Sentence:  Well-meaning academics even introduced spelling absurdities such as the “s” in the <WSD>word</WSD> “island,” a misguided Renaissance attempt to restore the etymology of the [unrelated] Latin word "insula". 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  The smallest discrete unit of written language with a particular meaning, composed of one or more (letters or symbols and one or more morphemes)