It's the word of the day for May 20th.
Today's word is cordial, spelled C-O-R-D-I-A-L.
Cordial is an adjective.
says in a cordial tone, Now, my dear, what can I do for you?
It describes someone or something that is politely pleasant and friendly.
Here's the word used in a sentence from Summers in Squid Tickle, a Newfoundland Odyssey by Robert Finch.
The Latin root cord,
or core, C-O-R, is at the heart of the connection between cordial, concord, meaning harmony,
The Burnside Post Office is a small one-room wooden building profusely planted with flowers all around it.
and discord, meaning conflict.
One enters a tiny vestibule and pushes a buzzer,
Chord means heart,
which brings Christine out of the house, brushing by you into the office proper,
and each of these chord descendants has something to do with the heart, at least figuratively.
where she opens the counter window
or with, plus chord, suggests that one heart is with another.
Concord, which comes from com, C-O-M, meaning together
and, with a smile and a toss of her hair,
Discord combines the prefix dis, D-I-S, meaning apart, with chord, to imply that hearts are apart.
Hundreds of years ago, cordial could mean simply of or relating to the literal heart.