4 March 2014

aerie

[air-ee, eer-ee]

noun

1. the nest of a bird of prey, as an eagle or a hawk.
2. a lofty nest of any large bird.
3. a house, fortress, or the like, located high on a hill or mountain. E.g. The hills served as an aerie in which the drug smuggler could hide.
4. Obsolete . the brood in a nest, especially of a bird of prey.

Also, aery, eyrie, eyry.

Origin:
1575–85; < Anglo-French, Old French airie, equivalent to aire (< Latin ager field, presumably “nest” in Vulgar Latin; see acre) + ie -y3 ; compare Medieval Latin aerea, aeria aerie, brood < Old French aire

Can be confused: 1. aerie, airy ; 2. aerie, eerie, Erie.

Today’s aphorism

Empathize with stupidity and you’re halfway to thinking like an idiot.

– Iain Banks

On this day

5 March 1946 – The term ‘Iron Curtain’ to describe the Soviet Union and Communist Europe, is coined in a speech by Winston Churchill.

5 March 1953 – USSR leader Joseph Stalin died at his dacha at Kuntseva,15km west of Moscow, following a stroke three days earlier. An autopsy suggested he may have died from ingesting warfarin, a rat poison which thins the blood, and that this may have caused the cerebral hemorrhage. The warfarin may have been added to his food by Deputy Premier Beria and Nikita Khrushchev. It was later revealed by former Politburo member, Vyacheslav Molotov in his 1993 memoirs that Beria had boasted of poisoning Stalin.