Each week, The Sun's John McIntyre presents a moderately obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar — another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word:
GRACILE
Wallis Warfield Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor, supposedly said some version of "A woman can't be too rich or too thin," a motto for anorexics and bony women everywhere. So the goal is to be wealthy and gracile.
Gracile
(pronounced GRASS-il) means "slim" or "slender." It derives from the Latin
gracilis
, "scanty."
By association with the similar word
grace
, which comes from a completely different Latin root,
gratia
, it is sometimes understood to mean gracefully slender or even graceful.
Example:
In youth he was light on his feet and gracile, but years of late-night beer and pizza slowed his step and thickened his middle.