After embarassingly little searching through my dictionary, I stumbled across today’s word, which is andabata! This exciting word is one of the several types of gladiators (does anybody know them all?).
andabata, andabatae masculine
This poor fool was the class of gladiator who had to fight with a helmet. “What’s so bad about that?” you might ask. Well, an andabata’s helmet had no holes for his eyes 
I’m not sure just how successful this kind of gladiator was in the arena, but I am betting not very.
As you may notice, it is one of the few masculine nouns of the first declension, so be wary 
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Whoever wants to do a word of the day whenever they want should feel free. We don’t really need one every day, and I will try to do one at least once a week. Since not many people have volunteered, I don’t think it is too much of a disruption to have separate threads for each word, and then maybe be able to discuss each one right there, but if anyone is morally opposed to this, just say so.
benissimus:
Whoever wants to do a word of the day whenever they want should feel free. We don’t really need one every day, and I will try to do one at least once a week. Since not many people have volunteered, I don’t think it is too much of a disruption to have separate threads for each word, and then maybe be able to discuss each one right there, but if anyone is morally opposed to this, just say so.
Morally opposed? To what? Learning? No, definately not! Bring on interesting (and/or obscure) Latin words! I will post some should I stumble across them (lemme get through BLD and Wheelocks first…)
http://www.ukans.edu/history/index/europe/ancient_rome/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Gladiatores.html<br />
gives:
andabatae, catervarii, dimacheri, equites, essedarii, fiscales, hoplomachi, laqueatores, meridiani, mirmillones, ordinarii, postulaticii, provocatores, retiarii, samnites, secutores, suposititii, and thraces.