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The Word of the Day for January 31 is:

Rosetta stone   \roh-ZEH-tuh-stohn\   (noun)
      1 : a black basalt stone found in 1799 that bears an
inscription in hieroglyphics, demotic characters, and Greek and
is celebrated for having given the first clue to the decipherment
of Egyptian hieroglyphics
     *2 : one that gives a clue to understanding

Example sentence:
     "There is no reason patients shouldn't be able to understand
the prescriptions they are given without a Rosetta stone." (Joe
Graedon, et al, _The Springfield [Mass.] Union-News_, March 2,
1990)

Did you know?
     We still use the word "hieroglyphics" for something difficult
to decipher, but 200 years ago, the term was more literal -- it
referred to an Egyptian writing system that was utterly
unintelligible to modern man. So when an inscribed stone about the
size of a coffee table was discovered in an Egyptian town called
"Rosetta" ("Rashid" in Arabic), it changed the course of language
history. The Rosetta stone, as it came to be called, held a key.
Probably written by Egyptian priests in the 2nd century B.C., its
hieroglyphic text repeated a text written in familiar Greek. As a
result, Egyptologists were able to decipher the symbols. Today we
also use "Rosetta stone" figuratively, as we have since the early
20th century, for other clue providers.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

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