expressionate, adj.

[Jonathan Lighter]

A friend asked me yesterday whether "expressionate" was a word. I should have checked Google before I hemmed and hawed and said, "If it sounds right to you, and people understand you when you say it, it's a word!"

  Boy, that was a close one!  But I now I find over 7,000 Raw Googlits back to 1997.

  My friend said she's "always" used it, but began to worry when she couldn't find it in a dictionary. It means "chracterized by strong, usu. facial, expression; strongly expressive."

  She said "expressive" wasn't the same thing. "Expressionate" refers prinicpally (though not exclusively) to facial expressions.


  JL


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