2 words of the day!

bibelot BEE-buh-loh, noun:
A small decorative object without practical utility; a trinket.

Bibelot is from French, from Old French beubelot, beubelet, “a small jewel, a trinket,” from a reduplication of bel, “beautiful,” from Latin bellus, “pretty, handsome.” It is related to bauble.

albedo al-BEE-doh, noun:

1. The fraction of light reflected from a body or surface.
For example, earth’s albedo is around 0.39.

2. The white, spongy inner lining of a citrus fruit rind.

[From Late Latin albedo, whiteness, from Latin albus, white.]

Some of the most interesting, unusual words describe everyday things. Who would have thought that this fleshy, spongy, white thing inside an orange had a word for itself… and that it would share it with astronomers? Or that it would have the same ancestor as the words for an egg part, a photo book, or smearing of a canvas? What all these words have in common is whiteness or albus, Latin for white. Albumen is egg white, an album is a book with white pages, and when we daub a sheet of paper, we de-albus it.

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