Deipnosophist

Word of the Day for Friday 28^th February 2014

Deipnosophist

  \ dahyp-NOS-uh-fist \, noun;

1.   a person who is an adept conversationalist at table.

Quotes:

At the age of six his future as a deipnosophist  seemed certain. Guzzling filched apples he loved to prattle. Hogging the pie he invariably piped up and rattled on.

-- Ellis Sharp, "The Bloating of Nellcock," The Aleppo Button , 1991

A deipnosophist  is one who makes an art of dining, as distinguished from a gourmet, who makes an unholy fuss about it.

-- Robertson Davies, The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks , 1985

Origin:

Deipnosophist  comes from the title of a work written by the Greek Athenaeus in about 228 AD,Deipnosophistai , in which a number of wise men sit at a dinner table and discuss a wide range of topics.It is derived from deipnon , "dinner" + sophistas , "a clever or wise man."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Malinger

Word of the Day for Thursday 27^th February 2014

Malinger \muh-LING-ger\, verb:

to pretend illness, especially in order to shirk one's duty, avoid work, etc.

Because he twice slapped battle-stressed soldiers in Sicily who, he thought, were merely malingering, he was denied a major command in the Normandy landings.
-- Bernard Knox, "Scorched Earth," The New York Times, 1999

It is impossible to determine exactly what inspired Mary's various symptoms, but her own and other family members' letters suggest that her suffering may have been a combination of hypochondria, conscious histrionics and malingering, and unconscious rebellion against her father.
-- Caroline Fraser, God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church, 1999

Malinger derives from French malingre, "sickly," perhaps from Old French mal, "badly" + heingre, "lean, thin."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Columbine

Word of the Day for Wednesday 26^th February 2014

Columbine \KOL-uhm-bahyn, -bin\, adjective:

1. dovelike; dove-coloured.
2. of a dove.

For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent: his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil …
-- Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, 1605

Com forth now with thyne eyen columbyn. / How fairer been thy brestes than is wyn.
-- Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Merchant’s Tale,” The Canterbury Tales, 1387–1400

Columbine is derived from the Latin columba meaning "dove." The columbine flower was so named because of its resemblance to a cluster of doves.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Toothsome

Word of the Day for Tuesday 25^th February 2014

Toothsome \TOOTH-suhm\, adjective:

1. pleasing to the taste; palatable: a toothsome dish.
2. pleasing or desirable, as fame or power.
3. voluptuous; sexually alluring: a toothsome blonde.

It was filled with friandises, with luscious and toothsome bits--the finest of fruits, pates, a rare bottle or two, delicious syrups, and bonbons in abundance.
-- Kate Chopin, The Awakening, 1899

Strictly judged, most modern poems are but larger or smaller lumps of sugar, or slices of toothsome sweet cake—even the banqueters dwelling on those glucose flavors as a main part of the dish.
-- Walt Whitman, "An Old Man's Rejoinder," 1890

Toothsome entered English in the 1560, joining the word tooth, denoting "sense, liking," with the adjective-forming suffix –some.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Razz

Word of the Day for Monday 24th February 2014

Razz \raz\, verb:

1. Slang. to deride; make fun of; tease.

noun:
1. raspberry; any sign or expression of dislike or derision.

They razz each other over every play, throw stuff across the room, and laugh deep belly laughs over cutting remarks.
-- Elsa Kok Colopy, 99 Ways to Fight Worry and Stress, 2009

He wouldn't have razzed just me. He would have razzed my Abstract Expressionist pals, too, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko and Terry Kitchen and so on …
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard: A Novel, 1987

Razz is a shortened variant of raspberry, a colloquialism for a rude sound used to express mockery or contempt. It entered English in the early to mid-1900’s.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Salchow

Word of the Day for Sunday 23rd February 2014

Salchow \SAL-kou\, noun:

Ice Skating. a jump in which the skater leaps from the back inside edge of one skate, making one full rotation of the body in the air, and lands on the back outside edge of the other skate.

When she cinches the double salchow, the crowd cheers even louder than before.
-- Carlin Flora, "Call of the Ice," Psychology Today, 2006

Landing a difficult quadruple salchow-triple toe loop combination and attempting two additional quads, Goebel showed enough improved artistry from a year ago to win his first national title.
-- Jere Longman, "Figure Skating: Kwan and Goebel Surmount Stumbles," The New York Times, 2001

Salchow entered English courtesy of Swedish figure skater Ulrich Salchow, who invented the jump and first performed it in 1909.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

August

Word of the Day for  Saturday 22 ^nd February 2014

August  \ aw-GUHST \,  adjective :

1.  venerable; eminent:  an august personage . 2.  inspiring reverence or admiration, of supreme dignity or grandeur; majestic:  an august performance of a religious drama .

Lafayette spoke, and bade farewell to Lamarque: it was a touching and  august  moment, - all heads were uncovered, and all hearts beat.
- Victor Hugo,  Les Misérables  (in translation), 1862

Now, deserted by His monarch, far from home, trapped in the laboratory Poder Tower as the chief alchemist involved-in the longevity elixir, this  august  gentleman had to use All His ingenuity and cunning to simply save His Own Life.
- Frances Sherwood,  The Book of Splendor , 2003

August  comes from the Latin  augustus  meaning "venerable, noble." It Inglese Entered in the 1660s.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Moiety

Word of the Day for  Friday 21 ^st February 2014

Moiety  \ MOI-i-tee \,  noun :

1.  a half. 2.  an indefinite portion, part, or share. 3. Anthropology . Which one of two units into a tribe or community is divided on the basis of unilineal descent.

 

Tom divided the cake and Becky ate with good appetite, while Tom nibbled at His  moiety .
- Mark Twain,  The Adventures of Tom Sawyer , 1876

Poor Frederick, Although His necessity was extreme and his great grief, remembering His former inordinate expenses, a  moiety  whereof would now have stood him in some stead, yet he had a heart as free-and-forward as ever, not a jot dejected in His Mind , though utterly overthrown by fortune.
- Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), "The Falcon,"  Little Masterpieces of Fiction , 1905

Moiety  comes from Old French  meitiet , from Late Latin  medietas , from Latin  medius , "middle."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Bestiary

Word of the Day for Thursday 20^th February 2014

Bestiary \BES-chee-er-ee, BEES-\, noun:

a collection of moralized fables, especially as written in the Middle Ages, about actual or mythical animals.

It was pieced together into no named pattern native to this country, not star flower or flying bird of churn dasher or poplar leaf, but was some entirely made-up bestiary or zodiac of half-visionary creatures.
-- Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain, 1997

An inexperienced heraldist resembles a medieval traveller who brings back from the East the faunal fantasies influenced by the domestic bestiary he possessed all along rather than by the results of direct zoological exploration.
-- Vladamir Nabokov, Speak, Memory, 1951

Bestiary is from the Latin bestiaries meaning "a fighter against beasts in the public entertainments." It entered English in the 1620’s.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Chirk -

Word of the Day for Wednesday 19^th February 2014

Chirk \churk\, verb:

1. Informal. to cheer (usually followed by up).
2. to make a shrill, chirping noise.

"Well, I think," said Mis' Jane Moran, "that we've hit on the only way we could have hit on to chirk each other up over a hard time."
-- Zona Gale, "Christmas: A Story", 1912

Ef there's a mortal thing I can do to help ye, or chirk ye up, I want to do it right off.
-- Rose Terry Cooke, Happy Dodd; or, She Hath Done What She Could, 1878

Chirk can be traced to the Old English cearcian meaning "to creak, gnash." It shares this root with chirp, which became the prevailing word for the noise birds make.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Ailurophilia

Word of the Day for Tuesday 18^th February 2014

Ailurophilia \ahy-loor-uh-FIL-ee-uh, ey-loor-\, noun:

a liking for cats, as by cat fanciers.

During the past half-dozen years, a time when ailurophilia has been rampant in the land, the bookshelves have become crowded with volumes in which cartoonists, painters, writers and poets pay their respects to that most independent, most enigmatic creature, Felis domestica.
-- The New York Times Book Review, 1981

The renowned American poet T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) expressed his form of ailurophilia in the Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.
-- Bruce Fogle, Cats, 2006

Ailurophilia combines the Greek aílouro meaning "cat" with -philia meaning "affection, affinity." In modern usage, -philia is most often used in the formation of compound words that have a general sense "unnatural attraction" or "tendency.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Schatzi

Word of the Day for Monday 17^th February 2014

Schatzi \SHAHT-see\, noun:

Slang. sweetheart, darling.

He and his schatzi returned to Vienna ten days later with the complete wave equations, though the name of his muse is lost in the mists of the mountains.
-- Russell Targ, Do You See What I See?: Memoirs of a Blind Biker, 2008

Oh, Schatzie, I stopped wanting many years ago. Now I just accept.
-- Lawrence Sanders, The Anderson Tapes, 1970

Schatzi is derived from the German word for "treasure," schatz, which entered English as a term of endearment for a woman in the early 1900’s.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Pluvial

Word of the Day for Sunday 16^th February 2014

Pluvial \PLOO-vee-uhl\, adjective:

1. of or pertaining to rain; rainy.
2. Geology. occurring through the action of rain.

noun:
1. Geology. a rainy period formerly regarded as coeval with a glacial age, but now recognized as episodic and, in the tropics, as characteristic of interglacial ages.

Swimming in the pluvial waters, or inert and caked over by the torrid mud, he would have discovered what he would certainly have regarded as lowly, specially-modified, and degenerate relations of the active denizens of the ocean—the Dipnoi, or mud-fish.
-- H.G. Wells, “Zoological Retrogression”, 1891

Nothing enters her tomb save a little moisture, pluvial in origin, and, it may be, certain mysterious effluvia of which we do not yet know the nature.
-- Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949), translated by Bernard Miall, The Life of the Ant, 2001

Pluvial is from the Latin pluvia meaning "rain, water." It shares the Proto-Indo-European root pleu meaning "to flow, to swim" withPluto, the name of God of the underworld in classical mythology.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Albumen

Word of the Day for Saturday 15^th February 2014

Albumen \al-BYOO-muhn\, noun:

1. the white of an egg.
2. Botany. the nutritive matter around the embryo in a seed.

Tannic acid hardens albumen into a leathery substance of which the most courageous stomach is rightfully suspicious…
-- Myrtle Reed, The Myrtle Reed Cookbook, 1916

Don't overbeat the eggs, as an overbeaten albumen results in a less-than-perfect texture.
-- Craig Boreth, The Hemingway Cookbook, 1998

Albumen comes from the Latin word for "white," albus. It entered English around 1600.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Sooth

Word of the Day for Friday 14^th February 2014

Sooth \sooth\, noun:

1. truth, reality, or fact.

adjective:

1. true or real.

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.
-- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, 1600

But in the young man's heart there was no answering gladness, though in very sooth she was an exceeding handsome maid.
-- Samuel Rutherford Crockett, The Lilac Sunbonnet: A Love Story, 1895

Sooth derives from the Old English soð meaning "truth, justice; reality." It shares this root with the word soothe, as reflected in soothe's earliest sense, "to verify."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Blatherskite

Word of the Day for Thursday 13^th February 2014

Blatherskite \BLATH-er-skahyt\, noun:

1. a person given to voluble, empty talk.
2. nonsense; blather.

It seems to me that no one can contemplate this odd creature, this quaint and curious blatherskite, without admiring McClintock, or, at any rate, loving him and feeling grateful to him …
-- Mark Twain, "A Cure for the Blues," 1893

That bubbling, breezy blatherskite, the boisterous bobolink/ Is such a deep philosopher he's far too wise to think.
-- Sam Walter Foss, "Bobolink Philosophy," Back Country Poems, 1892

Blatherskite was a popular colloquialism in the U.S. in the early 1800s, thanks in part to a Scottish song called "Maggie Lauder," which featured the word (spelled bletherskate) and was popular among soldiers during the American Revolutionary War.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Dulcify

Word of the Day for Wednesday 12^th February 2014

Dulcify \DUHL-suh-fahy\, verb:

1. to make more agreeable; mollify; appease.
2. to sweeten.

The delectable little Dutch songs with which she used to dulcify the house grew less and less frequent, and she would forget her sewing, and look wistfully in her father’s face as he sat pondering by the fireside.
-- Washington Irving, “Wolfert Webber, or Golden Dreams,” Tales of a Traveller, by Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., 1824

Time had not dulcified the tempers of the three elder.
-- William Blackwood, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 1831

Dulcify is derived from the Latin word dulcis meaning "sweet." It entered English around 1600.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Maw

Word of the Day for Tuesday 11^th February 2014

Maw \maw\, noun:

1. the symbolic or theoretical center of a voracious hunger or appetite of any kind: the ravenous maw of Death.
2. the mouth, throat, or gullet of an animal, especially a carnivorous mammal.
3. a cavernous opening that resembles the open jaws of an animal: the gaping maw of hell.

I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends.
-- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, 1818

The team of seven had been created to browse and graze through all existing writings, and to make a catalog of all that was swept into the team's collective maw.
-- Simon Winchester, The Professor and the Madman, 1998

Maw comes to us from the Old English maga meaning "stomach." Its figurative use first appeared in the late 1300’s.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Schuss

Word of the Day for Monday 10^th February 2014

Schuss \shoos\, verb:

1. Skiing. to execute a schuss.

noun:
1. a straight downhill run at high speed.

When he schussed down the shallower pistes, his skis were closely parallel and his knees were barely flexed as he rode the moguls.
-- Nigel Slater, Falcon, 1979

That far fetched combination has produced some equally far-out fashions: wait until you see that glittering sequined spacesuit schussing down the slopes.
-- Jennet Conant, Newsweek, 1985

Schuss comes to us from German word of the same spelling meaning "shot." It entered English in the 1930’s.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Farceur

Word of the Day for Sunday 9^th February 2014

Farceur \fahr-SUR\, noun:

1. a joker; wag.
2. a writer or director of or actor in farce.

A man may be happy at repartee, a merrymaker, a farceur, a jester, and yet not be a wit, although he may be esteemed one for his lively conversation, drollery, aptitude in rejoinder and equivoque.
-- John Duke Coleridge (1820 – 1894), Great Thoughts from Master Minds Vol. V, 1908

The life of a professional farceur isn't all a farce, by a long shot. This is especially true if you happen to be Collie of the Lambs Club.
-- William Collier, “When Life Is Not All a Farce,” New York Times, 1907

Farceur comes from the French word of the same spelling, which in turn is rooted in the Latin word farcire meaning "to stuff, cram."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Neologize

Word of the Day for Saturday 8^th February 2014

Neologize \nee-OL-uh-jahyz\, verb:

1. to make or use new words or create new meanings for existing words.
2. to devise or accept new religious doctrines.

Scientists at Northwestern University, inspired by the faux pundit’s ability to neologize, created a set of nouns for “Colbertian,” which they could use to test the effects of bilingualism.
-- Amina Khan, “Bilingualism: Stephen Colbert's 'truthiness' inspires a language,” The Los Angeles Times, 2012

In the meanwhile, necessity obliges us to neologize.
-- Thomas Jefferson, “To John Waldo,” 1813, Jefferson: Political Writings, 1999

Neologize joins the Greek neo meaning "new" with a variant on –logy, a combining form derived from the Greek logos meaning "word, speech, discourse, reason." This verb entered English in the early 1800's.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Inglenook

Word of the Day for Friday 7^th February 2014

Inglenook \ING-guhl-nook\, noun:

a corner or nook near a fireplace.

I seized his sleeve and drew him off a little into an inglenook where we could be less readily observed.
-- Sara Poole, The Borgia Betrayal, 2011

From the pile of wood, stacked at one side of the inglenook, he drew out a pair of bellows and began to blow new life into the ashes.
-- Marcia Willett, A Week in Winter, 2002

His kingdom is/ His inglenook-/ All this is his/ Who hath a book.
-- Wilbur D. Nesbit, A Book of Poems, 1906

Inglenook is of obscure origin, though etymologists associate ingle with the Gaelic aingel meaning "fire." It entered English in the 1770’s.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Posy

Word of the Day for Thursday 6^th February 2014

Posy \POH-zee\, noun:

1. a flower, nosegay, or bouquet.
2. Archaic. a brief motto or the like, as one inscribed within a ring.

HAMLET: Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?
OPHELIA: ’Tis brief, my lord.
HAMLET: As woman’s love.
-- William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1603

This time I have to bring her in an hour a posy of the rarest flowers, and where am I to find them?
-- Andrew Lang, The Orange Fairy Book, 1906

Posy is a variant of the word poesy, meaning "poem, poetry." Sometimes called nosegays or tussie-mussies, posies were popular accessories among fashionable women in Victorian England, and, harkening the word's literary origin, became vehicles for the floral "language of love."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Perspicuous

Word of the Day for Wednesday 5^th February 2014

Perspicuous \per-SPIK-yoo-uhs\, adjective:

1. clearly expressed or presented; lucid.
2. perspicacious.

This perspicuous presentation makes possible that understanding which consists just.
-- Iris Murdoch, Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, 1992

My first memory of Funes is very perspicuous. I can see him on an afternoon in March or February of the year 1884.
-- Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Anthony Kerrigan, "Funes the Memorious," Ficciones, 1954

Perspicuous stems from the Latin word perspicere meaning "to look or see through." It is related to the word inspect.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Galligaskins

Word of the Day for Tuesday 4^th February 2014

Galligaskins \gal-i-GAS-kinz\, noun:

1. leggings or gaiters, usually of leather.
2. loose hose or breeches worn in the 16th and 17th centuries.

He was generally seen trooping like a colt at his mother's heels, equipped in a pair of his father's cast-off galligaskins, which he had much ado to hold up with one hand, as a fine lady does her train in bad weather.
-- Washington Irving, Rip Van Winkle, 1819

In galligaskins and filthy leather, his hat lost, his hair all elf-locks, he staggered toward WS.
-- Anthony Burgess, Nothing Like the Sun: A Story of Shakespeare's Love Life, 1964

Galligaskins is of obscure origin, though it's often associated with the now-obsolete French word garguesques. It entered English in the 1570’s.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com