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ESL forum >
Games, activities and teaching ideas > Word of the Day (WOD)
Word of the Day (WOD)
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subzeroking
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Word of the Day (WOD)
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Hey everybody,
I just found out I was the winner of the last WOD so it �s up to me to choose the next word. 
Here it is:
batrachophagous
No dictionary or internet
definitions, please. Use your own imagination and creativity to guess what this
word could mean.
Good luck and have fun
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17 Jan 2011
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almaz
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It refers to the tendency for wee boys to try to eat everything that �s dumb enough to come within grabbing distance of their sticky little paws. Bats, rats, Swiss number plates - anything - pass rapidly from hand to mouth to oesophagus, hence the name.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, for the bats, rats etc), the majority of inedible/ semi-edible objects are usually expelled very loudly before they hit the digestive tract.
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17 Jan 2011
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maryse pey�
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let �s try !
Bat = the nocturnal blind animal living in caves.
racho = a short way to say "rancho", the Americano-Spanish word for "ranch"
phagous = Greek suffix for "fond of ... when eating"
So that gives : someone always eating bats living in an Americano-Spanish ranch : o) |
17 Jan 2011
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irynka1
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Batrach+o+phagous From Russian batrachit � (verb: work really-really hard for very little money) + sarcophagus (noun: coffin) = batrachophagous (adjective used during elegies and describing the life of the late person who died because of the hard work)
e.g. He was so batrachophagous, he hasn �t seen the real life! And now he �s dead, so the opportunity is missed... |
17 Jan 2011
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elderberrywine
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You all know what a bat is: big thing you hit balls etc with
phaguous has got something to do with throat, as far as I know.
The middle part, "rach", comes from the German word "Rache" which means "revenge"
So here you are.
batrachophaguous is an adjective describing an act, in sports or communication, that is so outrageous that the one committing it deserves getting a bat stuck down his throat out of revenge. Or actually gets it stuck down his throat, if no referee interferes.
Easy really ...
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17 Jan 2011
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missveronica
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LOL!! Really creative answers, however I have the right one
Batrachofagous: A species of extinct animals that ate "batrachos" which extinguished because of being eaten...Kind of a vicious circle
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17 Jan 2011
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pilarmham
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What a difficult one! Let �s see...
Batra makes me think of a frog... and the rest simply means gorgeous:
A gorgeous frog flirting with a meeeeeeeeeeeeeeean bat! |
18 Jan 2011
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gloriawpai
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batracho comes from Greek b�trakos which means frog
fagous comes from Bou fagous in Algeria. I believe it �s an Algerian jumping frog.
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18 Jan 2011
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Zora
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It means someone who has a desire to sing like a frog when they have a tennis racket in their hands. 
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18 Jan 2011
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pilarmham
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Almaz! Do you mean that the term makes you think of bats + rats, which reminds you of brats stuffing themselves to death?! |
18 Jan 2011
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lshorton99
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I�m going to answer this question with a story.
I �m staying in a hotel in China while waiting for my apartment to be ready. One night, about a week ago, the heating broke. It �s very cold at the moment so I decided to go to reception to report the problem. Upon exiting my room, I was attacked by a bat. (I say attacked - it brushed my hair with its wings). I, of course, screamed and ran for the lift. I made my way to reception where, through mime (the receptionist didn �t speak English), I communicated the heating problem. He communicated that it would be fixed by the next day. I then said, �Oh, and there �s a bat on the 4th floor. � he looked at me blankly. �Bat. � I repeated. Still a blank look. Being a good TEFL teacher, I tried mime. Nothing. I indicated for a pen and paper and drew a fairly decent representation of a bat. He still looked confused. I wrote the word �BAT � and gestured to his translator. He looked it up and gave me a WTF look. �I know! � I agreed. �Bat! �
I returned to my floor, only to discover that the bat was now flying around. There wasn �t much light and it was cold but I bravely tried to make it back to my room. Halfway there, the fluttering of wings stole my remaining courage and I ran back to the lift, frantically pressing the button to close the doors. I returned to reception and tried to explain that I couldn �t get to my room because of the bat. A security guard was dispatched to accompany me. He went up with me in the lift and I cowered behind him as we approached my floor. The bat was still fluttering about, but he didn �t seemed fussed. �Good, � I thought. �He �ll take care of it. � He opened the door to a nearby room. I was a little confused - should i hide in there while he got rid of the bat? He then gave me a duvet. �OK, � I thought. �This must be to catch the bat. � He indicated that I should wrap it around me and that I wouldn �t be cold then.
That waas when I realised that they didn �t think the bat was important - the cold was what they thought I was worried about.
Batrochophagous - the art of communicating to people who don �t speak your language that there is a bat flying around the floor of your hotel!
Lindsey
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18 Jan 2011
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