Word of the Day: A New One

As you read various articles, you may run across new words that strike you as perfect for their application. That happened to me this morning with an article about the whether the US Senate could pass the requisite spending bills in time for the beginning of the fiscal year.

The sentence read: “Federal agencies get only a small tranche of money to carry them through…”

“What’s this,” I thought, “a word I don’t know? The impossible has happened!” Okay, something relatively rare occurred. I found a completely new word.

I immediately searched out the definition and found that, in French, tranche means a slice of something. Thus, the helpfully-provided phrase “tranche de vie” would mean, in English, “slice of life”.

I share this in part because of my recent post on Latin and French phrases and in part because it serves as a reminder that new words and ways to use them exist all around you. Read whenever you have a moment to do so. Read things that cross your path that normally you would find dull or consider over your head. You never know what gems are waiting for you to discover them.