Ziggurat

Word of the Day for Thursday, February 28, 2013

Ziggurat \ZIG-oo-rat\, noun:

(among the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians) a temple of Sumerian origin in the form of a pyramidal tower, consisting of a number of stories and having about the outside a broad ascent winding round the structure, presenting the appearance of a series of terraces.

The social structure of our summer world was as fixed and hard of climbing as a ziggurat.
-- John Banville, The Sea

After talking for a moment about the new strawberry bed, a kind of earthen ziggurat in the middle of the garden, Alice hung up, unable to tell them after all.
-- Jane Smiley, Duplicate Keys

Born in 1877, ziggurat is derived from the Assyrian ziqquratu meaning "height," or "pinnacle."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Zephyrean

Word of the Day for Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Zephyrean \zef-uh-REE-uhn\, adjective:

of, pertaining to, or like a zephyr; full of or containing light breezes.

Now, walking toward them, a gauzy, lavender shawl fluttering in her wake and her long, tight, burgundy curls flying every which way, she exuded zephyrean lightness.
-- Hyatt Bass, The Embers

Oh and her name; her name was softer than a rose petal at dawn, more yielding than the last rays of a dying sun, a zephyrean music that invoked heaven's envy.
-- Massud Alemi, Interruptions

Zephyrean first appeared in print in the 1830s, from the Greek word zéphyros referring to the west wind.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Zakuska

Word of the Day for Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Zakuska \zuh-KOOS-kuh\, noun:

an hors d'oeuvre.

"Do you have anything for zakuska, Tractvanna?" Oleg took stock of the table: boiled potatoes, bread, canned peas and sardines, a clove of garlic.
-- Marina Sonkina, "Tractorina's Travels," Lucia's Eyes and Other Stories

I drink a shot, take a bite of marinated mushrooms in sour cream. Humankind has yet to invent any better zakuska. Even Nanny's half-sour pickles can't hold a candle to this.
-- Vladimir Sorokin, Day of the Oprichnik

This Russian word for a snack, zakuska, entered the lexicon in the mid 1880s as a derivative of kusát meaning "to bite."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Yare

Word of the Day for Monday, February 25, 2013

Yare \yair\, adjective:

1. quick; agile; lively.
2. (of a ship) quick to the helm; easily handled or manoeuvered.
3. Archaic. a. ready; prepared. b. nimble; quick.

I reckon I was hopin' it would take us to the landin'. She looks yare to me.
-- Jo Goodman, Crystal Passion

Faith, then, up foot! be yare, or, by the mass, I may forget that I am in some sort your captain and in some your debtor! Go!
-- Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow

Yare was used in Middle English before the year 900, but its Old English progenitor gearu meant "ready" or "prepared."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Varia

Word of the Day for Friday, February 22, 2013

Varia \VAIR-ee-uh\, noun:

miscellaneous items, especially a miscellany of literary works.

This volume of Children's Literature differs from others in that its articles, varia, and many of its reviews were selected to illustrate a single theme...
-- Edited by Francelia Butler, Children's Literature, Vol. 15

There go the women, off to dig up tubers or gather other varia, the chores getting done by groups that seemed to agglutinate differently each time you watched.
-- Norman Rush, Mating

Varia is the neuter or non-gendered plural of varius, a word transcribed directly from the Latin meaning "varied, different" and originally "spotted."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Umber

Word of the Day for Thursday, February 21, 2013

Umber \UHM-ber\, noun:

1. North England Dialect. shade; shadow.
2. an earth consisting chiefly of a hydrated oxide of iron and some oxide of manganese, used in its natural state as a brown pigment (raw umber) or, after heating, as a reddish-brown pigment (burnt umber).
3. the colour of such a pigment; dark dusky brown or dark reddish brown.
4. Ichthyology. the European grayling, Thymallus thymallus.

adjective:
1. of the colour umber.

verb:
1. to colour with or as if with umber.

"Sir," said Gouvernail, "see ye him not? I weened that ye had seen him, for yonder he hoveth under the umber of his ships, on horseback with his spear in his hand and his shield upon his shoulder."
-- Sir Thomas Malory, Morte d'Arthur

Yet despite the scorn that often issued from Lawrence's mouth, it was in the nature of that particular shade of umber that his eyes could express a limited set of emotions: tenderness, gratitude, injury, and need.
-- Lionel Shriver, The Post-Birthday World

Beside the sense of "shade," umber more commonly describes a brown earthy pigment popular in the 1560s. The word has come full circle because the Latin root umbra refers to a "shadow" or "shade."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Satrap

Word of the Day for Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Satrap \SEY-trap\, noun:

1. a subordinate ruler, often a despotic one.
2. a governor of a province under the ancient Persian monarchy.

I govern this land for my brother, and as his satrap it is my duty to know much of the neighbouring lands.
-- Gene Wolfe, Soldier of Sidon

It was common knowledge: this baby's father was some sort of latter-day satrap, a king of the East who had fetched himself a blond, horse-toothed bride from a women's college in New Jersey.
-- Chris Adrian, The Children's Hospital

A Medieval word, satrap originated in the Old Persian from the literary prefix kshathrapavan-, meaning "guardian of the realm."

Thanks to; www.dictionary.com 

Paraph

Word of the Day for Saturday, February 16, 2013

Paraph \PAR-uhf\, noun:

a flourish made after a signature, as in a document, originally as a precaution against forgery.

The manuscript's most tantalising feature is a scribal paraph with the initials IB at the end of Certain sonnets...
-- H. R. Woudhuysen, Sir Philip Sidney and the Circulation of Manuscripts

His worried expression, however, was not just a mask for the moment. Of late, it had become his most distinctive feature, his peculiar paraph.
-- Ken Anderson, The Statue Of Pan

The paraph is only a schematic and marginal countersignature, a fragment of signature; indeed, who can claim to decipher a whole signature?
-- Jacques Derrida, Mémoires

Though early incarnations of paraph appear in Italian, Middle French, and Middle English, its earliest origins are Greek with para- meaning "beside" and the final -ph resulting from graphos, referring to text.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Obnubilate

Word of the Day for Friday, February 15, 2013

Obnubilate \ob-NOO-buh-leyt\, verb:

to cloud over; becloud; obscure.

...their trunks were black and knobbly, whilst their branches buckled over as a roof to meet a brick plane and obnubilate a view of the stars.
-- Colin Cornelius, Monkeys Can't Swim

It is the pity of the world, Dr Maturin, to see a man of your parts obnubilate his mind with the juice of the poppy.
-- Patrick O'Brian, The Mauritius Command

Obnubilate, a late 16th century word, is a verbal derivative of the Latin nūbilus meaning "cloudy," though its closer ancestor, obnūbilāre means "to darken."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Nuque

Word of the Day for Thursday, February 14, 2013

Nuque \nook\, noun:

the back of the neck.

She wore a figured lawn, cut a little low in the back, that exposed a round, soft nuque with a few little clinging circlets of soft, brown hair.
-- Kate Chopin, "A Night in Acadie," The Complete Works of Kate Chopin

If he had been a Frenchman he would have seized her in his arms and told her passionately that he adored her; he would have pressed his lips on her nuque.
-- William Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

Nuque originated in the late 1500s from the French nucha for "nape," though its earliest origin is Arabic nukhā referring to "spinal marrow."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Mainour

Word of the Day for Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Mainour \MEY-ner\, noun:

a stolen article found on the person of or near the thief: to be taken with the mainour.

Caught the thief, with the mainour, hey?
-- Maria Edgeworth, The Parent's Assistant

...if I be taken in the mainour, if the theft be found about me, I shall be either killed, or carted with a paper crown set upon my head, having my fault written in great text-letters.
-- Fernando de Rojas, The Celestina

Mainour, a Medieval word, entered Middle English from the Old French manoeuvre meaning "hand labour."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Lollapalooza

Word of the Day for Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Lollapalooza \lol-uh-puh-LOO-zuh\, noun:

an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance.

In America, the German announcement prompts Mayor La Guardia to tell City Hall reporters, “Any American who can believe that lollapalooza of a Nazi lie has sunk to the lowest possible level.”
-- Philip Roth, The Plot Against America

It was a lollapalooza of a tour, all right—a "luxury hotel barge cruise” which began in the Champagne country and then went, via hot air balloon, to Burgundy for more barging, through Beaujolais, to the Riviera and Cannes and Monte Carlo...
-- Donna Tartt, The Secret History

Though the origins of this Americanism are uncertain, we can be sure that lollapalooza strutted onto the linguistic stage in the first decade of the 20th century.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Kinchin

Word of the Day for Monday, February 11, 2013

Kinchin \kin-chin\, noun:

a child.

He's naught but a kinchin, no bigger than a sparrow.
-- Joan Aiken, The Whispering Mountain

Now I come to think of it, Kinchin is English too. In Oliver Twist the boys who work for Fagin are taught to be kinchins and prig people's wipes.
-- Angela Thirkell, Caroline Alice Lejeune, Three Score and Ten

Derived from the German kindchen, kinchin is a diminutive form of kind meaning "child." Kindchen entered the lexicon in the last decade of the 1600s.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Hent

Word of the Day for Friday, February 8, 2013

Hent \hent\, verb:

to seize.

Then he hent in hand two stones and went round about the city…
-- Lady Isabel Burton, Justin Huntly McCarthy, Lady Burton's Edition of Her Husband's Arabian Nights

So they hent him by the hand and thrust him out; and I took the lute and sang over again the songs of my own composing which the damsel had sung.
-- Emile Van Vliet, The Thousand Nights and A Night

Hent, an ancient word, entered Old English before the year 1000 as a relative of the verbs hentan "to pursue" and huntian "to hunt."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Gastronomy

Word of the Day for Thursday, February 7, 2013

Gastronomy \ga-STRON-uh-mee\, noun:

1. the art or science of good eating.
2. a style of cooking or eating.

Well, you know how in the Poirot books he always goes on vacation to get away from it all, the mysteries and whatever else, only to have a murder committed on the very island he's fled to for peace and quiet and some civilised gastronomy?
-- Lev Grossman, The Magician King

"Tell me, dear lady," she would shriek down the table at me with a comradely twinkle, "tell me . . . explain to all of us, how one can dare to call herself a writer on gastronomy in the United States, where, from everything we hear, gastronomy does not yet exist?"
-- M.F.K. Fisher, Two Towns in Provence

The name of this delicious discipline entered the lexicon in the early 1800s. Gastronomy combines the prefix gastro- from the Greek gastēr meaning "stomach" and the suffix -nomy indicating a science or field of study.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Feuilleton

Word of the Day for Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Feuilleton \FOI-i-tn\, noun:

1. a part of a European newspaper devoted to light literature, fiction, criticism, etc.
2. an item printed in the feuilleton.

The editor is impressed by my work and says he will consider my feuilleton, if I submit it this afternoon.
-- Selden Edwards, The Little Book

The novel in numbers is known with us, but the daily feuilleton has not yet been tried by our newspapers, the proprietors of some of which would, perhaps, do well to consider the matter.
-- William Makepeace Thackeray, Jerome Paturot

Feuilleton originally referred to the light fiction or serial articles that commonly appeared in French newspapers in the 1840s after the fall of Napoleon. It is a diminutive form of the French word feuille meaning "leaf."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Epexegesis

Word of the Day for Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Epexegesis \ep-ek-si-JEE-sis\, noun:

1. the addition of a word or words to explain a preceding word or sentence.
2. the word or words so added.

But you did establish personal contact? In epexegesis or on a point of order?
-- James Joyce, Finnegan's Wake

One of the most striking peculiarities of colloquial speech in Dutch, and of natural free talk in general, is what is called epexegesis.
-- Jan Gonda, Selected Studies

Epexegesis, a late Renaissance word, is derived from the Greek epexḗgēsis meaning explanation.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Dyslogistic

Word of the Day for Monday, February 4, 2013

Dyslogistic \dis-luh-JIS-tik\, adjective:

conveying disapproval or censure; not complimentary or eulogistic.

She had forgotten for the moment the Captain's invidious and dyslogistic employment of the Greek alphabet.
-- Michael Innes, Appleby's Answer

One answer lies in a less well-known but equally important countertradition, the dyslogistic school of memoir written by former officials who present themselves as disillusioned innocents.
-- Jacob Heilbrunn, "Not My Fault," The New York Times Sunday Book Review, June 22, 2008

Dyslogistic grew to prominence in the early 1800s, by applying the negative prefix dys- to a (eu)logistic expression of praise in speech or writing.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Atavistic

Word of the Day for Friday, February 1, 2013

Atavistic \at-uh-VIS-tik\, adjective:

of, pertaining to, or characterised by atavism; reverting to or suggesting the characteristics of a remote ancestor or primitive type.

Buck exhibits atavistic characteristics when his instincts and memories of an impossibly distant past "call" him and reassert themselves into his behavior.
-- Jack London, The Call of the Wild

...so that when Mrs. and Miss Hulme of Kansas City cut them dead in the Plaza one evening, it was only that Mrs. and Miss Hulme, like most people, abominated mirrors of their atavistic selves.
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned

Derived from the Latin atavus meaning "ancestor," atavistic gained popularity in the 1870s.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com