A. Word.A. Day.

If you are interested in a WOD for yourself or for students, I like this site. From it, you can receive a word a day in your email box and you can have it opened up before your students get there. I like the little word origin stories, too! Some of the words may seem too high for elementary students but they, the children, may surprise you.
Here is today's from WordSmith.org

This week's theme

People who have more than one word coined after them This
week's words

ciceronian

maudlin

Today's word inVisual Thesaurus
Mary
Magdalene by Titian

A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg
maudlin
PRONUNCIATION:(MAWD-lin)
MEANING:adjective: Overly sentimental.

ETYMOLOGY:After Mary Magdalene, a Biblical character who was a follower of Jesus. In medieval art she was depicted as a penitent weeping for her sins (she washed the feet of Jesus with her tears) and her name became synonymous with tearful sentimentality.The name Magdalene means "of Magdala" in Greek and is derived after a town on the Sea of Galilee. The name Magdala, in turn, means tower in Aramaic. So here we have a word coined after a person, who was named after a place, which was named after a thing.

In an allusion to her earlier life, Mary Magdalene's name has sprouted another eponym, magdalene, meaning a reformed prostitute.

USAGE:"In this maudlin melodrama, all that was missing were the violins."Jeannette Layne-Clark; Minister on Stage; Daily Nation (Barbados); Mar 20, 2005.