Trundle

Word of the Day for Friday, November 30, 2012

Trundle \TRUHN-dl\, verb:

To move or walk with a rolling gait.

They get her into a wheelbarrow and trundle her all over town.
-- Alice Munroe, Meneseteung

Fling leaflets down basements; expose them in stalls; trundle them along streets on barrows to be sold for a penny or given away.
-- Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own: Three Guineas

Trundle, first used in the 1500s, may originate from the Old English trendel, "ring or disk," which is also the root of the modern English trend.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Svelte

Word of the Day for Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Svelte \SFELT\, adjective:

1. Slender, especially gracefully slender in figure.
2. Suave; blandly urbane.

In 1944 his mother had been a relatively svelte one hundred and eighty pounds.
-- Stephen King, It: A Novel

“When I walk under one of the pathway lamps and look down you can indeed see the silhouette of my body which doesn’t look quite as svelte and hourglassy as I believe it did just an hour ago when I was admiring myself in the mirror.
-- Terry McMillan, How Stella Got Her Groove Back

Svelte enters English in 1800s from the French, and originally derives from the Latin verb exvellere, "to stretch out."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Rime

Word of the Day for Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Rime \RAHYM\, noun:

A coating of tiny, white, granular ice particles, caused by the rapid freezing of water droplets.

The Chief’s follow spot cast a light like a rime of ice into the murk, and mom swam inside this circle across the entire length of the lake.
-- Karen Russell, Swamplandia!

When it got real fierce, when your very speech would freeze as it emanated from your lips and blow back in stinging rime against the cheeks, we hung close to the tepees and ate the dried meat taken the summer before and stored in rawhide parfleches and pemmican, the greasier the better on account of a bellyful of melting fat will warm you sooner and stick longer than most anything I know.
-- Thomas Berger, Little Big Man

Rime, also known as hoarfrost, comes from the Old English hrim. Used mainly in Northern England and Scotland for centuries, it was revived in literature in the 19th century.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Fainaigue

Word of the Day for Monday, November 26, 2012

Fainaigue \fuh-NEYG\, verb:

1. To shirk; evade work or responsibility.
2. To renege at cards.

I finally fainaigue a tin plate out of the mess department, for which I am required to give two lire.
-- Harry Partch, Thomas McGeary, Bitter Music: Collected Journals, Essays, Introductions, and Librettos

I've a two-year stretch up here, unless I quit or fainaigue a transfer.
-- "Astounding Science fiction, Volume 31, issue 21943"

Fainaigue stems from British dialect, but its exact origins are unclear. Whether or not it has a relationship to finagle is a source of debate.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Agape

Word of the Day for Thursday, November 22, 2012

Agape \ah-GAH-pey\, noun:

1. Unselfish love of one person for another without sexual implications.
2. The love of Christians for other persons, corresponding to the love of God for humankind.

In theological sermons we are used to hearing of a great distinction between fleshly and spiritual love, eros and agape.
-- Joseph Campbell, The Flight of the Wild Gander: Essays

Not even the shift that Auden himself saw in the poem, that from erotic love with its inevitable undertones of egotism and potential failure to a brotherly love embodied in agape, is completely evident.
-- Rainer Emig, W.H. Auden: Towards a Postmodern Poetics

Agape originates as the Greek agapen, "to greet with affection." The term was adopted by early Christians in connection with celebrations. The general sense of "love without sexual aspects" came into use in the 1800s.

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com 

Giblets

Word of the Day for Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Giblets \JIB-lits\, noun:

The heart, liver, gizzard, and the like, of a fowl, often cooked separately.

She prods the chicken, flexes a wing, pokes a finger into the cavity, fishes out the giblets.
-- Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Whatever you say to such people, they think you're talking about their problem, like the story of the cat, where the couple was arguing about a divorce but the cat thought they were disagreeing about the giblets for its lunch.
-- Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum

Giblets most likely derives from the Old French gibelet, "a stew made from wild game."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

Fob

Word of the Day for Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Fob \FOB\, noun:

1. A short chain, usually with a medallion or similar ornament, worn hanging from a pocket.
2. A small pocket just below the waistline in trousers for a watch, keys, change, etc.

verb:
1. To cheat someone by substituting something spurious or inferior.
2. To put (someone) off by deception or trickery.

Out of the right fob hung a great silver chain, with a wonderful kind of engine at the bottom.
-- Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

The father had bought the bridegroom a fob watch as a gift.
-- Sholem Aleichem, Aliza Shevrin, Tevye the Dairyman: And, Motl the Cantor's Son

Fob most likely derives from the Germanic fopke, "pocket."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com