Fungible

I came across this word as I was reading a draft report today and I think I felt my eyeballs stumble, kind of like when your feet snag on a pothole. Fungible? Looks kind of like fungus. Of course, I had to scurry to a dictionary to ferret out the meaning of this unfamiliar term, which I learned basically means interchangeable or transposable.

Looking back at the sentence in the document, I have to scratch my head. I can see how it fits but still, is there a particular reason in any circumstance to use a word like fungible when you have interchangeable, transposable, convertible, identical, correspondent, equivalent, reciprocal, compatible, and so many others to choose from? Some would say absolutely not; the sole reason you'd select fungible over all of its fungible synonyms is to show off. Others would say it's a fine word in its own right, if a bit obscure, and if used correctly, it conveys the intended meaning as well as any of its equivalents. But it does send even a word junkie like me reaching for a dictionary.

So if the goal is to communicate an idea as quickly and cleanly as possible, fungible probably isn't the best choice. But if you were writing an essay or story or something where the goal was to engage readers in the play of rhetoric, then fungible may be a fun word to add to the mix.

Dictionary Definition
Pronounced: [fuhn-juh-buhl]
Root: from Latin fungi meaning to perform
1. Interchangeable; especially in legal terms as being of such a nature that one part or quantity may be replaced by another equal part or quantity in order to satisfy an obligation; e.g. fungible commodities are those that can be estimated readily and replaced according to weight, measure, and amount.