Recusant

Word of the Day for Sunday, October 21, 2012

Recusant \REK-yuh-zuhnt\, noun:

1. A person who refuses to submit, comply, etc.
2. English History. A person, especially a Roman Catholic, who refused to attend the services of the Church of England.

He looked swiftly around to make sure no one was watching, stepped forward, and put his arms around the recusant in a quick embrace. "I'm sorry it had to go this far," he murmured, then stepped back and raised his hand in a parting salute. “If you leave now you could still make it back to the recusant Headquarters alive. And may we meet as friends next time.”
-- Vyshali Manivannan, Invictus

I could no longer doubt the doom prepared for me by my monkish ingenuity in torture. My cognizance of the pit had become known to the inquisitorial agents—the pit whose horrors had been destined for so bold a recusant as myself—the pit, typical of hell, and regarded by rumour as the Ultima Thule of all their punishments.
-- Edgar Allan Poe, The Pit and the Pendulum

Recusant comes from the Latin word recusāre meaning "to demur, object."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Assoil

Word of the Day for Saturday, October 20, 2012

Assoil \uh-SOIL\, verb:

1. To absolve; acquit; pardon.
2. To atone for.

Come up, wives, offer of your yarn! See, I enter your name here in my roll; you shall enter into heaven's bliss; I assoil you by mine high power, you that will make offerings, as clear and clean as when you were born — (lo sirs, thus I preach).
-- Bennett Cerf, An Anthology of Famous British Stories

"Go, and assoil thy living patient: the dead are past thy cares." — " I go," said the Monk of Montcalm, " and Heaven grant that I may shed around his death-hour, that peace which, I fear me, bloody prelate, will be denied to thine!"
-- Charles Robert Maturin, The Albigenses

Assoil is derived from the same root as the similar word absolve. However, assoil came into English through the Middle French word asoiler rather than directly from Latin like the word absolve.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Veloce

Word of the Day for Friday, October 19, 2012

Veloce \ve-LAW-che\, adjective:

Played at a fast tempo.

And when I tired of reading I would swim in my pool, parting the azure blue water like a veloce human knife.
-- Sergio De La Pava, A Naked Singularity

Ah, I mention his name and your eyes, they light up veloce come un razzo—fast as a rocket.
-- Jacquie D'Alessandro, Summer at Seaside Cove

Veloce stems from the Latin word vēlōcem which was the accusative form of vēlōx meaning "quick."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Ombudsman

Word of the Day for Thursday, October 18, 2012

Ombudsman \OM-buhdz-muhn\, noun:

A government official who hears and investigates complaints by private citizens against other officials or government agencies.

Despite these common characteristics of ombudsman systems, there are significant variations across national contexts. The Swedish and Danish ombudsmen exemplify two different models.
-- Bruce E. Cain, Russell J. Dalton, Susan E. Scarrow, Democracy Transformed?

You have reached the Washington Sun's ombudsman desk. If you feel you have been inaccurately quoted, press one. If you spoke to a reporter off the record but were identified in the article, press two…
-- Christopher Buckley, Thank You for Smoking

Fate, or destiny, under God, is the poor man's omnipotent ombudsman.
-- Robert Irwin, The Arabian Nights

Ombudsman comes from the Swedish word ombud which means "agent, attorney." It entered English in the 1910s.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Fulgurant

Word of the Day for Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Fulgurant \FUHL-gyer-uhnt\, adjective:

Flashing like lightning.

Now, as died the fulgurant rage that had supported her, and her normal strength being exhausted, a sudden weakness intervened, and she couldn't but allow Mike to lead her to a seat.
-- George Moore, Mike Fletcher: A Novel

He failed: the storm ran closer, fulgurant brilliance striding the sorry landscape like the stilted legs of some vast insect, the wind strengthening, carrying the odor of corruption, the thunder growling as if in anticipation.
-- Angus Wells, Wild Magic

Fulgurant is derived from the Latin word fulgurāre which meant "to flash like lightning."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Mucro

Word of the Day for Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Mucro \MYOO-kroh\, noun:

A short point projecting abruptly, as at the end of a leaf.

The outward surface of it was extremely slippery, and the mucro, or point, so very cold withal, that upon endeavouring to take hold of it, it glided through the fingers like a smooth piece of ice.
-- Richard Hughes, Spectator, No. 281

Munro holds that it must be "from the mucro or point of the stylus setting a mark at each end of any length you wish to note."
-- William Ellery Leonard, De Rerum Natura

Mucro stems from Latin word mucrō meaning "sharp point."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Zeugma

Word of the Day for Friday, October 12, 2012

Zeugma \ZOOG-muh\, noun:

The use of a word to modify or govern two or more words when it is appropriate to only one of them or is appropriate to each but in a different way, as in to wage war and peace or On his fishing trip, he caught three trout and a cold.

Of course, the zeugma is not an eighteenth-century invention, but it was not handled before then with such neatness and consciousness, and had not the same air of being the normal process of thought.
-- William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity

If we take "We will be proud of course the air will be" as a strong syntactical unit, a complete sentence, the parallelism of "we will be" and "the air will be" draws both these auxiliary phrases toward the yoke (or zeugma, in rhetorical parlance) of the main verb phrase.
-- Cary Nelson, Ed Folsom, W. S. Merwin: Essays on the Poetry

Zeugma stems from the Greek word of the same spelling which meant "a yoking."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com