It's Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 16th.
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Today's word is zeugma, spelled Z-E-U-G-M-A.
Zeugma is a noun.
It refers to wordplay in which a single word relates to other words in such a way that it means something
different in each case, as in building a boat and a reputation, and open a book along with your mind.
Here's the word used in a sentence from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
In an evocative use of Zygma, my favorite literary device,
Braithwaite writes, the old house and everyone in it was falling apart.
Zygma, like the pun, is economical.
It contracts two sentences into one.
It links unrelated terms, mental with moral, abstract with physical, high with low,
and thus generates surprise, wrote Walter Redfern in the book Puns.
Zygma, which has been a part of the English language
since the 15th century, comes from Greek, where it literally means joining.
But even those who are unfamiliar with the word are likely well acquainted with the clever wordplay to which it refers.