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Word of the Day – Thursday, November 15th

 


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NIT (nit)

1. The egg or young of a parasitic insect, such as a louse
2. The National Invitation Tournament, a men's college basketball tournament
Common clues:
Louse egg; They’re sometimes picked; Something to pick; Future louse; Coll. Hoops competition; N.Y.C. College basketball event; Hoops org.
Crossword puzzle frequency: 4 times a year
Frequency in English language: 54038 / 86800
News: Doctors see large spike in head lice around Halloween
Video:
How to remove head lice


Lice (singular: louse), also known as fly babies, are an order of over 3,000 species of wingless insects; three of which are classified as human disease agents. They are obligate ectoparasites of every avian and most mammalian orders. They are not found on Monotremes (the platypus and the echidnas or spiny anteaters) and a few eutherian orders, namely the bats (Chiroptera), whales, dolphins and porpoises (Cetacea) and pangolins (Pholidota).




Light micrograph of Fahrenholzia pinnata


As lice spend their entire lives on the host, they have developed adaptations which enable them to maintain close contact with the host. These adaptations are reflected in their size (0.5–8 mm), stout legs, and claws which are adapted to cling tightly to hair, fur and feathers, and that they are wingless and dorsoventrally flattened.


Lice feed on skin (epidermal) debris, feather parts, sebaceous secretions and blood. A louse's color varies from pale beige to dark grey; however, if feeding on blood, it may become considerably darker.


A louse's egg is commonly called a nit. Lice attach their eggs to their host's hair with specialized saliva which results in a bond that is very difficult to separate without specialized products. Living lice eggs tend to be pale white. Dead lice eggs are more yellow. Lice are very annoying and are difficult to remove, but not impossible.


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The National Invitation Tournament (NIT) is a men's college basketball tournament operated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. There are two NIT events each season. The first, played in November and known as the Dick's Sporting Goods NIT Season Tip-Off (formerly the Preseason NIT), was founded in 1985. The second, the original NIT, is a post-season tournament played in March and April that is now called the MasterCard NIT; it was founded in 1938. In both cases, the final rounds of the tournament are played at Madison Square Garden in New York City. In both common and official usage, "NIT" or "National Invitation Tournament" refers to the post-season tournament unless otherwise qualified. Both the pre- and post-season tournaments were operated by the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association (MIBA) up until 2005, when they were purchased by the NCAA.





This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Louse" and “National Invitational Tournament”.