X is for eXtending one's vocabulary

Only three more weeks until ABC Wednesday becomes a new and improved way of reaching the realms of the world.  Melody takes over as Administrator with two assistants and a team made up of former ABCW team members plus some new ones.  Our eXcitement builds with anticipation to see how things work out.  But in the meantime, do continue to post as we'd love to see a push of contributions rather than a dismal dying out. 

The letter X is always a difficult week to find a word to fit and having looked through most of my posts, I noticed that 1 out of 2 posts seems to be Xmas.  This time I decided to try to improve my own vocabulary and thus improve yours as well.  So here are my new X words.

XANTHROCHROID refers to the phenotype of persons who are fair-complexioned and light-haired.  A phenotype is the set of observable characteristics of an individual resulting from the interaction of its genotype with the environment.  Both of my daughters fit into the category, being blonde-haired, blue-eyed, with fair complexions.  However, they've coloured their hair so much throughout their lives that heaven only knows what their "natural" colour is now!  The first shot is when we lived in Ottawa and visited Upper Canada Village on the St. Lawrence River (1987) and the second is when we went to Cape Cod and saw President John F. Kennedy's memorial there (1988).

XHOSA are a Bantu people native to the Cape of Good Hope Province in South Africa. Xhosa peoples were well established by the time of the Dutch arrival in the mid-7th century, and occupied much of eastern South Africa from the Fish River to land inhabited by Zulu-speakers south of the modern city of Durban.

XEBEC, also spelled zebec, was a Mediterranean sailing ship that was used mostly for trading. It would have a long overhanging bowsprit and aft-set mizzen mast. It can also refer to a small, fast vessel of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, used almost exclusively in the Mediterranean Sea.

XESTURGY is the process of polishing stones.

XOANON  is a statue made of wood, primitive in nature, that is covered in gold and ivory.

So there you have it - I hope you've improved your vocabulary somewhat.  I know I have as I'd never heard any of those words before.  Thanks to our eXtra special administrator, the eXuberant Roger and the eXtremely wonderful group of assistants.  Also thanks to the eXceptional imagination of Denise Nesbitt, the creator of ABC Wednesday 10 years ago!