accoll means to embrace; cling to. It carries an Arena rating of 1624, earned across 55 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, accoll ranks #825 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #1,172 of 17,140 for Most Whimsical Words, #1,604 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #3,378 of 17,142 for Most Ingenious Words.
Why “accoll” is a great word
ACCOLL — [Verb] To embrace someone tightly, specifically by clinging around the neck. From Middle English acolen, from Old French acoler (modern French accoler), from Latin ad- ("to, at") + collum ("neck"). First attested in English c1400. Unlike "embrace," which suggests a general, often symmetrical holding, or "clasp," which implies a firm, hand-based fastening, to accoll is to enfold another with an urgent, neck-centered focus. It is the fumbling clutch of a child returning from a nightmare, the sailor's rough hold on land after a long voyage, and the final, wordless press of a cheek against a collar-bone at a train station—the body's mute grammar for when language founders.
Etymology
From Middle English acolen, from Old French acoler (whence modern French accoler), from Latin ad- + collum (“neck”).
verb
- To embrace; cling to.e.g.“Thrice raught I with mine arms to accoll her” — 1840, James Henry, Miscellanies, page 123:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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