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| | The Mavens' Word of the Day (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-01) |
 | | The word cardinal can mean 'the color red', 'a species of red bird', 'a number indicating quantity (as opposed to an ordinal that indicates position)', or 'a Roman Catholic bishop who gets to vote to elect the pope'. |
 | | Cardinal in all of its senses derives from Latin cardo, cardinis, which means 'hinge', and is related to Greek kradaino, 'to swing'. |
 | | If something is cardinal, something else depends on it: in Mirror of the Sea (1906), Joseph Conrad speaks of "the cardinal article of a seaman's faith." The cardinal virtues (prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice) are those to which other virtues are related and on which they turn. |
| www.randomhouse.com /wotd/index.pperl?date=20011024 (328 words) |
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