juncture means A place where things join, a junction. It carries an Arena rating of 1640, earned across 5 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, juncture ranks #381 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #1,204 of 17,142 for Most Ingenious Words, #1,373 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #2,710 of 42,749 for Qualifying.
juncture is pronounced /ˈd͡ʒʌŋk.tʃə(ɹ)/.
Why “juncture” is a great word
A point of joining, a critical moment in time, or in linguistics, the phonetic transition between sounds that distinguishes meaning. From Latin iūnctūra (“a joining, joint”), from iūnctus, past participle of iungere (“to join”), first recorded in English between 1350 and 1400. Unlike “junction” (a physical confluence of roads or wires) or “moment” (any general point in time, however trivial), a juncture is charged with structural consequence—the hinge upon which action turns. It is the surgeon’s blade poised at the exact plane of tissue, the held breath between two syllables that transforms “night rate” into “nitrate,” and the precise, silent seam where one word dissolves into the next, leaving meaning to tremble on the pivot where paths either fuse or forever diverge.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English juncture, from Latin iūnctūra. Doublet of jointure.
noun
- A place where things join, a junction.
- A critical moment in time.e.g.“We're at a crucial juncture in our relationship.”
- The manner of moving (transition) or mode of relationship between two consecutive sounds; a suprasegmental phonemic cue, by which a listener can distinguish between two otherwise identical sequences of sounds that have different meanings.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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