ACEGMRRY

Word of the Week:

A feature wherein TileHead highlights a word that is is especially interesting or unusual (and, incidentally, useful in Scrabble play):

ACEGMRRY

(unscramble the letters to form this week's word...)

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(answer below, after a little more spoiler space....)

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This week's word is...

GRAMERCY n. pl. -CIES

• Definition: an expression of gratitude; many thanks; also used as an interjection expressing surprise or gratitude

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TileHead says:

• Thank your French teacher if you guessed that GRAMERCY comes from the combination of two Old French words: grand, meaning great, and merci, meaning thanks.  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) adds: "The primary sense of merci was ‘reward, favour gained by merit’; hence grant merci originally meant ‘may God reward you greatly’... grant merci and merci without the adj. came to be used interjectionally = ‘thanks’, in which use the shorter form survives" in modern French.

• When it comes to words to be THANKFUL for, our list has rarities such as BETHANK, THANKER, THANKWORTHY, and THANKLESSNESS.  But one of the most interesting "THANK" words has to be PICKTHANK (n. -S), which Webster's Third New International defines as "one who tries to curry favor by flattery, sycophancy, or talebearing" (deriving from an old phrase "to pick a thank," meaning to seek someone's favor).  To cite one notable example, William Shakespeare used it deftly in Henry IV, Part 1, referring to "smiling pickthanks and base newsmongers."