Churlish

Word of the Day for Wednesday, November 30, 2011

churlish \CHUR-lish\, adjective:

1. Boorish or rude.
2. Of a churl; peasantlike.
3. Stingy; mean.
4. Difficult to work or deal with, as soil.

And Ethel, though sometimes sharp and malicious and difficult, wasn't churlish or unpunctual or casual at all.
-- Ruth Rendell, One Across, Two Down

I call it churlish that you would complain of a little time spent in schooling me when the rewards I've earned you come in thick and fast.
-- Karen Miller, A Blight of Mages

Churlish originates in the Old English ceorlisc meaning “peasant, freeman, man without rank.” It had various meanings in early Middle English, including "man of the common people," "a country man," "husbandman," "free peasant." By 1300, it meant "bondman, villain," also "fellow of low birth or rude manners."

Thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Serry

Word of the Day for Tuesday, November 29, 2011

serry \SER-ee\, verb:

To crowd closely together.

Serry means to crowd and is spelled serry.
-- Mildred Colvin, Missouri Brides

To keep unsettled the questions upon which these united with the Liberation Society, —accustom a powerful contingent to work together with “political Dissenters,”—to serry friends and foes into hostile phalanx, —to accept battle on a week ground where it is only possible to rally half the forces...
-- S. Wellington, The Spectator, Vol. 6

Serry is from the Middle Frenceh serré which was the past participle of serrer meaning “to press tightly together.”

Thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Word of the Day for Monday, November 28, 2011

panegyrize \PAN-i-juh-rahyz\, verb:

1. To eulogize; to deliver or write a panegyric about.
2. To indulge in panegyric; bestow praises.

I allowed then as how I had been moved to panegyrize Lieutenant Locke.
-- Louis Bayard, The Pale Blue Eye

Judge Story was a profound admirer of Chief Justice Marshall, and could rarely hear his name mentioned without digressing to panegyrize his learning and intellectual power.
-- William Matthews, Hours with Men and Books

From Greek, panegyrize originally meant “belonging to a public assembly” from pan meaning “all” and egyris, “gathering.”

With thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Stertor

Word of the Day for Sunday, November 27, 2011

stertor \STUR-ter\, noun:

A heavy snoring sound.

He was snoring, a wheeze and stertor that animated the papers scattered round him...
-- T.C. Boyle, Riven Rock

The stertor of Meat's breathing came softly, almost soothingly, through the wall.
-- Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding

Stertor comes from the Latin stret which meant “to snore.”

With thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Procrustean

Word of the Day for Saturday, November 26, 2011

procrustean \proh-KRUHS-tee-uhn\, adjective:

1. Tending to produce conformity by violent or arbitrary means.
2. Pertaining to or suggestive of Procrustes.

Soon they were operating a sort of procrustean ferry where the fares were tailored to accommodate the purses of the travelers. Ultimately all pretense was dropped and the immigrants were robbed outright.
-- Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian

To force them into the machine would require a Procrustean mutilation of their basic humanity.
-- Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

Procrustean refers to the Greek myth of Procrustes, who was a robber who tortured his victims. According to mythology, he was killed by Theseus.

Thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Dipsomania

Word of the Day for Friday, November 25, 2011

dipsomania \dip-suh-MEY-nee-uh\, noun:

An irresistible, typically periodic craving for alcoholic drink.

During his last years he'd become a regular drinking companion of Roosevelt's younger brother, Elliot, whose life was also ended by dipsomania some years later.
-- Caleb Carr, The Alienist

What exactly has Mr. Waugh in mind, one would like to know, in making the perhaps too charming young man a dipsomania? Is it no more than that, being himself an unsatisfactory Roman Catholic, Sebastian lacked the will to resist drink?
-- Martin Stannard, Evelyn Waugh: The Critical Heritage

Dipsomania literally means crazy thirst from the Greek dips (thirst) and mania (crazy).

With thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Appetence

Word of the Day for Thursday, November 24, 2011

appetence \AP-i-tuhns\, noun:

1. Intense desire; strong natural craving; appetite.
2. Instinctive inclination or natural tendency.
3. Material or chemical attraction or affinity.

A sudden step and desire to reach back in time to change the circumstances, to re-write and re-route all those ferocious columns, an appetence to change what had been done and said.
-- Charles D. Ellison, Tantrum

How immense is their thirst for life! A youthful nation in its entirety, a new mankind, inspired with an eager appetence for knowledge and truth.
-- Stefan Zweig and Laurence Mintz, Balzac, Dickens, Dostoevsky: Master Builders of the Spirit

Appetence, from the same root as appetite, comes from the Latin appete meaning “to seek for or long for.”

Many thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Crepitate

Word of the Day for Wednesday, November 23, 2011

crepitate \KREP-i-teyt\, verb:

To make a crackling sound; crackle.

The lampwicks crepitate; their flames are about to go out, long mosquitoes flit in rapid circlings about them.
-- Gustave Flaubert, The Temptation of Saint Anthony

This horrible talk, however, evidently possessed a potent magic for my friend; and his imagination, checked for a while by the influence of his kinsman, began to ferment and crepitate.
-- Henry James, Stories Revived

Crepitate is from the Latin crepitare which meant “to rustle or chatter.”

Thanks go to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Poltroon

Word of the Day for Tuesday, November 22, 2011

poltroon \pol-TROON\, noun:

1. A wretched coward; craven.

adjective:
1. Marked by utter cowardice.

By heavens, if, under the circumstances of the provocation which you gave him, and his whole family, he would be as mean and cowardly a poltroon as I find you be...”
-- William Carleton, Valentine M'Cultchy, the Irish Agent

“Poltroon, my dear, poltroon!” Moloch put in. “He has no sense of decency, no respect—for me, or for anything. He's a vulgar, coarse fool.”
-- Henry Miller, Moloch

Poltroon originally came from the Latin pullus meaning “young animal.” It came to mean an idler or coward in Old French.

With thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Salvo

Word of the Day for Monday, November 21, 2011

salvo \SAL-voh\, noun:

1. Something to save a person's reputation or soothe a person's feelings.
2. An excuse or quibbling evasion.
3. A simultaneous or successive discharge of artillery, bombs, etc.
4. A round of fire given as a salute.
5. A round of cheers or applause.

King Edward, however, artfully inserted a salvo, saving the rights of the King of England and of all others which before the date of this treaty belong to him or any of them in the marches or elsewhere.
-- G. A. Henty, In Freedom's Cause

Ignoring sons, he scanned the daughters with salvo upon salvo of loving glances...
-- William T. Vollmann, The Royal Family

Salvo originates in the Latin word salvus meaning “safe.”

With thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Mitigate

Word of the Day for Sunday, November 20, 2011

mitigate \MIT-i-geyt\, verb:

1. To lessen in force or intensity, as wrath, grief, harshness, or pain; moderate.
2. To make less severe: to mitigate a punishment.
3. To make (a person, one's state of mind, disposition, etc.) milder or more gentle; mollify; appease.
4. To become milder; lessen in severity.

I owe you a thousand obligations for all the attention you showed me in my late calamitous situation, and ill, very ill, should I repay those obligations, if I did not try as a friend to mitigate these violent transports.
-- Charlotte Turner Smith, Celestina

That does nothing to mitigate your condescending arrogance.
-- William Kittredge, The Willow Field

Mitigate is from the Latin roots mit (soft) and agere (to cause).

With thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Knavery

Word of the Day for Saturday, November 19, 2011

knavery \NEY-vuh-ree\, noun:

1. Unprincipled, untrustworthy, or dishonest dealing; trickery.
2. Action or practice characteristic of a knave
3. A knavish act or practice.

Knavery may serve for a turn, but honesty is best in the long run.
-- Aesop, Aesop's Fables

Yes, I took the brunt of it but not because there was a ballot on it but because I know knavery when I see knavery. Plus underhandedness and mischief.
-- Gordon Lish, Collected Fictions

Originally from the German word knabe meaning “boy or lad,” knavery has been used to imply deceitful intentions since the 1200s.

With thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Omnibus

Word of the Day for Friday, November 18, 2011

omnibus \OM-nuh-buhs\, noun:

1. A volume of reprinted works of a single author or of works related in interest or theme.
2. A bus.

adjective:
1. Pertaining to, including, or dealing with numerous objects or items at once.

He is working on an omnibus volume that will combine old and new material to explain what he's been doing all these years.
-- Benjamin Ivry, “Joseph Mitchell's Secret” New York Magazine, Feb. 9, 1987

An omnibus containing extracts from past works, linked with Koestler's 1980 comments, it has a far more coherent shape than the author appears to think.
-- Bernard Dixon, “Two Cultures At One” New Scientist, Jan. 8, 1981

Omnibus means “for all” in Latin.

With thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Bibliophage

Word of the Day for Thursday, November 17, 2011

bibliophage \BIB-lee-uh-feyj\, noun:

An ardent reader; a bookworm.

You may recall, if you are something of a bibliophage, that the late Sylvia Plath had a story with a similar name.
-- Corey Mesler, We Are a Billion-Year-Old Carbon

The borrower, heedless, reckless bibliophage cares nothing about all this; into the midst of these learned pleasures he leaps like a fox into a hen-roost; he is smitten all at once with an overmastering hunger for reading...”
-- Elliot Stock, The Bookworm

Bibliophage derives from the Latin biblio meaning “books” and phage meaning “a thing that devours.”

With thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Opuscule

Word of the Day for Wednesday, November 16, 2011

opuscule \oh-PUHS-kyool\, noun:

1. A small or minor work.
2. A literary or musical work of small size.

Little by little, with patience and luck and the progressive sharpening of my predatory eye, I found one or another opuscule of his in my used book stores in Oxford and London.
-- Javier Marías, Dark Back of Time

The guide, a mere opuscule of ten pages, is entitled 'The Great Sepulture of the Cappuccini', and is well worth the hundred lire one pays for it.
-- Jocelyn Brooke, The Dog at Clambercrown

Opuscule is from the Latin roots opus meaning “word” and cule which is a suffix that implies a diminutive version, as in molecule and fascicle.

With thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Apocrypha

Word of the Day for Tuesday, November 15, 2011

apocrypha \uh-POK-ruh-fuh\, noun:

1. Various religious writings of uncertain origin regarded by some as inspired, but rejected by most authorities.
2. A group of 14 books, not considered canonical, included in the Septuagint and the Vulgate as part of the Old Testament, but usually omitted from Protestant editions of the Bible.
3. Writings, statements, etc., of doubtful authorship or authenticity.

The apocrypha, some of which the peasants would hear in church, were popular because of their often grotesque humour, and although there was frequently a didactic element, it was not usually overbearing.
-- Jack V. Haney, Russian Wondertales

The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries gave birth to numerous chronicles, hagiographies, legends, and apocrypha, in which the proportion of fictional and nonfictional elements varied.
-- Carl Edmund Rollyson, Critical Survey of Long Fiction

Apocrypha comes from the Greek apokryphos meaning “hidden, unknown or spurious.”

With thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Fascicle

Word of the Day for Monday, November 14, 2011

fascicle \FAS-i-kuhl\, noun:

1. A section of a book or set of books published in installments as separate pamphlets or volumes.
2. A small bundle, tight cluster, or the like.
3. Botany. A close cluster, as of flowers or leaves.
4. Anatomy. A small bundle of nerve or muscle fibres.

Citations of passages within texts collected in the Buddhist and Daoist cannons are by fascicle and page...
-- Robert Fort Company, Strange Writing

In 1981 R. W. Franklin published The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson, a manuscript edition that arranges the poems in fascicle order.
-- Elaine Showalter, Modern America Women Writers

Fascicle originates in the Latin word fascus meaning “a bundle or pack” and the suffix “cle” that implies a smaller version, as in particle.

With thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Lyard

Word of the Day for Sunday, November 13, 2011

lyard \LAHY-erd\, adjective:

Streaked or spotted with grey or white.

Referring again to the colour of medieval horses, white or grey, which was called “lyard”—were the favourite colours...
-- Walter Clifford Meller, A Knight's Life in Days of Chivalry

The best colour for a stallion, is brown bay dappled, dapple grey, bright bay, or white lyard.
-- Gervase Markham, Cavelarice

Lyard is from the Old French liart. However its meaning before that is unknown.

With thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Rankle

Word of the Day for Saturday, November 12, 2011

rankle \RANG-kuhl\, verb:

1. To cause keen irritation or bitter resentment in.
2. To continue to cause keen irritation or bitter resentment within the mind; fester; be painful.

She holds that scornful expression long enough to make sure I notice. I make believe I don't. I try not to let it rankle me.
-- Joseph Heller, Something Happened

The section of it which chiefly rankled in Charteris's mind, and which had continued to rankle ever since, was that in which the use of the word “buffoon” had occurred.
-- P. G. Wodehouse, Tales of St. Austin's

Rankle has a complex history. It derives from the Middle English word rancler meaning “to fester” which is a derivative of draoncle, late Latin for “a sore” which itself comes from the Latin draco me

aning “a serpent.”

With thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Zeal

Word of the Day for Friday, November 11, 2011

zeal \zeel\, noun:

Fervour for a person, cause, or object; eager desire or endeavour; enthusiastic diligence; ardour.

...serve him with zeal, and love him with fidelity.
-- Fanny Burney, Cecilia: Or, Memoirs of an Heiress

This passionate profession, which Newman uttered with the greater zeal that it was the first time he had felt the relief words at once as hard and as careful as hammer-taps could give his spirit, kindled two small sparks in Mrs. Bread's fixed eyes.
-- Henry James, The American

Zeal is derived from the Greek word zelos, the same root as the word zealous.

With thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Pansophy

Word of the Day for Thursday, November 10, 2011

pansophy \PAN-suh-fee\, noun:

Universal wisdom or knowledge.

For just at the moment Baconfield had come to perceive the divine formulae that dictate, in darkness, the world's apparent randomness, just when the thumbmarks on his walls comprised an exhilarating pansophy and he stood poised on the verge of omniscience, an uncircumscribable chaos has swept into his life.
-- Rikki Ducornet, The Jade Cabinet

Wade had somehow managed to fuse the lightning-bolt pansophy of our visionary past with a single-minded perspicacity befitting the finest of the experimental methods...
-- Konrad Ventana, A Desperado's Daily Bread

From the Greek, pansophy is comprised of the root words pan meaning “all” and sophy meaning “wisdom.”

With thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Kef

Word of the Day for Wednesday, November 9, 2011

kef \keyf\, noun:

1. A state of drowsy contentment
2. Also, keef. a substance, especially a smoking preparation of hemp leaves, used to produce this state.

I need not add that my kef—my noon rest, did not pass without interruption.
-- Karl Friedrich May, Through the Desert

...I tied on my hat and lit it down and held up my umbrella for shade, and fell into kef, being incapable of sustained thought.
-- William Cory, Extracts from the Letters and Journals of William Cory

Kef comes from the Arabic word kaif meaning “well-being or pleasure.”

With thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Plebiscite

Word of the Day for Tuesday, November 8, 2011

plebiscite \PLEB-uh-sahyt\, noun:

1. A direct vote of the qualified voters of a state in regard to some important public question.
2. The vote by which the people of a political unit determine autonomy or affiliation with another country.

How many of these were there? Not enough to put the verdict of the plebiscite in doubt, anyway.
-- Arthur C. Clark, The Last Theorem

It was he who devised the plebiscite and the governmental machinery for making plebiscites yield the desired results — ninety-eight percent of the votes in favour of tyranny, two percent against.
-- Aldous Huxley, Complete Essays

Plebiscite is comprised the Latin roots plebi meaning “common people” and scitum meaning “resolution or decree.”

With thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Canny

Word of the Day for Monday, November 7, 2011

canny \KAN-ee\, adjective:

1. Careful; cautious; prudent.
2. Astute; shrewd; knowing; sagacious.
3. Skilled; expert.
4. Frugal; thrifty.
5. Scot. A. Safe to deal with, invest in, or work at (usually used with a negative). B. Gentle; careful; steady. C. Snug; cozy; comfortable. D. Pleasing; attractive. E. Archaic. Having supernatural or occult powers.

adverb:
1. In a canny manner.
2. Scot. Carefully; cautiously.

But they're not going to catch us that easily. If they're canny, we can be canny too!
-- Hans Fallada, Every Man Dies Alone

Some of the little contrivances, which he thought so canny, left her doubtful.
-- D.H. Lawrence, The Rainbow

Canny is derived from the Middle English word ken meaning “knowledge or understanding.” It is related to the verb kennen meaning “to see, know, or make known.”

With thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Junket

Word of the Day for Sunday, November 6, 2011 junket \JUHNG-kit\, noun: 1. A trip, usually by an official or legislative committee, paid out of public funds and ostensibly to obtain information. 2. A sweet, custardlike food of flavored milk curdled with rennet. 3. A pleasure excursion, as a picnic or outing. verb: 1. To go on a junket. 2. To entertain; feast; regale. Yeah, well, there's a lot more of them on the operation, fellows in the control room, women too. They all decided to go to California together on a junket. Whooping it up, you know? -- Patricia Highsmith, Tales of Natural and Unnatural Catastrophes Some lobbyists get together and put up money for a few congresspeople to go to a resort for a winter weekend. The catch is the lobbyists get to go along and talk to them. They usually call it a seminar or a symposium, but basically it's a junket. -- John Lutz, Final Seconds Junket is rooted in the Latin word juncata which meant “rush basket.” It is likely that the basket was associated with the notion of a picnic basket and came to signify a pleasure trip. Thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Quean

Word of the Day for Saturday, November 5, 2011 Quean \kween\, noun: 1. An overly forward, impudent woman; shrew; hussy. 2. A prostitute. 3. British Dialect. A girl or young woman, especially a robust one. I answer thee, thou art a beggar, a quean, and a bawd. -- Thomas Middleton, Five Plays Had I had my own will, I would have had her to Bridewell, to flog the wild blood out of her—a cutty quean, to think of wearing the breeches, and not so much as married yet! -- Sir Walter Scott, Waverley Novels Quean, predictably, is rooted in the same Old English word that queen comes from, the word cwen which meant woman With thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/

Prehensible

Word of the Day for Friday, November 4, 2011

prehensible \pri-HEN-suh-buhl\, adjective:

Able to be seized or grasped.

Do they not give the obvious signified a kind of difficultly prehensible roundness, cause my reading to slip?
-- Roland Barthes, Image, Music, Text

And I, having only the name Divers as a visible, prehensible asperity for grasping the invisible, shall contort it so as to make it enter mine, mingling the letters of both.
-- Jean Genet, Miracle of the Rose

Prehensible comes from the Latin word prehension meaning “a taking hold.”

With thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/