Claire came across the
word somnambulant and figured out from context that it refers to sleepwalking.
Both halves of the word are indebted to Latin: somnus means sleep, and ambulare means to walk.
The word part -somn- is also found in insomnia and somnolent, and in
the obsolete words levisomnous (light-sleeping or easily awakened), semisomnous
(half asleep), and somniculous (inducing sleep).
The -ambul- sequence shows up in words such as ambulance,
ambulation, ambulatory, circumambulate, funambulation (tightrope-walking),
noctambulate (to wander by night), perambulate (to stroll), and the nonce-word
vicambulate (to wander about in the streets).
Listen to Mike’s
program in real time every Tuesday morning, 9:00 - 10:00 a.m. EST, by going to
wtcmradio.com and clicking on Listen Now.
There is a collection of
podcasts. Go to wtcmradio.com and click on Podcasts. Scroll down The Ron Jolly Show to find the Words to the Wise audio
button.
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