This week's theme: words borrowed from German. gegenschein (GAY-guhn-shyn) noun
A faint oval patch of light directly opposite the sun in the night sky, caused by reflection of sunlight by dust particles. Also known as counterglow. [From German Gegenschein, from gegen (against) + Schein (light).] Pictures of gegenschein: http://swisseduc.ch/stromboli/volcano/photoastro/gegenschein-en.html Today's word in Visual Thesaurus: http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=gegenschein -Anu Garg (gargATwordsmith.org) "Orbiting Gemini astronauts carried out photographic experiments designed by Dr. Ney in 1965 to explain enigmatic phenomena like gegenschein and zodiacal light, faint glows found even in the darkest night sky." Wolfgang Saxon; Edward P. Ney, 75; Searched the Skies for Cosmic Particles; The New York Times; Aug 12, 1996. Sponsors' messages: 101 Questions Answered! What do Muslims believe? How bad is bird flu? Who's to blame for income tax? http://knowledgenews.net/s?s=aw030906 Ever wonder why we aren't just happy, we're happy as a clam? Derivation, a fascinating game about word & phrase origins. A great gift! http://entspire.com ............................................................................ God is conscience. He is even the atheism of the atheist. -Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948) Our privacy policy: AWAD mailing list addresses are never sold, rented, leased, traded, swapped, exchanged, or bartered. We hate junk mail. Unsubscribe, change address, gift subs: http://wordsmith.org/awad/subscriber.html Pronunciation: http://wordsmith.org/words/gegenschein.wav http://wordsmith.org/words/gegenschein.ram Permalink: http://wordsmith.org/words/gegenschein.html This message was sent to "[email protected]".
