The Word of the Day is:
phalanx \FAY-lanks\ noun
1 : a body of heavily armed infantry in ancient Greece formed in close deep
ranks
and files;
broadly
: a body of troops in close array
2 plural phalanges
: one of the digital bones of the hand or foot of a vertebrate
3 *a : a massed arrangement of persons, animals, or things b: an organized
body of
persons
Example sentence:
The police commissioner had to maneuver through a phalanx of reporters
before he
could make his way into the building.
See a map of "phalanx" in the Visual Thesaurus.
Did you know?
The original sense of "phalanx" refers to a military formation that was used
in ancient
warfare and consisted of a tight block of soldiers standing shoulder to
shoulder,
several rows deep, often with shields joined. The word "phalanx" comes from
the Greeks,
though they were not the only ones who used this formation. The Greek term
literally
means "log" and was used for both this line of battle and for a bone in a
finger
or toe. The word and its senses passed into Latin and then were adopted into
English
in the 16th century. These days, a "phalanx" can be any arranged mass,
whether of
persons, animals, or things, or a body of people organized in a particular
effort.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
Subject: word of the day 
