tercel (TUR-sel) noun, also tiercel or tercelet The male of a hawk, especially of the peregrine falcon or a goshawk.
[From Middle English, from Middle French ter�uel, from Vulgar Latin tertiolus, diminutive of Latin tertius (third). Ultimately from Indo-European root trei- (three) that's also the source of such words as three, testify (to be the third person), triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13).] Why the sense of third in the word for a male hawk? It's either from the belief that the third egg produced a male, or from the fact that the male of hawk is one-third smaller than the female. Today's word in Visual Thesaurus: http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=tercel "Adam was a 2-year-old tercel Hubbard had been working with for more than a year. The bird was acquired from a federally licensed breeder for $1,000." Rich Landers; Falconer Puzzled by Loss of Bird; Spokesman Review (Spokane, Washington); Jan 10, 1999. "On this occasion the tercel flew off after a pigeon, and though the bird was fitted with a tracking device, it disappeared." William Shaw; Bird on a Wire; The Observer (London, UK); Apr 13, 2003. This week's theme: what does that car name mean? Today's word is the name of a car from Toyota. Sponsors' Messages: "Prinderella and the Since," "Beeping Sleauty," and 41 other tales twisted by Col Stoopnagle can be yours at http://stoneandscott.com/humor.asp Give an awesome stocking stuffer: Crazy Aaron's Thinking Putty! Friends and family adore its fun colors and adult-sized handfuls: http://puttyworld.com ............................................................................ The mind is but a barren soil; a soil which is soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilized and enriched with foreign matter. -Joshua Reynolds, painter (1723-1792) Q: What is your privacy policy? A: AWAD mailing list addresses are never sold, rented, leased, traded, swapped, exchanged, or bartered to anyone. We don't like to receive junk mail, and know you don't either. Pronunciation: http://wordsmith.org/words/tercel.wav http://wordsmith.org/words/tercel.ram Permalink: http://wordsmith.org/words/tercel.html This message was sent to "[email protected]".
