It was my original hope that we could all learn from these, each and every one of us, almost every day. There are a lot of words that we don't know. It would serve us well to learn more of those words. Sure, I figured, sometimes there would be more familiar words than other times, but the Dictionary.com Word of the Day has to be pretty special, right? And so we'd all be better for it, right?
Obviously, it's hit or miss. There are a lot of words that we don't know, but there are also a lot of words that we do know, and if you're selecting a new Word of the Day every day, you just can't always land on, I don't know, hoarfrost, or probity. Sometimes you select a 10, and sometimes you select a 6. Today, we get a 6.
Today's word is "conniption". I don't mean to suggest that everybody is already familiar with the word "conniption" - for any given word, X% of people know what it means, where X seldom equals 100. Conniption isn't that common. But it's common enough that a lot of people have heard it or used it. The definition:
Often, conniptions. Informal . a fit of hysterical excitement or anger.
You know, "conniption fit". It sounds like something you'd experience in an Old West saloon. An attempted example sentence:
The lot of us had conniptions when Eric Wedge had Dustin Ackley attempt a hit-and-run in an 0-1 count.
Can't wait for those Dustin Ackley hit-and-run attempts!