ya!) So, a professional opera singer could be orotund two ways–have a great voice and know it a little too well!

Today’s word is hoise. Here are my pathetic excuses for definition attempts of hoise:

hoise: (ˈhȯiz) 1. A resident of New Jersey’s way of saying hose 2. a hefty amount of poise 3. a noise emanating from a horse

What’s your guess? Submit a guess by clicking here.

Wednesday’s Post: By popular demand…my brother’s eulogy…

You might also like: Word of the Week: orotund; Word of the Week: stichomythia; Word of the Week: styptic; and Word of the Week: pinchbeck