Word of the Day for Friday January 3, 2006 disparate \DIS-puh-rit; dis-PAIR-it\, adjective: 1. Fundamentally different or distinct in quality or kind. 2. Composed of or including markedly dissimilar elements. Science at its best isolates a common element underlying many seemingly disparate phenomena. --John Horgan, [1]The Undiscovered Mind "[2]A Region Not Home," though it encompasses topics as seemingly disparate as Shakespeare, football, suicide, racism and Disneyland, actually has considerable thematic coherence. --Phillip Lopate, "Dreaming of Elsewhere," [3]New York Times, February 27, 2000 When a poet's mind is perfectly equipped for its work, it is constantly amalgamating disparate experience; the ordinary man's experience is chaotic, irregular, fragmentary. --T.S. Eliot, "The Metaphysical Poets" _________________________________________________________ Disparate comes from the past participle of Latin disparare, "to separate," from dis-, "apart" + parare, "to prepare." Synonyms: different, dissimilar, divergent, diverse, unlike. [4]Find more at Thesaurus.com. References 1. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684850753/ref%3Dnosim/lexico 2. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684834642/ref%3Dnosim/lexico 3. http://www.nytimes.com/ 4. http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=disparate