Trundle

Word of the Day for Friday, November 30, 2012

Trundle \TRUHN-dl\, verb:

To move or walk with a rolling gait.

They get her into a wheelbarrow and trundle her all over town.
-- Alice Munroe, Meneseteung

Fling leaflets down basements; expose them in stalls; trundle them along streets on barrows to be sold for a penny or given away.
-- Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own: Three Guineas

Trundle, first used in the 1500s, may originate from the Old English trendel, "ring or disk," which is also the root of the modern English trend.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Svelte

Word of the Day for Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Svelte \SFELT\, adjective:

1. Slender, especially gracefully slender in figure.
2. Suave; blandly urbane.

In 1944 his mother had been a relatively svelte one hundred and eighty pounds.
-- Stephen King, It: A Novel

“When I walk under one of the pathway lamps and look down you can indeed see the silhouette of my body which doesn’t look quite as svelte and hourglassy as I believe it did just an hour ago when I was admiring myself in the mirror.
-- Terry McMillan, How Stella Got Her Groove Back

Svelte enters English in 1800s from the French, and originally derives from the Latin verb exvellere, "to stretch out."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Rime

Word of the Day for Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Rime \RAHYM\, noun:

A coating of tiny, white, granular ice particles, caused by the rapid freezing of water droplets.

The Chief’s follow spot cast a light like a rime of ice into the murk, and mom swam inside this circle across the entire length of the lake.
-- Karen Russell, Swamplandia!

When it got real fierce, when your very speech would freeze as it emanated from your lips and blow back in stinging rime against the cheeks, we hung close to the tepees and ate the dried meat taken the summer before and stored in rawhide parfleches and pemmican, the greasier the better on account of a bellyful of melting fat will warm you sooner and stick longer than most anything I know.
-- Thomas Berger, Little Big Man

Rime, also known as hoarfrost, comes from the Old English hrim. Used mainly in Northern England and Scotland for centuries, it was revived in literature in the 19th century.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Fainaigue

Word of the Day for Monday, November 26, 2012

Fainaigue \fuh-NEYG\, verb:

1. To shirk; evade work or responsibility.
2. To renege at cards.

I finally fainaigue a tin plate out of the mess department, for which I am required to give two lire.
-- Harry Partch, Thomas McGeary, Bitter Music: Collected Journals, Essays, Introductions, and Librettos

I've a two-year stretch up here, unless I quit or fainaigue a transfer.
-- "Astounding Science fiction, Volume 31, issue 21943"

Fainaigue stems from British dialect, but its exact origins are unclear. Whether or not it has a relationship to finagle is a source of debate.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Agape

Word of the Day for Thursday, November 22, 2012

Agape \ah-GAH-pey\, noun:

1. Unselfish love of one person for another without sexual implications.
2. The love of Christians for other persons, corresponding to the love of God for humankind.

In theological sermons we are used to hearing of a great distinction between fleshly and spiritual love, eros and agape.
-- Joseph Campbell, The Flight of the Wild Gander: Essays

Not even the shift that Auden himself saw in the poem, that from erotic love with its inevitable undertones of egotism and potential failure to a brotherly love embodied in agape, is completely evident.
-- Rainer Emig, W.H. Auden: Towards a Postmodern Poetics

Agape originates as the Greek agapen, "to greet with affection." The term was adopted by early Christians in connection with celebrations. The general sense of "love without sexual aspects" came into use in the 1800s.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Giblets

Word of the Day for Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Giblets \JIB-lits\, noun:

The heart, liver, gizzard, and the like, of a fowl, often cooked separately.

She prods the chicken, flexes a wing, pokes a finger into the cavity, fishes out the giblets.
-- Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Whatever you say to such people, they think you're talking about their problem, like the story of the cat, where the couple was arguing about a divorce but the cat thought they were disagreeing about the giblets for its lunch.
-- Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum

Giblets most likely derives from the Old French gibelet, "a stew made from wild game."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Fob

Word of the Day for Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Fob \FOB\, noun:

1. A short chain, usually with a medallion or similar ornament, worn hanging from a pocket.
2. A small pocket just below the waistline in trousers for a watch, keys, change, etc.

verb:
1. To cheat someone by substituting something spurious or inferior.
2. To put (someone) off by deception or trickery.

Out of the right fob hung a great silver chain, with a wonderful kind of engine at the bottom.
-- Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

The father had bought the bridegroom a fob watch as a gift.
-- Sholem Aleichem, Aliza Shevrin, Tevye the Dairyman: And, Motl the Cantor's Son

Fob most likely derives from the Germanic fopke, "pocket."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Ogle

Word of the Day for Monday, November 19, 2012

Ogle \OH-guhl\, verb:

1. To look at amorously, flirtatiously, or impertinently.
2. To eye; look or stare at.

He always pretended to be deeply exhausted from his various adventures, but he was never too exhausted to ogle— as she knew and as Flap knew too.
-- Larry McMurtry, Terms of Endearment: A Novel

Couples ogle cakes in windows.
-- Simon Louvish, The Days of Miracles and Wonders: An Epic of the New World Disorder

Ogle traces its origins from the Lower German oeglen, "to look at," but ultimately comes from a now extinct word for "eye," oog.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Terpsichorean

Word of the Day for Sunday, November 18, 2012

Terpsichorean \turp-si-kuh-REE-uhn\, adjective:

1. Pertaining to dancing.

noun:
1. A dancer.

I even saw Major West that evening tapping his foot and picking up his feet in terpsichorean splendour with Mrs. West.”
-- Jackson Bailey, My Love and I

They're agile, they're flexible, they're terpsichorean."
-- Tom Wolfe, A Man in Full

Terpsichorean comes from the name of the Greek muse of dancing, Terpischore. The word is a 

combination of the Greek terpein, "to delight," and -khoros, "chorus."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Dog-ear

Word of the Day for Saturday, November 17, 2012

Dog-ear \DAWG-eer\, verb:

1. To fold down the corner of a page in a book.

noun:
1. (In a book) a corner of a page folded over like a dog's ear, as by careless use, or to mark a place.
2. In architecture, another term for a crossette.

This was uncharacteristic of him, territorial as he was over books, always reminding me not to dog-ear pages.
-- Kaye Gibbons, Sights Unseen

I will dog-ear the pages, maybe even fill out the order form, but I won't get anything.
-- Elizabeth Berg, Until the Real Thing Comes Along

Dog-ear as a metaphor for the folded pages of a book first appears in the 1650s.

Thanks t: www.dictionary.com 

Dovetail

Word of the Day for Thursday, November 15, 2012

Dovetail \DUHV-teyl\, verb:

1. To join or fit together compactly or harmoniously.
2. In carpentry, a joint formed of one or more such tenons fitting tightly within corresponding mortises.
3. To join or fit together by means of a carpentry dovetail or dovetails.

noun:
1. In carpentry, a tenon broader at its end than at its base; pin.

But in “Arcadia” the two periods don't dovetail until the last part of the play.
-- Tom Stoppard, Mel Gussow, Conversations With Stoppard

They seemed, after a fashion, to dovetail horribly with something which I had dreamed or read, but which I could no longer remember.
-- H.P. Lovecraft, The Shadow Out of Time

Dovetail originates in woodworking, with a joint that resembles the tail of a dove. The figurative sense derives from the tight fit made by such a joint.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Pigeonhole

Word of the Day for Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Pigeonhole \PIJ-uhn-hohl\, verb:

1. To lay aside for use or reference at some later, indefinite time.

noun:
1. One of a series of small, open compartments, as in a desk,cabinet, or the like, used for filing or sorting papers, letters,etc.
2. In printing, white space created by setting words or lines too far apart.

“Mobility’s hard in Spain; people pigeonhole you for life in the box where they think you belong.”
-- Enrique Vila-Mata, Dublinesque

Even his staunchest supporters didn't know where to pigeonhole him politically.
-- Bruce Duffy, The World As I Found It

Pigeonhole begins with the sense of a literal nesting place for the bird, then finds figurative usage in printing. The first use as a verb is recorded in 1854.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Disbosom

Word of the Day for Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Disbosom \dis-BOOZ-uhm\, verb:

To reveal; confess.

In the field of private space to relax, drink vodka and philosophise in the kitchen, to denounce officials, disbosom.
-- Sergey Gavrov, Modernization of the Empire

Desiring that some light refreshments, with wine and water, should be carried up into the library, she ran up thither instantly, thinking, it is true, very little about such matters, and eager only to disbosom herself to her father, as soon as possible, of her important tidings.
-- Henry William Herbert, Marmaduke Wyvil; or, The maid's revenge

Disbosom comes from the ancient word bosom, which possibly goes back to the roots of the Indo-European languages. Bosom can mean "breast; womb; surface; or ship's hold." The first recorded use of disbosom is in the 18th century.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Troth

Word of the Day for Monday, November 12, 2012

Troth \TRAWTH\, noun:

1. Faithfulness, fidelity, or loyalty.
2. One's word or promise, especially in engaging oneself to marry.

I did therefore what an honest man should--restored the maiden her troth , and departed the country in the service of my king.
-- James Fenimore Cooper, The Leatherstocking Tales

I was wild--in troth I might go yet farther and say VERY wild, though 'twas a wildness of an innocent sort, since it hurt none but me, brought shame to none, nor loss, nor had in it any taint of crime or baseness, or what might not beseem mine honourable degree.
-- Mark Twain, The Prince and the Pauper

Troth derives from a variation of truth in certain regions of England. Over time it has taken on a distinct meaning in certain phrases.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Armistice

Word of the Day

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Armistice

\ AHR-muh-stis \, noun;

1.

A temporary suspension of hostilities by agreement of the warring parties

Then one day, without warning, as though she, too, had accepted the armistice  

and the capitulation,the grandmother departed to visit her son in Mills City.

-- William Faulkner, Elly

Bill had eaten at the restaurant in 1918, and right after the armistice, and Madame 

Lecomte made a great fuss over seeing him.

-- Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

Armistice  is a Latin compound created by 17th century scholars. The Latin arma-, 

"arms," combines with sistere, "to be still."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Quid

Word of the Day

Thursday, November 08, 2012

Quid

\ KWID \, noun;

1.

A piece of something to be chewed but not swallowed.

2.

One pound sterling.

One Pound Sterling
Something our students spent
lots of during Summer 2012

Julius took the twist, wiped off his mouth with a loose male grin, and crammed a

large quid  into his cheek.

-- Thomas Wolfe, O Lost: A Story of the Buried Life

When he'd lost, he'd chew on his quid and spit in all directions . 

-- Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Death on the Installment Plan

Quid  is a dialectal variant of the same word in Middle English that leads to cud, 

the stuff that cows chew.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Glean

Word of the Day

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

glean

\ GLEEN \ , verb;

1.

To learn, discover, or find out, usually little by little or slowly.

2.

To gather (grain or the like) after the reapers or regular gatherers.

3.

To gather slowly and labouriously, bit by bit.

From what little I can glean, it's the edited journal of a voyage from Sydney 

to California by a notary of San Francisco named Adam Ewing.

-- David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas: a Novel

We all looked at each other, trying to glean something each from the other.

-- Bram Stoker, Dracula

Glean  traces its origin back through Latin to the Celtic glan, "clean, pure." The 

sense "to learn or gather slowly" appears in English before the sense of "to gather 

grain left by the reapers."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com