epizootic (adj.): affecting many animals of one kind at the same time. compare EPIDEMIC

Doesn’t this word sound made up? I saw it for the first time ever in this week’s New Yorker, in a Talk of the Town piece by John Cassidy, in which he described the recent rash of Wall Street calamities as an “epizootic in the financial markets.” I assumed he was making some kind of perverse pun, implying that the world of finance is a “zoo,” when in reality he was using a real word with the Latinate root “zo” to metaphorically imply that the world of finance is full of sick animals. This came to light along with the unfortunate realization that the word is not pronounced “ep-ə-’zoo-tik” but rather “ep-ə-zə-’wa-tik.” Of course, as was the case with the word “meatus,” I don’t expect the truth to have much bearing on how I will be pronouncing the word in the future.

Tags: orthography