he Word of the Day for December 22 is:

gregarious   \grih-GAIR-ee-us\   adjective
    1 a : tending to associate with others of one's kind : social  *b : marked
by or indicating a liking for companionship: sociable  c : of or relating to a
social group
    2 a of a plant : growing in a cluster or a colony  b : living in contiguous
nests but not forming a true colony -- used especially of wasps and bees

Example sentence:
    Michael's gregarious nature made him popular with students of all different
stripes at school.

Did you know?
    When you're one of the herd, it's tough to avoid being social. The
etymology of "gregarious" reflects the social nature of the flock; in fact, the
word grew out of the Latin noun "grex," meaning "herd" or "flock." When it first
began appearing in English texts in the 17th century, "gregarious" was applied
mainly to animals, but by the 18th century it was being used for social human
beings as well. By the way, "grex" gave English a whole flock of other words
too, including "egregious," "aggregate," "congregate," and "segregate."