Hoodwink

Word of the Day for Friday 7^th March 2014

Hoodwink \HOOD-wingk\, verb:

1. to deceive or trick.
2. Archaic. to blindfold.
3. Obsolete. to cover or hide.

Be patient, for the prize I'll bring thee to / Shall hoodwink this mischance. Therefore speak softly. / All's hushed as midnight yet.
-- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1611

But it is difficult not to feel a shade of contempt for a woman whom you can hoodwink with impunity, and in consequence she is thrown over as soon as a better one appears on the scene.
-- Stendhal, On Love, 1822

This portmanteau of hood and wink came to English in the mid-1500’s.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Caveat

Word of the Day for Thursday 6^th March 2014

Caveat \KAY-vee-at; KAV-ee-; KAH-vee-aht\, noun:

1. a warning or caution; admonition.
2. Law. a legal notice to a court or public officer to suspend a certain proceeding until the notifier is given a hearing: a caveat filed against the probate of a will.

I must beg leave, before I finish this chapter, to enter a caveat in the breast of my fair reader; and it is this: Not to take it absolutely for granted, from an unguarded word or two which I have dropped it, "that I am a married man."
-- Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, 1759

So the owner of a balky horse would issue the caveat, "You'll be surprised to see the way he works," the surprise being that he would not work at all.
-- Roger Welsch, Mister, You Got Yourself a Horse: Tales of Old-Time Horse Trading, 1987

Caveat comes from the Latin caveat, "let him beware," from cavere, "to beware."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Lingua Franca

Word of the Day for Wednesday 5^th March 2014

Lingua Franca \LING-gwuh FRANG-kuh\, noun:

1. any language that is widely used as a means of communication among speakers of other languages.
2. (initial capital letter) the Italian-Provençal jargon (with elements of Spanish, French, Greek, Arabic, and Turkish) formerly widely used in eastern Mediterranean ports.

...though Ukrainian may be the official language, Russian is the lingua franca. Crimea may be politically part of Ukraine, but it identifies with Russia emotionally and psychologically.
-- Cathy Newman, "After Ukraine Crisis, Why Crimea Matters," National Geographic, 2014

As the guys drank up, with only Jason abstaining, the conversation skipped from fishing to lacrosse to friends in common, the easy lingua franca of young men from the prep-school dominion.
-- Tad Friend, "Thicker Than Water," The New Yorker, 2014

This term comes from the Italian literally meaning "Frankish tongue." It's existed in English since the 1600’s.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Epitome

Word of the Day for Tuesday 4^th March 2014

Epitome \ih-PIT-uh-mee\, noun:

1. a person or thing that is typical of or possesses to a high degree the features of a whole class: He is the epitome of goodness.
2. a condensed account, especially of a literary work; abstract.

He used to say, the school itself initiated him a great way (I remember that was his very expression); for great schools are little societies, where a boy of any observation may see in epitome what he will afterwards find in the world at large.
-- Henry Fielding, The Adventures of Joseph Andrews, 1742

But far beyond all other creatures of the herd is the goat, the epitome of all that in an animal is worth living for; full of frolic when a baby, and knowing nothing but to jump off small eminences, and to cry mamma; conceited and pugnacious in youth; and in maturity solemn to a degree that is at times exasperating.
-- Oswald Parry, Six Months in a Syrian Monastery, 1895

Epitome came to English in the 1500's from the Greek meaning "abridgment" or "surface incision."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Aubade

Word of the Day for Monday 3^rd March 2014

Aubade 

\ oh-BAD, oh-BAHD \, noun;   

 

1.Music. a piece sung or played outdoors at dawn, usually as a compliment 

to someone.

Quotes:

He was usually still awake when the birds began to warble their aubade .

-- Christopher Buckley, "What was Robert Benchley?" National Review, 1997

He often came to listen to her evening vespers, the requiem that Liringlas 

sang for the sun as it sank below the edge of the world, welcoming it again 

in the morning with the dawn aubade, the love song to the morning sky.

-- Elizabeth Haydon, Requiem for the Sun, 2003

Origin:

Aubade comes from the French term aube, meaning “dawn” and the noun 

suffix - ade: aube ultimately derives from Latin albus, white, pale, as in alba 

lux, the pale light of dawn.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Sciamachy

Word of the Day for Sunday 2^nd March 2014

Sciamachy \sahy-AM-uh-kee\, noun:

an act or instance of fighting a shadow or an imaginary enemy.

No, our man walks out of choice, and walks because only on foot can he engage in the sciamachy essential to his trade: fencing with the shadows of hat brims, gun muzzles and arms flung across brickwork by the beams of Kliegs.
-- Will Self, Walking to Hollywood: Memories of Before the Fall, 2010

It further tends to leave the self in disarray, without an orientation. And it risks remaining wastefully engaged in psychological sciamachy – a struggle with shadows or imaginary enemies.
-- Eric Sigg, The American T.S. Eliot: A Study of the Early Writings, 1989

Sciamachy is derived from the Greek skiamakhia, which translates literally to "fighting in the shade," giving name to the practice in ancient Greece of instructors teaching in shaded public places, such as porches and groves.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Fusty

Word of the Day for Saturday 1^st March 2014

Fusty \FUHS-tee\, adjective:

1. old-fashioned or out-of-date, as architecture, furnishings, or the like: They still live in that fusty, gingerbread house.
2. having a stale smell; moldy; musty: fusty rooms that were in need of a good airing.
3. stubbornly conservative or old-fashioned; fogyish.

It seemed somewhat fusty with its plush gold and red trimmings and ornate furniture, all of it so completely devoid of human activity.
-- Curtis Gillespie, Playing Through: A Year of Life and Links Along the Scottish Coast, 2002

She entered, and without further talk went up a steep, fusty stair and knocked at a door on a tiny landing.

-- Thomas Burke, Twinkletoes, 1926

Fusty can be traced back to the Latin fustis meaning "staff, stick of wood." It entered English in the 1390’s.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com