dirigible ˈdir-ə-jə-bəl , də-ˈri-jə- noun and adjective
noun: a steerable self-propelled aircraft
adjective: capable of being steered or directed
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The word dirigible has appeared in five articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Sept. 20 in the movie review “‘Colette’ and One Woman’s Lust for Life” by Manohla Dargis:
Some nibble on life’s bounty; the French writer Colette gorged. Born in 1873, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette — whose more than 80 volumes include “Gigi” — had one of those lives that make biographers giddy. A passage in Judith Thurman’s “Secrets of the Flesh” suggests how much Colette crowded into her 81 gilded years: During one short eventful period, she attended a boxing match, reported on the Tour de France, rode in a dirigible and watched the police capture a gang of anarchist bank robbers (then dynamite their lair) only to be attacked by the frenzied onlookers.
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