Word of the Day

[Augustine2004]

cenotaph


a monument erected in honor of a dead person or dead persons whose remains lie elsewhere. [A etymological note: The ceno- prefix may be from either kenos = Greek for "empty" or koinos = Greek for "common."]



Teabourne traveled a thousand kilometers to visit the site of the cenotaph of the Swinburne River victims, hoping to find some clue to the disappearance of Sir Nigel Wehaveason.

[Augustine2004]

Cenozoic


Essay: In a previous post ceno- was shown to have two possible meanings. Today I see another, third, meaning: kainos = Greek for "new", "fresh." Hence Cenozoic = Of, belonging to, or designating the latest era of geologic time. Wikipedia has a nice graphic showing some of the geologic eras--you should scroll down if necessary so that you can read the caption http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time_scale

[Augustine2004]

cense


to perfume with incense.
To offer incense to.



My irrepressible impulse to make a pun out of everything overwhelmed me--I entreat you to forgive me. I ask, most urgently: How do you avoid seeming to say, "I sense you!" While bringing up a block of incense. Lest someone becomes incensed.

But surely someone amongst thou wants to see today's WotD used in a sentence. Why not this: "An eye out for any mischief afoot in the moonlit darkness, the pyramid servant censed the tomb entrance." Makes sense, no?

[Augustine2004]

centuple


multiplied by a hundred; hundredfold.



A word related to centuple is centuplicate: to multiply by one hundred. The boss shellshocked her secretary when she demanded the form "in centuplicate"!

Correction: I don't know why, the definition in my directory differs considerably for triple, the necessary changes being made: "Consisting of three parts; threefold." Or, "three times as many or much." The gang was exactly centuple.

[Augustine2004]

cephalo-, cephal-n (prefix)


indicates head.



Examples include:

cephalalgia = headache (Idea! Women may sometimes should say, "I've got cephalalgia." That seems more serious than just "headache.")

Sorry, that word is the only interesting one. Below is a list of suffices.

-cephalic = suffix indicating head or skull; -cephalous = suffix indicating head (hydrocephalous); -cephalus = suffix indicating an abnormality of the head (hydrocephalus); -cephaly = suffix indicating head.

There, don't you feel hypercephalic?

[Augustine2004]

Cerberus


Essay: A dog that figured in both Greek and Roman mythology is supposedly the guard of the entrances into Hades to prevent any one from going back out. Whether Cerberus did a perfect job or not, I leave you to discover, but I'll mention overpowering Cerberus without weapons was Hercules' final task. Whether this Wikipedia article is a good start or not, I know not.

[Augustine2004]

(major parts of the brain)



Essay: Perhaps instead of the usual format, it would be better to take a tour of some of the major parts of the brain. Hey, maybe one or more of y'all are going to be medical types; this, I hope, will be a good start for you. Okay, here goes:

What we see first when the brain is exposed to the outside is the cortex, simply the outer layer of the brain (actually, that of the upper part is different from that of the cerebellum (one of the lower parts). The cerebrum is the biggest part of the brain (not gray, the color is pinkish beige). It is roughly hemispherical and consists of two mirror-image halves, left and right. Underneath all that gray s--oops, the cerebrum, is the corpus callosum, a very large bundle of nerves that connect the two halves. It is not visible in the intact brain from the outside. The cerebrum is divided into lobes and folds, but we won't bother with them any more. The cerebellum is situated below the cerebrum and behind the spinal cord.

-------------- purloined from Wikipedia

[Augustine2004]

cerebro-, cerebr- (prefix)


indicates the brain or cerebrum.



Only one example: cerebroside = any of a certain group of lipids (essentially fats) found in the brain and other nerve tissue.

[Augustine2004]

Cherenkov radiation, Cerenkov radiation


Essay: "Nothing can go faster than the speed of light." You might have heard that more than once. That's not exactly true. Oliver Heaviside predicted around the end of 1888 that particles traveling in a transparent dielectric medium can travel faster than the phase velocity of electromagnetic waves. The fast particle's passage through the medium causes it to emit radiation that is now called Cherenkov radiation. Pavel A. Cherenkov was the first to find the radiation experimentally, hence its current name, but I think "Heaviside radiation" is more fitting. We'll learn more about Heaviside eventually. Interesting picture in the Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation

[Augustine2004]

cermet


a material of ceramic particles bonded with metal designed to combine the best properties of ceramic (resistance to high temperature, for example) and of metal (high strength, for example).



The Wikipedia article on cermets says, "Cermets are being used instead of tungsten carbide in saws and other brazed tools due to their superior wear and corrosion properties."

[Augustine2004]

ceroplastics


the art of modeling in wax.



The cero- part means "wax."

The wax museum had to cope with a lack of ceroplastics practitioners. It reluctantly put its Fatguy project on hold.

[Augustine2004]

cestus



Essay: That's a curious word. One meaning is "a woman's belt or girdle, especially as formerly worn by a bride." The other meaning is startlingly different: "A covering for the hand, made of leather strips weighted by iron or lead, worn by ancient Roman boxers." I consulted Wikipedia; it only gave the second meaning. I consulted an online dictionary, which did give both meanings. I feel like after an ancient Roman boxer gets done with me.

[Augustine2004]

chaconne


a musical form consisting of variations based on a repeated harmonic pattern.



My dictionary says to compare chaconne with passacaglia. Maybe by and by. Oh, lest you think it must be out of style since the 18th Century, nay, nay, take a gawk at this wikipedia section (21st Century): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaconne#21st_century

[Augustine2004]

Chadwick, Sir James


British who was the first physicist to publish a proposal (1932) of the neutron to explain aspects of certain experiments by Irene Curie and Frédéric Joliot.



Ettore Majorana was said to be actually the first to suggest the neutron to explain the Curie-Joliot experiments, but he never acted on Enrico Fermi's urging that Majorana write a paper. I don't know why; from the Wikipedia article on him Majorana seems a bit nutso. So, James Chadwick got the credit for "discovering" the neutron, and he won the Nobel Prize in Physics for that. Seems unfair, does it?

[Augustine2004]

Chain, Sir Ernst Boris



Essay: Sir Alexander Fleming, Sir Howard Florey, and Sir Ernst Boris Chain were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for 1945 for developing our understanding of antibiotics of the same type as penicillin. Chain theorized the chemical structure of penicillin, later confirmed by Dorothy Hodgkin's X-ray crystallography. Fleming discovered penicillin in 1936.