Residuum

Word of the Day for Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Residuum \ri-ZIJ-oo-uhm\, noun:

1. the residue, remainder, or rest of something.
2. Also, residue. Chemistry. a quantity or body of matter remaining after evaporation, combustion, distillation, etc.
3. any residual product.
4. Law. the residue of an estate.

Perhaps not: the residuum is, you see, Byres, what is left.
-- Frederick Marryat, The Poacher, 1841

Our friend's corporeal envelope had been so well lined with this residuum, as well as various earlier memories of his parents, that their own special Swann had become to my family a complete and living creature...
-- Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, Remembrance of Things Past, 1922–1931

Residuum shares a root with the word residue. It comes directly from the Latin residuum meaning "a remainder."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Esse

Word of the Day for Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Esse \ES-se; Eng. ES-ee\, noun:

being; existence.

The esse of the life of every man, which he has from his father, is called the soul, and the existence of life thence derived is called the body.
-- Emanuel Swedenborg, The Earths in Our Solar System, 1758

According to Berkeley, the esse of things is percipi. They exist as they are perceived.
-- Thomas Love Peacock, Nightmare Abbey, 1818

Esse comes from the Latin word of the same spelling meaning "to be." It has been in English since the 1600s.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Coaptation

Word of the Day for Monday, July 29, 2013

Coaptation \koh-ap-TEY-shuhn\, noun:

a joining or adjustment of parts to one another: the coaptation of a broken bone.

...though nothing be declared thereby of the structure and coaptation of the spring, wheels, balance, etc. and the manner how they act on one another so as to make the needle point out the true time of day.
-- Aldous Huxley, Complete Essays, Vol. 4, 1936-1938

Harding approved entirely, and it was decided that the two wounds should be dressed without attempting to close them by immediate coaptation.
-- Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island, 1874

Coaptation stems from the Latin word coaptātiō which meant "a precise joining together."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Dreck

Word of the Day for Sunday, July 28, 2013

Dreck \drek\, noun:

1. worthless trash; junk.
2. excrement; dung.

Though composed rapidly, it's a better elegy than Milton's to Edward King or Shelley's on the death of John Keats, which is pure dreck—revolting, sentimental dreck.
-- Joseph Heller, God Knows, 1997

But in the end it's all dreck, or if not dreck then some form of bathetic aspiration: for our lives to course as smoothly, shifted but never stopped, draining into some glorious & storied sea.
-- Jonathan Miles, Dear American Airlines, 2009

Dreck entered English in the 1920s from the Yiddish word drek, which comes from the German word Dreck meaning "filth."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Additament

Word of the Day for Saturday, July 27, 2013

Additament \uh-DIT-uh-muhnt\, noun:

something added; an addition.

Secondly, with an additament, wherein brimstone is approved to help to the melting of iron or steel.
-- Francis Bacon, "Physiological Remains," The Works of Lord Bacon, 1838

But let her stand upon her female character as upon a foundation; and let the attentions incident to individual preference, be so many pretty additaments and ornaments, as many and as fanciful as you please, to that main structure.
-- Charles Lamb, Essays of Ella, 1838

Additament comes from the Latin word additāmentum which referred to an addition.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Cyclopean

Word of the Day for Friday, July 26, 2013

Cyclopean \sahy-kluh-PEE-uhn, sahy-KLOP-ee-uhn\, adjective:

1. (sometimes lowercase) gigantic; vast.
2. of or characteristic of the Cyclops.
3. (usually lowercase) Architecture, Building Trades. formed with or containing large, undressed stones fitted closely together without the use of mortar: a cyclopean wall.

Together in this greater self they felt the headway of the long, low hull, the prodigious heart glow of the hungry fires, the cyclopean push of steam in eight vast boilers, the pulsing click and travail of the engines...
-- George Washington Cable, Gideon's Band, 1915

On his return, he threw himself into the cyclopean labour of clearing, ploughing and planting the virgin territory he'd inherited; it was in the far south-west of the island, an area known as Terrenos de Sio Miguel.
-- Miguel Sousa Tavares, Equator, 2009

Cyclopean refers to the mythical Greek creature Cyclops, a kind of giant who has one large eye in the middle of its face. This adjective has been used to mean "gigantic" since it entered English in the 1600s.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Dispositive

Word of the Day for Thursday, July 25, 2013

Dispositive \dih-SPOZ-i-tiv\, adjective:

involving or affecting disposition or settlement: a dispositive clue in a case of embezzlement.

Perhaps it had been a hallucination, or it was a false memory. Boggs had even predicted that later Ellis would doubt the incident had even happened—which seemed dispositive toward the dead man's reality…
-- Nick Arvin, The Reconstructionist, 2012

Looks and charm were often dispositive, the more attractive partner sailing on to other waters.
-- Louis Begley, About Schmidt, 1996

Dispositive comes from the word dispose meaning "to put in a particular place."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Grammatology

Word of the Day for Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Grammatology \gram-uh-TOL-uh-jee\, noun:

the scientific study of systems of writing.

"...He can figure out the surface of a cube and of a sphere, he's studied grammatology and stroboscopy, he has beautiful books in his library,” I explained all in one breath.
-- Emmanuel Dongala, Maria Louise Ascher, Johnny Mad Dog, 2007

"She was never in Troy," says one version of the myth, meeting, imaging in this negation the metaphysics or grammatology of absence implicit in optatives of the verb.
-- George Steiner, Antigones, 1996

Grammatology was coined in the 1950s from Greek roots, the root grámma meaning "letter" and -ology, a combining form used in the names of sciences or bodies of knowledge.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Sidle

Word of the Day for Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Sidle \SAHYD-l\, verb:

1. to move sideways or obliquely.
2. to edge along furtively.

noun:
1. a sidling movement.

I don't want to sidle up to the wrong man. Not that I'd really know how to sidle.
-- Alexander McCall Smith, The Lost Art of Gratitude, 2009

Turning his own back on the Bank of England, Dave would sidle down to the river, then idle over one of the bridges.
-- Will Self, The Book of Dave, 2008

Sidle is a backformation of the word sideling which means "sidelong or sideways; obliquely."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Quillet

Word of the Day for Monday, July 22, 2013

Quillet \KWIL-it\, noun:

a subtlety or quibble.

Some points involved in the discussion of the question under consideration suggest legal quillets, and exercises in scholastic logic, of a kind in which Aquinas and his brother schoolmen, writers of patristic and mediaeval divinity, would have fairly reveled.
-- Edited by Sir Frederick Pollock, The Law Quarterly Review, 1894

O! some authority how to proceed; Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil.
-- William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, 1598

Quillet is related to the word quiddity meaning "a trifling nicety."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Clangor

Word of the Day for Sunday, July 21, 2013

Clangor \KLANG-er, KLANG-ger\, noun:

1. a loud, resonant sound; clang.
2. clamorous noise.

verb:
1. to make a clangor; clang.

And in any case they did not sound distant to him, these ringing booming bells; their triumphal clangor was swept along by the wind and seemed to come from somewhere close by...
-- László Krasznahorkai, translated by George Szirtes, Satantango, 1985

And now the melodious clangor of bells from church towers summons their several flocks to the fold.
-- Washington Irving, "A Sunday in London," The Sketch Book, 1819-1820

Clangor entered English from the Latin word of the same spelling which referred to the sound of trumpets, birds, and other loud noises.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Bushwa

Word of the Day for Saturday, July 20, 2013

Bushwa \BOOSH-wah, -waw\, noun:

rubbishy nonsense; baloney; bull: You'll hear a lot of boring bushwa about his mechanical skill.

“Bushwa,” she said. “'Bushwa'?” I echoed scornfully. “I suppose that's the high level of intellectual discourse one might expect from the author of the Polly Madison books."
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard, 2009

This is all bushwa, if I pressed Butler he would tell me; but I know who they are already.
-- Ward Just, Family Trust, 2007

Bushwa arose in English in the early 1900s, but its origin is unknown. It might be a variation of bourgeois.

Rendezvous

Word of the Day for Friday, July 19, 2013

Rendezvous \RAHN-duh-voo, -dey-; Fr. rahn-de-VOO\, verb:

1. to assemble at an agreed time and place.

noun:
1. an agreement between two or more persons to meet at a certain time and place.
2. the meeting itself.
3. a place designated for a meeting or assembling, especially of troops or ships.
4. a meeting of two or more spacecraft in outer space.
5. a favorite or popular gathering place.

Tomorrow morning at five-forty-five A.M., we will rendezvous in front of handsome Eddie's courtyard.
-- James Ellroy, Clandestine, 2011

On July 22nd, the Odyssey finally emerged from the ice and rendezvoused with its sister ship, the Nordic Orion.
-- Keith Gessen, "Polar Express," The New Yorker, Dec. 24, 2004

Rendezvous comes from the French word of the same spelling which literally means "present yourselves." It is also related to the common English word render.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Poetaster

Word of the Day for Thursday, July 18, 2013

Poetaster \POH-it-as-ter\, noun:

an inferior poet; a writer of indifferent verse.

Someone who writes verses but does not produce this essence is called a "poetaster." A poetaster is a fraudulent poet, a non-poet.
-- Frederick Busch, Letters to a Fiction Writer, 2000

Rotten as a poetaster or a second-rate musician reduced to beggary.
-- Carmen Boullosa, Cleopatra Dismounts, 2003

Poetaster entered English in the late 1500s. It is a combination of the word poet and the rarely used Latin suffix -aster which denotes something that imperfectly resembles or mimics the true thing.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Gobbet

Word of the Day for Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Gobbet \GOB-it\, noun:

1. a lump or mass.
2. a fragment or piece, especially of raw flesh.

A man at the window of another building spat, the gobbet of phlegm falling on the dirty pavement by Hermogenes' feet.
-- Gillian Bradshaw, Render Unto Caesar, 2004

The glowing, faceted eyes glared at me, the mouth opened and spat out a gobbet of flame.
-- Sergei Lukyanenko, Last Watch, 2009

Gobbet comes from the Old French word gobe meaning "a mouthful."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Scabrous

Word of the Day for Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Scabrous \SKAB-ruhs\, adjective:

1. full of difficulties.
2. having a rough surface because of minute points or projections.
3. indecent or scandalous; risqué; obscene: scabrous books.

The old divorce case had been revived by a journalist. It was moderately scabrous. It had been with the wife of a still-prominent Tory politician.
-- C. P. Snow, In Their Wisdom, 2000

He had amused her with the exacting nature of his questions, and his demands that she should include even the most scabrous details in her accounts.
-- Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Madeline is Sleeping, 2005

Scabrous is related to the common word scab. Both terms come from the Latin word scaber meaning "rough."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Fribble

Word of the Day for Monday, July 15, 2013

Fribble \FRIB-uhl\, verb:

1. to act in a foolish or frivolous manner; trifle.
2. to waste foolishly (often followed by away): He fribbled away one opportunity after another.

noun:
1. a foolish or frivolous person; trifler.
2. anything trifling or frivolous.
3. frivolousness.

adjective:
1. frivolous; foolish; trifling.

When a little recovered, he fribbled with his waistcoat buttons, as if he had been telling his beads.
-- Samuel Richardson, Clarrisa, 1748

He fribbled away his time collecting bric-a-brac and drinking tea with old ladies; yet wrote the best letter; in the language in the midst of the chatter; knew everyone; went everywhere; and, as he said, "lived post."
-- Virginia Woolf, The Death of the Moth and Other Essays, 1942

Fribble is most likely a variant of the more common word frivol meaning "to behave frivolously."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Rifacimento

Word of the Day for Sunday, July 14, 2013

Rifacimento \ri-fah-chi-MEN-toh; It. ree-fah-chee-MEN-taw\, noun:

a recast or adaptation, as of a literary or musical work.

It is not a rifacimento of compliments; such is not the style with which I am saluted by the Duke of Doze and the Earl of Leatherdale!
-- Benjamin Disraeli, Vivian Grey, 1906

Nevertheless, he shared the impression of unlikeness that certain parts of the play had left on many minds, and thought them best explained by the hypothesis of intermediate work, Shakespeare's rifacimento of which was not so thorough but that he accepted much structure and a good deal of actual verse from its author...

-- William Shakespeare, with introduction by Brian Morris, The Taming of the Shrew, 1981

Rifacimento entered English in the late 1700s from the Italian word rifare meaning "to make over."

www.dictionary.com 

Accrete

Word of the Day for Thursday, July 11, 2013

Accrete \uh-KREET\, verb:

1. to grow together; adhere (usually followed by to).
2. to add, as by growth.

adjective:
1. Botany. grown together.

Most things accrete that don't gradually crumble, rust or evaporate.
-- Iain M. Banks, The Hydrogen Sonata, 2012

...a long history, in the course of which it seems to grow, to accrete difficulties, and to merge and overlap with other problems, so that an attempt to solve the single problem appears hopeless without an assault…
-- Renata Adler, Pitch Dark, 1983

Entering English in the late 1700s, accrete is a backformation of the noun accretion from the Latin word accrēscere meaning "to grow."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Layette

Word of the Day for Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Layette \ley-ET\, noun:

an outfit of clothing, bedding, etc., for a newborn baby.

What I was knitting was a layette. A layette was a set of baby garments you were supposed to dress the newborn baby in so it would be warm when it was brought home from the hospital.
-- Margaret Atwood, Moral Disorder, 2006

At last, at last, thought Elizabeth with satisfaction as she snipped the thread and held up the tiny garment, which completed the layette she had hurriedly made as a gift for the Queen.
-- Alison Weir, The Lady Elizabeth, 2008

Layette entered English in the early 1800s. It comes from the Middle French word laiete meaning "small box."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Yawp

Word of the Day for Sunday, July 7, 2013

Yawp \yawp, yahp\, verb:

1. to utter a loud, harsh cry; to yelp, squawk, or bawl.
2. Slang. to talk noisily and foolishly or complainingly.

noun:
1. a harsh cry.
2. Slang. a. raucous or querulous speech. b. a noisy, foolish utterance.

Two weeks while the lawyers were left like hounds to yawp over what counted as admissible evidence and what was mere gambit and divide, desperate countermeasures.
-- Edie Meidav, Crawl Space, 2006

You don't yawp to God. Bach doesn't yawp to God
-- Marc Estrin, Golem Song, 2006

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
-- Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, 1891

Yawp is a very old English word. It entered English in the 1300s and comes from the Middle English word yolpen. It is related to the word yelp. Walt Whitman popularised the noun sense of the word in his book Song of Myself.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Integrant

Word of the Day for Saturday, July 6, 2013

Integrant \IN-ti-gruhnt\, adjective:

1. making up or being a part of a whole; constituent.

noun:
1. an integrant part.
2. a solid, rigid sheet of building material composed of several layers of the same or of different materials.

First-class relics were taken from the body or any of its integrant parts, such as limbs, ashes, and bones.
-- Alice Fulton, The Nightingales of Troy, 2010

They begin in earnest to win back their public, found to be an integrant of their attachment, after all. It is not easy.
-- Robert Coover, Prick Songs & Descants, 1969

Integrant comes from the Latin word integrāre meaning "to integrate." It is also related to the word integer.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Sprechgesang

Word of the Day for Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Sprechgesang \SHPREKH-guh-zahng\, noun:

a vocal style intermediate between speech and singing but without exact pitch intonation.

Despite the sometimes sarcastic and sometimes tempestuous hostility of audiences clearly unfamiliar with the technique of Sprechgesang, and supported only by a small band of aficionados, she managed to insert into her programmes, mostly composed of operatic arias, lieder by Schumann and Hugo Wolf, and songs by Mussorgsky, some of the vocal pieces of the Vienna School, which she thus introduced to Parisians.
-- Georges Perec, translated from the French by David Bellos, Life: A User's Manual, 2009

I would never get to know the full truth, but I do know that when she leans into that microphone for her whispered Sprechgesang rendition of Porter's “I've Got You Under My Skin,” the hair on the back of my neck stands right up...
-- Paul Verhaeghen, Omega Minor, 2007

Sprechgesang stems directly from the German word of the same spelling. Sprech means "to speak" and Gesang means "song."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Muster

Word of the Day for Monday, July 1, 2013

Muster \MUHS-ter\, verb:

1. to gather, summon, rouse (often followed by up): He mustered all his courage.
2. to assemble (troops, a ship's crew, etc.), as for battle, display, inspection, orders, or discharge.
3. to assemble for inspection, service, etc., as troops or forces.
4. to come together; collect; assemble; gather.

noun:
1. an assembling of troops or persons for formal inspection or other purposes.
2. an assemblage or collection.
3. the act of mustering.
4. Also called muster roll. (formerly) a list of the persons enrolled in a military or naval unit.

She stopped at one point and shut her eyes, trying to muster her strength.
-- Terry Brooks, High Druid of Shannara, 2005

Teresa had not been aware of this, and Bruce, though dimly aware, hadn't been able to muster up enough energy to be concerned.
-- Cheryl Strayed, Torch, 2007

Muster originally came from the Latin word mōnstrāre meaning "to show." It is also related to the more common English word monster.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com