 |  | ||||||||
| Suggest tomorrow's Word of the Day | |||||||||
Word of the Day for Friday, February 11, 2011imbroglio \im-BROHL-yoh\, noun: 1. A complicated and embarrassing state of things. The political imbroglio also appears to endanger the latest International Monetary Fund loan package for Russia, which is considered critical to avoid a default this year on the country's $17 billion in foreign debt. Worse still, hearings and investigations into scandals -- from the imbroglio over Clarence Thomas's Supreme Court nomination in 1991 to the charges of perjury against President Clinton in 1998 -- have overshadowed any consideration of the country's future. To the extent that Washington had a policy toward the subcontinent, its aim was to be evenhanded and not get drawn into the diplomatic imbroglio over Kashmir. The imbroglio over the seemingly arcane currency issue threatens to plunge Indonesia -- and possibly its neighbors as well -- into a renewed bout of financial turmoil. Imbroglio derives from Italian, from Old Italian imbrogliare, "to tangle, to confuse," from in-, "in" + brogliare, "to mix, to stir." It is related to embroil, "to entangle in conflict or argument." | |||||||||
 Words of the Day? How about words of timeless wisdom?Introducing our Quotes channel! "Life itself is a quotation." - Jorge Luis Borges | |||||||||
  What is the name of the extinct plant that may have inspired the symbol for heart-shaped Valentines?The shape of the heart is iconic of love, but it barely resembles the central, never-ceasing organ in our chests that the Greeks called the seat of the emotions. Why is that? Ancient coins from Cyrene, a city-state where Libya is now, show an impression of a silphium seed, and it's a shape that you know... | |||||||||
| |||||||||
