ADEIQRU

Word of the Week

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

ADEIQRU

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

*
*
*

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

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

This week's word is...

QUERIDA n. pl. -S

• Definition: a female sweetheart, a darling (often used as a form of address); sometimes, a mistress

• Front hooks: (none)
• Back hooks: -S
• Anagrams: (none)
• Longer extensions: (none)
• Wraparounds: (none)
• Other Spellings: (none)
• Related Forms: (none)

TileHead says:

English often picks and chooses selectively from other languages. This sweet word, stemming from the Spanish querer ("to love, desire, seek out"), has appeared in English since the early 1800s and is recorded in many dictionaries.  One would expect the masculine form, querido, to have received similar lexicographic treatment, but for some reason it is rarely listed and therefore is not acceptable in Scrabble play.

The "sweetheart" sense seems to be far more common nowadays, with the "mistress" sense having been more widely used in the past.

"I think you should be getting home, querida. If your mother should wake and find you gone, you know she'll worry."
– Meg Cabot, The Mediator Twilight (2005)

"Does it please you, querida?"
"I think it looks very quaint and pretty," replied Linda, who was prepared to be pleased with anything. "It looks like a home."
– Claude M. Girardeau, "Shop of the Green Door" (1906)