I've started imagining that the Dictionary.com word of the day is one that has just been invented, that day, to help us with some new situation for which we previously had no focused concept, or maybe that has been retroactively erased from the past via time-travel and then reintroduced to remind us of a way of thinking that had fallen into neglect.  

On Tuesday somebody devised the word "officious" to describe the oblivious use of procedure in place of judgment. The immediate derivation is from "official", which of course comes from the root "offal". Even if this one doesn't get used in conversation so much, off.icio.us will be an excellent domain name for a web clearinghouse of Bush-administration aid programs for New Orleans evacuees.  

Wednesday's (re)neologism was "afflatus", a 92-point Louis De Bernières word that describes the way in which divine inspiration propagates (and is attributed) like flatulence.  

Today's is "quorum", which is a method of reaching consensus by figuring out how many people you are allowed to ignore.