Welcome to another wild and wonderful installment of Word Woman's Weekly Work-Out! This week's Word of the Week is actually a pair of words, and a very confusing pair they are indeed. Usually when you see a pair of words where one starts with "in", for example the words "significant" and "insignificant", they are opposites. In this case, however, the words "flammable" and "inflammable" actually have the same meaning despite their difference in structure, as you will see:
Flammable:
Pronunciation: \ˈfla-mə-bəl\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin flammare to flame, set on fire, from flamma
Date: 1813
: capable of being easily ignited and of burning quickly
-- "flammable." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2010.
Merriam-Webster Online. 18 August 2010
Inflammable:
Pronunciation: \in-ˈfla-mə-bəl\
Function: adjective
Etymology: French, from Medieval Latin inflammabilis, from Latin inflammare
Date: 1605
1 : flammable
2 : easily inflamed, excited, or angered : irascible
-- "inflammable." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2010.
Merriam-Webster Online. 18 August 2010
Example: The fireman explained to Pam that the curtains labeled "inflammable" which she had purchased were actually quite flammable as he extinguished the blaze in her living room.
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