pogonip

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The Word of the Day for December 31 is:=20

pogonip   \PAH-guh-nip\   noun
          : a dense winter fog containing frozen particles that is forme=
d in deep mountain valleys of the western United States

Example sentence:
          "The white wafer sun sports a halo, and nearby hills are veile=
d in pogonip." (Bill Croke, _The American Spectator_, March 1997)

Did you know?
          Readers of _The Old Farmer's Almanac_ might recognize the odd-=
sounding warning, "Beware the pogonip!" So what's a pogonip? In the moun=
tains of the western United States, the fog condenses into tiny, biting =
ice particles in extremely cold weather. The English-speaking settlers w=
ho encountered this unpleasant and sometimes scary phenomenon when they =
went out West in the 1800s needed a word for it. They borrowed "payinapp=
ih" ("cloud") from Shoshone, altering it to "pogonip."





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