"Theaceous: adj. pertaining to or like the tea-plant; belonging to the tea family of plants." You can get the definition free online at Tiscali's Dictionary of Difficult Words or by subscription at the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. For the full monty we looked it up the old-fashioned way in our snail Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Image of p. 2369 above lists "theaceous" just about a third of the way between "the" and "their" and includes etymological roots: [NL Theaceae + E -ous].
"Tea leaves struck a cord with quite a few of your readers," observed Goomp this morning during imail chats, referring to the deluge of personal testimonials and theaceous pointers flooding into the comments in our previous post, "Something to drink if you can't drink liquor." Excerpts:
We: Tea: The new gin. Or, on a more trendy note, Tea: The new black.
He: The "new black" is too esoteric for me. I prefer "Tea: The new gin."
We'll drink a mug -- "Cups are too small and frankly poncy," counsels our British correspondent Peter McGrath -- to that and to our wonderful commenters. A few nuggets:
Laura Lee: Everyday after school when I was in high school I would come home to a cup of tea and vanilla wafers, a very simple pleasure, but my friends found out and gave me a new nickname, Lauratealeaf.
Goomp: I have a hunch tea may also have an economic advantage over alcohol.
Teresa: I find that tea is a wonderful thing to soothe nerves (which seems silly, but appears to be true) and I have also noticed that it aids digestion.
Pam: Growing up in the south, tea was considered the 'house wine', so you struck a chord.
Rowena: I've been teetotaling for over two years, and now I've finally got the tea!
Meanwhile we've just passed the two-week mark -- and counting -- on our Cold Turkey Diet. Time for a tea break.
Maybe we should go Peter McGrath one better and drink our tea in steins. Then we can have a "Stein on the Table and a Good Song Ringing Clear". Tea over gin is worth singing about.
Posted by: Goomp | June 12, 2007 at 12:06 PM
Not that there's anything wrong with gin... unless you count the hangovers and stuff. *grin* Tea is an excellent drink without the downside. ;-)
Posted by: Teresa | June 12, 2007 at 01:21 PM
Tea is also a must when I have a bad cold which I do today. So I am having a sip of tea with thee in thought. (and in actuality)
Posted by: Laura Lee Donoho | June 12, 2007 at 07:51 PM
If you like tea and teapots, check out this site - http://www.teapotnet.com
Posted by: Sarah Davis | April 28, 2011 at 07:56 PM