Word of the day: pip

No, this is not a post on Tirso Cruz III. This is a post about the English word, pip.

When I read anything, I have this nerdy habit of looking up the meaning of words I am not familiar with. This is pretty much the reason why it takes me so long to read a 500 page novel. Every three or four pages (and sometimes more frequently) I need to stop and look up words in a dictionary.

And today I had to look up the word "pip". Well actually, I had to look up two words -- "loquat" and "pip". The sentence read something like "The man swallowed a pip of a loquat".

Loquat means a fruit from China or Japan (this definition is so bad it could mean anything from a cherry to a banana, but I'm thinking, "Fine, it's a fruit.")

And pip means seed. All right. All is well in the world. The man swallowed a seed from an Asian fruit.

But wait.

It might interest you to know that "pip" also means:

-- the dots on a dice
-- patterns on a pineapple
-- a contagious disease of birds
-- to break out of a shell during hatching, as a young bird does
-- to defeat an opponent
-- to shoot or kill by gunshot
-- to peep or chirp, as a chick does

And of course a popular actor in the Philippines during the 70's.

Cool, eh?

And that people, is why I read.