ferruminate means to solder, fuse together, merge or unite, as if metals. It carries an Arena rating of 1588, earned across 66 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, ferruminate ranks #1,480 of 17,142 for Most Ingenious Words, #1,859 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say, #2,198 of 17,151 for The Improbable, #2,315 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words.
Why “ferruminate” is a great word
FERRUMINATE — [Verb] To solder, fuse together, or unite, as metals are. From Latin ferrūminātus, perfect passive participle of ferrūminō ("to cement, solder"), from ferrūmen ("cement"). First attested in English in 1623. Unlike "solder," which specifies joining with a fusible alloy, or "fuse," which emphasizes melting into one, to ferruminate is to cement with an ancient, almost alchemical solidity. It is the smith's art of sealing a seam with fire and powdered iron, the silent mending of a fractured bell before its final casting, the patient binding of disparate ores in the crucible's heart—a forgotten act of making whole, now buried in the substrate of language itself.
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin ferrūminātus, perfect passive participle of ferrūminō (“to cement, solder”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from ferrūmen (“cement”).
verb
- To solder, fuse together, merge or unite, as if metals.e.g.“c. 1810-1820?, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Notes on Ben Jonson
too many other passages ferruminated by Jonson from Seneca's tragedies and the writings of the later Romans”
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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