Word of the Day

[Augustine2004]

blowzy

blowsy




having a coarsely ruddy and bloated appearance.

Disheveled; frowzy; unkept.





A woman whose face was blowzy appeared out of the fog. Sherlock reared back in surprise.

A blowsy blonde approached Ted's party, apparently intent on asking for alms.

[Augustine2004]

Blucher, Gebhard Leberecht von, Prince of Wahlstatt



Great opponent of Napoleon, who together with Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. 'His astute leadership of the Prussian army played a crucial part in the campaigns against Napoleon.'





Wikipedia says, 'A popular German idiom, "rangehen wie Blücher" ("attack it like Blücher"), meaning that someone is taking very direct and aggressive action, in war or otherwise, refers to Blücher.' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gebhard...n_Bl%C3%BCcher

[Augustine2004]

bluebeard (often Bluebeard)



any man thought to be a wife-slayer or killer of women.





Charles Perrault wrote a fairy tale featuring a character named Bluebeard, who was a serial wife-killer. Charles must be tetched, would you read such a tale to your kiddies?

[Augustine2004]

Blue Nile



a river rising in northwestern Ethiopia and flowing 1,610 km to Sudan, where it joins the White Nile at Khartoum to form the Nile.

purloined from Wikipedia


In Khartoum Teabogarty had to spend several hours finding someone who spoke barely adequate English for directions to the White Nile-Blue Nile confluence.

Note: Wikipedia says 900 km, not 1,610 km. Such a discrepancy would not surprise someone who knows the fractal nature of the universe.

[Augustine2004]

blue fox



the arctic fox during the summer, when its pelt is bluish-gray, or that pelt's fur.




Teabluedog exclaimed, 'Fancy that, a blue animal!'

The professor frowned. 'Have you not heard of the blue jay? The blue head? The blue mold? The blue whale?'

[Augustine2004]

blue note



Music. A flatted note, especially the third or seventh note of a chord, in place of an expected major interval.





The student wondered if blue notes had any place in blues.

[Augustine2004]

blue peter

purloined from Wikipedia

Nautical. A flag like shown above, flown to signal that a ship is ready to sail. Also the name of the longest-running children's television show.



My dictionary said that the blue peter is probably named after Peter.

[Augustine2004]

Boanerges



A vociferous loud-voiced preacher or orator.



Preacher Slim turned out to be a Boanerges. At one point, he said especially loudly, 'As Jesus called John and James, Boanerges, so I call Mr. Aburthnot, Son of Thunder!'

Polite applause erupted as a tall, fat man bounded up on the stage with a broad, toothy smile.

[Augustine2004]

boar



an uncastrated male pig or a wild boar.





The scientific name for the wild boar is sus scrofa. The Wikipedia article is here. It's the 'pig' with those tusks, but is the ancestor of the domestic pig in fact. [The reason 'boar' is today's Word is that I didn't know it can mean an uncastrated male pig.]



The wild boar used to roam Merrie Old England, but zoos are about where you'd find English wild boars. If caged animals could be called wild, that is (kidding).

[Augustine2004]

board



Essay. A nautical meaning is 'the side of a ship.' It may also mean a leeboard or centerboard.





Teabrood heard, 'Go to the lee board.' Not understanding that the ship had no leeboard, he went abeam to the port board, even though the shifty wind was then blowing from that direction. How puzzled he became on seeing no leeboard! (The ship was too big, it didn't require any.)

[Augustine2004]

bort, boart



poor-quality diamonds used for industrial cutting and abrasion or an impure diamond (a carbonado).







Borty is an adjective, so why not call your debate opponent, 'Borty!' Might throw his reasoning faculty into a tailspin.

[Augustine2004]

borzoi





a Russian dog breed. (For pictures, scroll down this web page http://personal.palouse.net/valeska/)





The name borzoi is also the Russian word for 'swift.' The dictionary said the coat is predominately white, but the photos in the webpage above show considerable variation.

[Augustine2004]

Bose, Satyenda Nath





Essay Born in India, Bose was a great scientist and mathematician who devised a way to prove Max Planck's radiation law without using classical electrodynamics. I already knew about him in college, but I am making his name today's Word, because I think he and his work are very interesting.



Before I link to the Wikipedia article on Bose-Einsten statistics, perhaps it would help you to know it is essentially statistics of particles that move about randomly. Those particles are indistinguishable. Not only that, two or more can occupy the same point. Example: the photon, of course. The statistics concern the distribution of the particles. E.g., what is the likelihood that the left half of a space will have one more particle than the other half?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose%E2...ein_statistics Warning I didn't check it carefully.

[Augustine2004]

boson



Essay Initially I wasn't going to make boson today's Word, but surprisingly my dictionary made two errors (I think). First, the boson is named after Satyendra Nath Bose, not the other Indian scientist named Bose (Jagadis Chandra). Second, the name Satyendra is misspelled. Unlike fermions, bosons follow Bose-Einsten statistics.



I think it's a little amusing Wikipedia should prove to be more accurate in this instance, heh.

[Augustine2004]

Bosporus



[See red area in this map]

Purloined from Wikipedia

Notable facts: The world's narrowest [natural??] strait used for international navigation; strong currents in places.