#atozchallenge Brought To You By The Letter X

Word of the Day:  Xanthous

Okay, do you have any idea how hard it is to find a word beginning with X that is either a preposition, a conjunction, or an interjection?!  Yikes!  Oops, that’s tomorrow.

Seriously, I had a hard time finding a word to use, and then I stumbled across xanthous and now I’m kind of crushing on it.  Why?  Because it’s a super cool way of saying yellow.  So, even though it’s not a preposition, or conjunction, or interjection, it’s an awesome word, and still not a noun or a verb.  Booyah!  Aaaand bonus points for being an epic way of saying my favorite color.  That’s like the 2 pt conversion on the extra point after touchdown!

Xanthrochroi also sounds much more elegant than pasty-faced white girl, too.  I was a towhead when I was a girl.  Never understood that, either.  Where exactly did that word come from?  I always wondered why people said my head was like feet, but I guess that’s another post for another day.  Back to xanthous!

adj. 1829, from Greek xanthos “yellow,” of unknown origin. Prefix form xantho- is used in many scientific words; cf. xanthein (1857) “soluble yellow coloring matter in flowers,” Huxley’s Xanthochroi (1867) “blond, light-skinned races of Europe” (with okhros “pale”), xanthophyll (1838) “yellow coloring matter in autumn leaves.”

The yellow coloring in autumn leaves, the yellow coloring in flowers, tell me why have I never heard of this word before?  I’m staring at a monitor that’s exploding with bright yellow tulips as I write this, and I can’t figure out how come Xanthous or some derivative wasn’t in my Crayola box when I was a kid.  Well, you can be sure my kids will learn about it!

Some lovely xanthous roses my husband got me one year for my birthday.

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