Usageaster

Word of the Day for Monday, July 30, 2012

Usageaster \YOO-sij-as-ter\, noun:

A self-styled authority on language usage.

Newman went on to voice sentiments held by other usageasters: I think that slang adds richness and originality to English.
-- Charlton Grant Laird and Phillip C. Boardman, The Legacy of Language

A poetaster pretends to write poetry; a usageaster pretends to know about questions of usage in language.
-- Allan A. Metcalf, Predicting New Words

Usageaster is derived from the word usage and the suffix -aster which refers to something that imperfectly resembles or mimics the true thing.

thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Traject

Word of the Day for Sunday, July 29, 2012

Traject \truh-JEKT\, verb:

To transport, transmit, or transpose.

A sign said “loose rocks and soil on the edges” I decided to drive close to the edge and see when using the front end of my car, then swinging out the back wheels, would it cause the rocks to traject in front of his car?
-- Robert A. Williams, The Fall Mission

The Roman vocabulary did not tend to traject the "aesthetic" with "manliness," "glory," or "wealth."
-- Brian A. Krostenko, Cicero, Catullus, and the Language of Social Performance

Traject stems from the Latin word jacere meaning "to throw" and the prefix trā- which is a variation of the prefix trans- meaning "across" or "beyond."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Banausic

Word of the Day for Saturday, July 28, 2012

Banausic \buh-NAW-sik\, adjective:

Serving utilitarian purposes only; mechanical; practical: architecture that was more banausic than inspired.

Banausic to the point of drudgery? Sometimes. Often tedious? Perhaps.
-- David Foster Wallace, The Pale King

To me, the Venetians whom I have met, seem to be merely inadequate, incondite, banausic, and perfectly complacent about it.
-- Frederick Rolfe, The Armed Hands

Banausic comes from the Greek word bánaus meaning "artisan, mere mechanical." It entered English in the 1820s. 

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Jubilate

Word of the Day for Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Jubilate \JOO-buh-leyt\, verb:

1. To show or feel great joy; rejoice; exult.
2. To celebrate a jubilee or joyful occasion.

Though this sudden setback of the plague was as welcome as it was unlooked-for, our townsfolk were in no hurry to jubilate.
-- Albert Camus, The Plague

This would enable me to jubilate like a normal person, knowing why.
-- Samuel Beckett, The Unnameable

Jubilate derives from the Latin word jūbil- meaning "to shout." 

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Bildungsroman

Word of the Day for Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Bildungsroman \BIL-doongz-roh-mahn\, noun:

A type of novel concerned with the education, development, and maturing of a young protagonist.

Unlike David Copperfield, The Catcher in the Rye is no Bildungsroman, because the narrator/protagonist doesn't want to grow up.
-- John Sutherland and Stephen Fender, Love, Sex, Death & Words

With its emphasis squarely on the diversity and latitude of lived experiences, Night Travellers unambiguously demonstrates its unease with the rigid providential scenario that pervades this kind of political Bildungsroman.
-- Yunzhong Shu, Buglers on the Home Front

Bildungsroman stems from the German word of the same spelling. The word bildung means "formation," and the word roman means "book." 

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Nubilous

Word of the Day for Monday, July 23, 2012

Nubilous \NOO-buh-luhs\, adjective:

1. Cloudy or foggy.
2. Obscure or vague; indefinite.

...trunks as thick as whisky casks and bark like rough-out leather, tower overhead so that the path between them is sheltered from the sun, creating a nubilous atmosphere, soft and pungent with resins, while soft brown needles cushion one's tread.
-- Michael Petracca, Captain Zzyzx

The sky above, dark and nubilous, parted like torn, plump bread and under a sun absorbent and intense, the water began to recede over low bridges. The storm was ending.
-- Elizabeth Léonie Simpson, Stranger From Home

Nubilous comes from the Latin root nūb meaning "cloud."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Desolate

Word of the Day for Saturday, July 21, 2012

Desolate \DES-uh-leyt\, verb:

1. To lay waste; devastate.
2. To deprive of inhabitants; depopulate.
3. To make disconsolate.
4. To forsake or abandon.

adjective:
1. Barren or laid waste; devastated: a treeless, desolate landscape.
2. Deprived or destitute of inhabitants; deserted; uninhabited.
3. Solitary; lonely: a desolate place.

So she hastened to Sing Chando and prayed him not to desolate the earth...
-- Rev. P. O. Bodding, Folklore of the Santal Parganas

Could he bring himself to desolate her by a refusal?
-- Arnold Bennett, Clayhanger

Desolate is derived from the Latin word dēsōlātus meaning "forsaken" from the root sōlāre meaning "to make lonely." 

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Nary

Word of the Day for Thursday, July 19, 2012

Nary \NAIR-ee\, adjective:

Not any; no; never a.

The loch, calm and clear, with nary a breeze to ripple its placid surface, was located within walking distance of Bracklenaer.
-- Rebecca Sinclair, Perfect Strangers

Fish for sale, fish for sale. Fresh, fresh, fresh, fresh. Pickerel and perch, pike and pout, bass and sunnies, but nary a trout.
-- Howard Frank Mosher, On Kingdom Mountain

Nary was common in English in the 1700s as an abbreviation of the phrase "ne'er a" meaning "never a."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Deflagrate

Word of the Day for Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Deflagrate \DEF-luh-greyt\, verb:

To burn, especially suddenly and violently.

Then the split second realisation that something was very, very wrong, as the electricity rushed down the thin wires, sending a spark across a gap in the blasting cap, detonating the cap and sending the shock wave into the explosive charge, causing it to deflagrate at blinding speed, quicker than the mind could imagine.
-- John F. Mullins, Into the Treeline

Whereas Marcel finds disappointment in his return's incapacity to deflagrate, to 'flame up' his memory, Sassoon savours a kind of immediacy when he reaches the Rectory at Edingthorpe...
-- Robert Hemmings, Modern Nostalgia

Deflagrate is derived from the Latin root flagrāre meaning "to burn." The common prefix de- can denote intensity, as well as removal. 

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Requisition

Word of the Day for Monday, July 16, 2012

Requisition \rek-wuh-ZISH-uhn\, noun:

1. A demand made.
2. The act of requiring or demanding.
3. An authoritative or formal demand for something to be done, given, supplied, etc.: The general issued a requisition to the townspeople for eight trucks.
4. A written request or order for something, as supplies.

verb:
1. To require or take for use; press into service.
2. To demand or take, as by authority, for military purposes, public needs, etc.: to requisition supplies.

But I have a friend of my own kidney who has often served me before, and I am going to make a requisition on him for this especial business.
-- Timothy Shay Arthur, Bell Martin

Do you have the requisition for the special lecturer?
-- Ayn Rand, We the Living

Requisition comes from the Latin word requīsītiōn meaning "a searching."

Thank to: www.dictionary.com 

Paronymous

Word of the Day for Thursday, July 12, 2012

Paronymous \puh-RON-uh-muhs\, adjective:

Containing the same root or stem, as the words wise and wisdom.

The sentence seems to reverberate with echoes of assonance—another distinctive trait of Haweke's writing often enriched with alliterative patterns or even rhymes—on both sides of the two central words: "pale petal," whose juxtaposition involves an anagramatical and paronymous variation.
-- Heide Ziegler, Facing Texts

This in itself is a significant achievement in a language so flowery and paronymous to the extent that exaggeration, especially at that time of its literary history, is widely considered to be one of its inherent characteristics.
-- Sabry Hafez, The Quest for Identities

Paronymous stems from the Greek roots para- meaning "beside" and onoma meaning "a name." 

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Hypethral

Word of the Day for Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Hypethral \hi-PEE-thruhl\, adjective:

(Of a classical building) wholly or partly open to the sky.

Follow the gallery around for about a thousand paces until you come to the hypethral. With it dark out you might miss it, so keep an eye open for the plants.
-- Gene Wolfe, Shadow and Claw

The choice of top light for the main galleries is said to have been dictated by the belief that Greek temples were hypethral, that is, open to the sky; from which it was inferred that Greek taste demanded to see works of art under light from above.
-- Benjamin Ives Gilman, Museum Ideals of Purpose and Method

Hypethral stems from the Greek roots hyp- which means "under" and aîthros meaning "clear sky."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com  

Vamp

Word of the Day for Sunday, July 8, 2012

Vamp \vamp\, verb:

1. To patch up; repair.
2. To give (something) a new appearance by adding a patch or piece.
3. To concoct or invent (often followed by up): He vamped up a few ugly rumours to discredit his enemies.
4. To furnish with a vamp, especially to repair (a shoe or boot) with a new vamp.

noun:
1. The portion of a shoe or boot upper that covers the instep and toes.
2. Something patched up or pieced together.

...plod and plow, vamp your old coats and hats, weave a shoestring; great affairs and the best wine by and by.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Illusions," Essays and Poems

To lay false claim to an invention or discovery which has an immediate market value; to vamp up a professedly new book of reference by stealing from the pages of one already produced at the cost of much labour and material…
-- George Eliot, Impressions of Theophrastus Such

Vamp is a shortening of the Middle French word avant-pie literally meaning "fore-foot." This sense of the word is embedded in the more common word revamp.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Tractate

Word of the Day for Friday, July 6, 2012

Tractate \TRAK-teyt\, noun:

A treatise; essay.

Divide up all the tractates and commit yourselves to learn them during the coming year.
-- Yair Weinstock, Holiday Tales for the Soul

Jean-Pierre Mahé has rightly insisted that we should explore possible explanations other than mere haphazard collection, not only for the presence of the Hermetic tractates within Codex VI…
-- Michael Allen Williams, Rethinking "Gnosticism"

Tractate comes from the Medieval Latin word tractātus meaning "a handling, treatment."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Surfeit

Word of the Day for Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Surfeit \SUR-fit\, noun:

1. Excess; an excessive amount: a surfeit of speechmaking.
2. Excess or overindulgence in eating or drinking.
3. An uncomfortably full or crapulous feeling due to excessive eating or drinking.
4. General disgust caused by excess or satiety.

verb:
1. To bring to a state of surfeit by excess of food or drink.
2. To supply with anything to excess or satiety; satiate.

In both adults a surfeit of prudence and a surfeit of energy, and with the couple two boys still pretty much all soft surfaces, young children of youthful parents, keenly attractive and in good health and incorrigible only in their optimism.
-- Philip Roth, The Plot Against America

She peered at the parents, imagining their hearts like machines, manufacturing surfeit upon surfeit of love for their children, and then wondered how something could be so awesome and so utterly powerless.
-- Chris Adrian, The Great Night

Surfeit is a very old English word. It is recorded as early as 1393. It comes from the Latin roots sur- meaning "over" and facere meaning "to do."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Sumpsimus

Word of the Day for Monday, July 2, 2012

sumpsimus \SUHMP-suh-muhs\, noun:

1. Adherence to or persistence in using a strictly correct term, holding to a precise practice, etc., as a rejection of an erroneous but more common form (opposed to mumpsimus).
2. A person who is obstinate or zealous about such strict correctness (opposed to mumpsimus).

And now let all defenders of present institutions, however bad they may be — let all violent supporters of their old mumpsimus against any new sumpsimus whatever, listen to a conversation among some undergraduates.
-- Frederic William Farrar , Julian Home

She is a master of sumpsimus, more anal in language usage than Doc in his rigid professionalism. She insists on saying It is I, or He gave the book to John and me.
-- Ann Burrus, Astride the Pineapple Couch

Like its counterpart mumpsimus, sumpsimus comes from to a story about an illiterate priest. In this case, sumpsimus refers to the opposite practice as mumpsimus. 

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Mumpsimus

Word of the Day for Sunday, July 1, 2012

Mumpsimus \MUHMP-suh-muhs\, noun:

1. Adherence to or persistence in an erroneous use of language, memorisation, practice, belief, etc., out of habit or obstinacy.
2. A person who persists in a mistaken expression or practice.

"I profess, my good lady," replied I, "that had any one but you made such a declaration, I should have thought it as capricious as that of the clergyman, who, without vindicating his false reading, preferred, from habit's sake, his old Mumpsimus...
-- Sir Walter Scott, The Talisman

Mr. Burgess, who sticks (I fancy) to his old mumpsimus, thought that the other gentleman might have given the canoe a shove to get it clear of the lock…
-- Ronald A. Knox, The Footsteps at the Lock

Mumpsimus comes from a story (perhaps first told by Erasmus) about an illiterate priest who mispronounced a word while reciting the liturgy. The priest refused to change the word, even when he was corrected.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com