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