Word of the Week (WOW) is a weekly meme created by Heena Rathore P. It’s a fun way to improve vocabulary by learning new words every week.
To participate, simply do a post with your word and leave the link to your post as a comment on Heena’s WOW post.
Here is my WOW for this week:
Word: Coterminous
Part of Speech: Adjective
(Comparative: more coterminous, Superlative: most coterminous)
Adverb: coterminously or conterminously
Pronunciation: co – ter – min – ous (kō-tûr′mə-nəs)
Meaning:
1. Having the same border or covering the same area
2. Being the same in extent; coextensive in range or scope
Synonyms:
coetaneous, coeval, coexistent, coexisting, coextensive, coincident, coincidental, concurrent, contemporaneous, contemporary, commensurate, simultaneous, synchronic, synchronous, nearby, close, adjacent, neighbouring, immediate, adjoining, near, proximate,
Antonyms:
asynchronous, noncontemporary, nonsimultaneous, nonsynchronous, distant
Word Origin:
C17: from Latin conterminus, from con- + terminus – end, boundary
Use in a sentence:
To illustrate the use of this word, here is a short poem, written by Heath Muchena on his blog, I of July:
I say this with some diffidence
that the world is full of struggles for recognition
coterminous with the quest for love and reverence
but also fears of indifference
and tears of rejection
*
This is a lovely poem and shows that the word is not only used in connection with geography. As does this sentence:
Language and thought are not strictly coterminous.
Now here are a couple of sentences which are about geography:
1. The Guidelines emphasize the importance of coterminous boundaries for agencies working in partnership.
2. Australia is the only country that is coterminous with a continent.
If you would like to check out more interesting words. then visit Heena’s page:
Millie Thom 
I learned the word nardine today. It’s not a type of sardine, rather a type of plant from the himalayas or its ointment.
Now, nardine is a very interesting word and, I confess, I had to look it up before replying to you, Jacob. Words like that could be used well on Heena’s challenge, if you’d care to have a go. We’re going through the alphabet now, so it will be ‘d’ words next week. Thank you for telling me about that excellent word. 🙂
i think i prefer coexistent, i can at least pronounce that:)
I agree about the punctuation. I keep wanting to say it with an i after the n. I like coexistent, too, but it wouldn’t really suit the geographical applications of the word. Thank you so much for commenting, Rida. 🙂
thank you for the mention Millie… I like the variety you’re giving us on this blog… YOU’RE an AMAZING CREATIVE 🙂
Thank you for reminding me of this unusual word! I hadn’t used it since my geography teaching days. As for your quoting your poem – well, I loved it! 🙂
Nice of you to mention the coterminuity of my nation!! An awesome word of the week. Somehow I missed your reply on one of my earlier posts, about your geographical and Env. Sc. background, until now. Yet another parrellel in our life, Millie!!
A very unique word Millie! Initially I thought “wow! I’ll have a hard time finding use for this one!” but then your example solved the problem beautifully… now I can think quite a lot of sentences to use it 🙂
Thanks for this lovely word Millie and also for participating 🙂
I agree it’s a strange word, with so many long and difficult-sounding synonyms. But I like its geographical applications, and Heath’s poem shows how else it can be used. Thank you for liking my post, Heena. 🙂
Yep… I agree! That poem opened my eyes as well to the use of this word in different ways 🙂
Great word, dear Millie…. thanks for sharing as it is a new one for me…
Much love. Aquileana )
Thank you! It’s an unusual word, but useful at times.