Thursday, February 26, 2009

Rostrum


rostrum \ˈräs-trəm\ noun: 1 [Latin Rostra, plural, a platform for speakers in the Roman Forum decorated with the beaks of captured ships, from plural of rostrum] a. an ancient Roman platform for public orators, b. a stage for public speaking, c. a raised platform on a stage, 2. the curved end of a ship's prow, especially the beak of a war galley, 3. a bodily part or process suggesting a bird's bill (as a beak, snout or proboscis of any of various insects or arachnids) or the often spinelike anterior median prolongation of the carapace of a crustacean (as a crayfish or lobster)

Etymology: Latin, beak, ship's beak, from rodere to gnaw

Rostrum can mean so many different things that you could use it three times in a sentence without being redundant.

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