isthmus means A narrow strip of land, bordered on both sides by water, and connecting two larger landmasses. It carries an Arena rating of 1781, earned across 13 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, isthmus ranks #88 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #2,192 of 17,142 for Most Ingenious Words, #2,816 of 17,149 for Most Exacting Words, #2,950 of 17,163 for Funniest Words.
isthmus is pronounced /ˈɪsθ.məs/.
Why “isthmus” is a great word
A narrow strip of land, bordered on both sides by water, that connects two larger landmasses. From Latin isthmus ("a strip of land between two seas"), from Ancient Greek ἰσθμός (isthmós, "neck, narrow passage"). Unlike a peninsula, which is a body of land nearly surrounded by water, or a strait, which is a narrow channel of water, an isthmus is the slender terrestrial tether itself. It is the sandy, pine-scrubbed spine of Panama, the wind-scoured bridge of Corinth, the fragile causeway where children pause, unable to decide which tide to face—a tenuous hinge upon which the fates of continents, and empires, can turn.
Etymology
Borrowing from Latin isthmus (“a strip of land between two seas”), from Ancient Greek ῐ̓σθμός (ĭsthmós, “neck, narrow passage”), possibly from εἶμῐ (eîmĭ, “to go”). Cognate to Old Norse eið (“isthmus”).
noun
- A narrow strip of land, bordered on both sides by water, and connecting two larger landmasses.
- Any such narrow part connecting two larger structures.
- An edge in a graph whose deletion increases the number of connected components of the graph.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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