shibire
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
1
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
Etymology
From Japanese しびれ (shibire, “numbness, paralyzed”). Coined by Japanese-Canadian geneticist and zoologist David Suzuki, its discoverer. Originally discovered in its temperature sensitive form, shibire(ts), which caused the afflicted flies to drop from the sky on a temperature change, appearing to be a gene causing paralysis. Suzuki, referencing his Japanese heritage, chose a Japanese term for being paralyzed as the gene's name.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: しびれ