What do the following words have in common:
- Semainier
- Dvandva
- Uintjie
- Skeuomorph
Apparently, all of these words are found on the list of study words for the Scripps National Spelling Bee. However, none of these words are at the on-line dictionary websites of either The Free Dictionary or Ask Oxford. Nor, after rummaging deep into the back of my closet to pull forth a large and musty tome, was I able to find any of them in Webster's Twentieth Century Dictionary -- Unabridged.
I can find sely, sizar, meninx, creolin, crepitus, and, yes, even manes, not to mention coiffure. But not semainier, dvanda, or uintjie.
If Oxford doesn't know it, how can a 12-year-old... or, (*ahem*), older... be expected to know it?
Where do they get these words?
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And although the word itself, according to the dictionaries, doesn't really exist, you can get a very nice semainier* here.
*I always thought these things were called chiffoniers. I guess that just wasn't French enough for the Scripps National Spelling Bee. My bad... I thought this was an English-language spelling contest.
