AHLMOPTY

Word of the Week

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

AHLMOPTY

(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...

POLYMATH (n. pl. -S)

• Definition: a person of great and varied learning; a person acquainted with many fields of study

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

TileHead says:

The Greek poly- ("many") and mathema ("learning") combine to make this erudite word for an erudite person.  The former root is used as a prefix in many English words (POLYGAMY, POLYMER, POLYTECHNIC, etc.), while the latter shows up in familiar words such as MATHEMATICS as well as in a few obscure ones such as CHRESTOMATHY: "a collection of passages from an author or authors, especially one compiled to assist in learning a language" (the first part is from the Greek chrestos, "useful").  This unusual word sometimes shows up in book titles, such as An Arabic Chrestomathy or A Mencken Chrestomathy.

Returning to our featured word, a POLYMATH is "very learned" or "learned in many subjects."  By extension, POLYMATHY (n.) is the domain of a polymath, and something pertaining to one may be said to be POLYMATHIC (adj.). 

A Roman polymath whose interests ranged from zoology to mineralogy, Pliny plotted the course of naturalistic representation from the shadow painting of cave dwellers to the Hellenistic art of his own age.
– Giorgio Vasari and Gaston du C. De Vere (translator), The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1896)

[Speaking of Benjamin Franklin:] One of the delights of studying American history in the 18th century is that this remarkable polymath, visionary, down-to-earth jack-of-all-trades pops up everywhere.
– Paul Johnson, A History of the American People (1999)

It would be intriguing to know the intelligence quotients of a large sample of past and present geniuses... Would the IQ of the brilliant student Curie be far higher than the IQ of the dull student Darwin? Would the speculative Einstein have an IQ ahead of Curie's? Would the polymathic Leonardo da Vinci have a low or a high IQ?
– Andrew Robinson, Sudden Genius (2010)

Aspiring polymaths should note that a less-common synonym for a "person of great and varied learning" is POLYHISTOR, in this case combining poly- with histor ("knowing").

They were common folk.  Most could not read, in contrast to Falcon, a polyhistor who spent twenty hours a week pouring over old tomes when the weather was fair.
– Charles Johnson, Middle Passage (2007)