Word of the Day

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday April 26, 2004

lucubration

\loo-kyoo-BRAY-shun; loo-kuh-\, noun:
1. The act of studying by candlelight; nocturnal study; meditation.
2. That which is composed by night; that which is produced by meditation in retirement; hence (loosely) any literary composition.

A point of information for those with time on their hands: if you were to read 135 books a day, every day, for a year, you wouldn't finish all the books published annually in the United States. Now add to this figure, which is upward of 50,000, the 100 or so literary magazines; the scholarly, political and scientific journals (there are 142 devoted to sociology alone), as well as the glossy magazines, of which bigger and shinier versions are now spawning, and you'll appreciate the amount of lucubration that finds its way into print.
--Arthur Krystal, "On Writing: Let There Be Less," New York Times, March 26, 1989

One of his characters is given to lucubration. "Things die on us," he reflects as he lies in bed, "we die on each other, we die of ourselves."
--"Books of The Times," New York Times, February 7, 1981

Naturally, these fictions ran the risk of tumbling down the formalist hill and ending up at the bottom without readers -- except the heroic students of Roland Barthes or Umberto Eco, professors whose lucubrations were much more interesting than the books about which they theorized.
--Mario Vargas Llosa, "Thugs Who Know Their Greek," New York Times, September 7, 1986


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Lucubration comes from Latin lucubratus, past participle of lucubrare, "to work by night, composed at night (as by candlelight)," ultimately connected with lux, "light." Hence it is related to lucent, "shining, bright," and lucid, "clear." The verb form is lucubrate.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday April 27, 2004

supine

\soo-PYN; SOO-pyn\, adjective:
1. Lying on the back, or with the face upward.
2. Indolent; listless; inactive; mentally or morally lethargic.

On the edge of sleep, I urged my thoughts backward, back to my own back yard, where I lay supine, looking at the stars on a summer night, looking back in time as far as starlight could take me--and a drop of water fell on my forehead.
--Eric Kraft, Leaving Small's Hotel

Days are spent lying supine, crouching or kneeling in that small space, chiseling away at the matrix rock and picking out the nuggets of fossilized resin that are exposed.
--George Poinar Jr. and Roberta Poinar, The Amber Forest

Such independence of mind was a revelation and an incitement. It promised a counterweight to a supine tendency to follow socially sanctioned practices and ideas.
--Alain De Botton, The Consolations of Philosophy


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Supine derives from Latin supinus, "lying on the back."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday April 28, 2004

heterodox

\HET-uh-ruh-doks\, adjective:
1. Contrary to or differing from some acknowledged standard, especially in church doctrine or dogma; unorthodox.
2. Holding unorthodox opinions or doctrines.

They fight with members of other faiths, who seem to challenge their claim to a monopoly of absolute truth; they also persecute their co-religionists for interpreting a tradition differently or for holding heterodox beliefs.
--Karen Armstrong, Islam: A Short History

Most of the Kurds were Sunni Muslims, but perhaps a quarter or a third adhered to heterodox varieties of Islam that preserved traces of earlier religions.
--Susan Meisalis, Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History

Moreover, heterodox behaviour -- in the form of eccentric chess moves -- was even encouraged, if it led to good results.
--Jon Speelman, "Chess," Independent, October 24, 1998

Mr. Buckley is an American exotic of the far right, who wins some sympathy for his frankness and boldness since, in this sorry world, the heterodox are always laughed at whether right or left.
--Richard L. Strout, "All That Is Out of Joint and Needs Setting Right," New York Times, April 28, 1963


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Heterodox comes from Greek heterodoxos, "of another opinion," from hetero-, "other" + doxa, "opinion," from dokein, "to believe."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday April 29, 2004

predilection

\preh-d'l-EK-shun; pree-\, noun:
A predisposition to choose or like; an established preference.

Wilson doesn't see any inconsistency between his socialism and his predilection for the high life.
--Marina Cantacuzino, "On deadly ground," The Guardian, March 13, 2001

. . . youth's predilection for revolt.
--Terry McCarthy, "Lost Generation," Time Asia, October 23, 2000

But for him the first rule of judging was to set aside personal predilection and vote the law and the facts.
--Edwin M. Yoder Jr., "Lewis Powell a Fine Sense of Balance," Washington Post, June 29, 1987


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Predilection is at root "a liking before," from Latin prae-, "before" + diligere, "to choose; hence to prefer, to like very well."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday April 30, 2004

verisimilitude

\ver-uh-suh-MIL-uh-tood; -tyood\, noun:
1. The appearance of truth; the quality of seeming to be true.
2. Something that has the appearance of being true or real.

In an attempt to create verisimilitude, in addition to the usual vulgarities, the dialogue is full of street slang.
--Wilborn Hampton, "'Sugar Down Billie Hoak': An Unexpected Spot to Find a Father," New York Times, August 1, 1997

For those plays, Ms. Smith interviewed hundreds of people of different races and ages, somehow managing to internalize their expressions, anger and quirks enough to be able to portray them with astonishing verisimilitude.
--Sarah Boxer, "An Experiment in Artistic Democracy," New York Times, August 7, 2000

The old man's massive forehead, penetrating eyes and enormous beard lent verisimilitude to this unappealing portrait.
--"Charm itself," Economist, October 16, 1999


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Verisimilitude comes from Latin verisimilitudo, from verisimilis, from verus, "true" + similis, "like, resembling, similar." The adjective form is verisimilar

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday May 1, 2004

commensurate

\kuh-MEN(T)S-uhr-it; -shuhr-\, adjective:
1. Equal in measure, extent, or duration.
2. Corresponding in size or degree or extent; proportionate.
3. Having a common measure; commensurable; reducible to a common measure; as, commensurate quantities.

"A new era," Hoover called it, one that was witnessing breathtaking transformations in traditional ways of life and that demanded commensurate transformations in the institutions and techniques sof government.
--David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear

It is almost a rule: the successful American--Vanderbilt, Frick, Rockefeller, Hearst, Gates--builds himself a house commensurate with his fortune.
--Michael Knox Beran, The Last Patrician

The Shi'a represent a plurality in Lebanon, where only in recent years they have gained a degree of political power commensurate with their numbers.
--Graham E. Fuller and Rend Rahim Francke, The Arab Shi'a: The Forgotten Muslims


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Commensurate is from Late Latin commensuratus, from Latin com-, "with, together" + Late Latin mensuratus, past participle of mensurare, "to measure," from Latin mensura, "measure."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday May 2, 2004

urbane

\ur-BAYN\, adjective:
Polished and smooth in manner; polite, refined, and elegant.

Taylor comes across as an intelligent man, suave and urbane, articulate and smooth as butter.
--Bill Berkeley, The Graves Are Not Yet Full

It was conceded that he was . . . "the kind of person," one friend-turned-opponent says, "the Founding Fathers would have wanted in the Senate: urbane, witty, scholarly, wise, eloquent."
--Godfrey Hodgson, The Gentleman From New York

The son of a famous father, . . . Harvard-educated, handsome, charming, urbane, a northeastern aristocrat with all the advantages, JFK appeared to be everything LBJ was not.
--Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant


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Urbane comes from Latin urbanus, "of a city," hence "refined, polished," from urbs, "city." The noun form is urbanity (pronounced \ur-BAN-ih-tee\).

[Patroclus]

How about this:

Yawl Now dial. [Parallel to Yowl, with alternationof vowe designed to express a variety ofthe sound echoed]

1.intr. a. To cry out loudly from pain, grief, or distress: also said of the howling of dogs, the 'wauling' of cats, the screaming of peacocks.
b. To call aloud, shout, bawl, scream, vorciferate.

2. trans a. To shout out, utter with shouting.
b. to bring into a specified state of yawling.

selections are from the Oxford English Dictionary

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday May 3, 2003

abstruse

\ab-STROOS; uhb-\, adjective:
Difficult to comprehend or understand.

Einstein's theories of relativity, so abstruse yet so disturbing in the popular press of the 1930s.
--David J. Skal, Screams of Reason

One should be particularly suspicious when abstruse mathematical concepts (like the axiom of choice in set theory) that are used rarely, if at all, in physics -- and certainly never in chemistry or biology -- miraculously become relevant in the humanities or the social sciences.
--Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont, Fashionable Nonsense

What attracts students to the study of a foreign language is not its appearance as an abstruse code saying the very same things that are said more simply in their mother tongue, but, rather, the opening up of a new world by the foreign language.
--Jackie-Ann Ross, "New Zealand's Educational TV"


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Abstruse comes from Latin abstrusus, past participle of abstrudere, "to push away from any place, to hide," from ab-, abs-, "away from" + trudere, "to push, to thrust."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday May 4, 2004

militate

\MIL-ih-tayt\, intransitive verb:
To have force or influence.

In our current era of politics, many factors militate against changes in policies.
--Reed Hundt, You Say You Want a Revolution

Even though Simpson's youth, limited professional experience, lack of reputation, unmarried status, and modest social origins all militated against success, the twenty-eight-year-old Simpson applied for the post.
--Donald Caton, What a Blessing She Had Chloroform

By 2003 many of the uncertainties which militate against a "yes" might be resolved.
--Anatole Kaletsky, "Why Brown is right to put off the euro test," Times (London), June 21, 2001


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Militate comes from Latin militatus, past participle of militare, "to serve as a soldier," from miles, milit-, "a soldier."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday May 5, 2004

embonpoint

\ahn-bohn-PWAN\, noun:
Plumpness of person; stoutness.

With his embonpoint, Mr Soames appears to be wearing a quadruple-breasted suit.
--Simon Hoggart, "Roll up, roll up, to explore the Soames Zone," The Guardian, February 1, 2000

His embonpoint expands by the day and his eyes are buried in the fat of his cheeks.
--Quoted in Goethe: The Poet and the Age: Revolution and Renunciation, by Nicholas Boyle


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Embonpoint is from French, literally "in good condition" (en, "in" + bon, "good" + point, "situation, condition").

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday May 6, 2004

preternatural

\pree-tuhr-NACH-uhr-uhl; -NACH-ruhl\, adjective:
1. Existing outside of nature; differing from the natural; nonnatural.
2. Surpassing the usual or normal; extraordinary; abnormal.
3. Beyond or outside ordinary experience; inexplicable by ordinary means.

Advances in computer technology and bioengineering have made it possible to create human beings of preternatural strength and agility.
--Gerald Jonas, review of Neuromancer, by William Gibson, New York Times, November 24, 1985

She is a woman of almost preternatural honesty and decency.
--Janet Malcolm, The Crime of Sheila McGough

Brennan has an almost preternatural understanding of human weakness.
--Linda Barrett Osborne, review of The Rose Garden, by Maeve Brennan, New York Times, February 20, 2000

We can only guess at the effect all this . . . had on Wordsworth as a small child, but he would have been conscious of it by the time he was four or five, given his preternatural ability to recall sensations from early childhood.
--Kenneth R. Johnston,The Hidden Wordsworth


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Preternatural derives from the Latin phraseÊpraeter naturam, "beyond nature."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday May 7, 2004

hardscrabble

\HARD-skrab-uhl\, adjective:
1. Yielding a bare or meager living with great labor or difficulty.
2. Marked by poverty.

I remember it being green and humid, nothing like this hardscrabble land.
--Elmore Leonard, Cuba Libre

Most inhabitants scratched out a living from hardscrabble farming, yet these newcomers were hopeful and enterprising.
--Ron Chernow, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

A scenic town fed by rich snowbirds who reside a few months a year in gated communities, High Balsam also is home to the hardscrabble residents who frequent Margaret's food-pantry giveaways.
--Deirdre Donahue, "A sweet 'Evensong,' " USA Today, December 2, 1999


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Hardscrabble is formed from hard (from Old English heard) + scrabble (from Dutch schrabbelen, "to scratch").

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday May 8, 2004

ignoramus

\ig-nuh-RAY-mus\, noun:
An ignorant person; a dunce.

My "perfect" reader is not a scholar but neither is he an ignoramus; he does not read because he has to, nor as a pastime, nor to make a splash in society, but because he is curious about many things, wishes to choose among them and does not wish to delegate this choice to anyone; he knows the limits of his competence and education, and directs his choices accordingly.
--Primo Levi, "This Above All: Be Clear," New York Times, November 20, 1988

I am quite an ignoramus, I know nothing in the world.
--Charlotte Bronte, Villette


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Ignoramus was the name of a character in George Ruggle's 1615 play of the same name. The name was derived from the Latin, literally, "we are ignorant," from ignorare, "not to know," from ignarus, "not knowing," from ig- (for in-), "not" + gnarus, "knowing, acquainted with, expert in." It is related to ignorant and ignore.

The correct plural form is ignoramuses. Since ignoramus in Latin is a verb, not a noun, there is no justification for a plural form ending in -i.

Synonyms: blockhead, boob, dimwit, dodo, lunkhead, meathead, nitwit.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday May 9, 2004

apologia

\ap-uh-LOH-jee-uh; -juh\, noun:
A formal defense or justification, especially of one's opinions, position, or actions.

Mr. Arbatov is well aware that he was perceived in this country as a spokesman at best and toady at worst for the regime. And he clearly wants this book to serve as his apologia.
--Bernard Gwertzman, "When Soviet Bureaucrats Were the Last to Know," New York Times, August 20, 1992

I should hasten to add that this volume is neither a dreary academic summary nor a tedious apologia by a politician who has just left office.
--Jack F. Matlock Jr., "Chinese Checkers," New York Times, September 13, 1998

John F. Lehman Jr. has written a lively and provocative apologia, in the classic sense of the word, to defend and justify his stewardship as Secretary of the Navy from 1981 to 1987.
--Richard Halloran, "Floating a Few Proposals," New York Times, February 19, 1989

The work is "a classic apologia, an aggressive defense of Roth's moral stance as an author," Harold Bloom said in The Book Review last year.
--Patricia T. O'Conner, New York Times, September 14, 1986


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Apologia is from the Greek word meaning "a spoken or written defense," from apologos, "a story," from apo- + logos, "speech."

Trivia: Originally, apologia and apology had the same basic meaning: a formal justification or defense. Though apology is still sometimes used in that sense, it now usually indicates an acknowledgment expressing regret or asking pardon for a fault or offense. An apologia involves explaining, defending, or clarifying one's conduct, opinions, etc.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday May 10, 2004

sentient

\SEN-shee-uhnt; -tee-; -shuhnt\, adjective:
1. Capable of perceiving by the senses; conscious.
2. Experiencing sensation or feeling.

I can remember very vividly the first time I became aware of my existence; how for the first time I realised that I was a sentient human being in a perceptible world.
--Lord Berners, First Childhood

Answers to such profound questions as whether we are the only sentient beings in the universe, whether life is the product of random accident or deeply rooted law, and whether there may be some sort of ultimate meaning to our existence, hinge on what science can reveal about the formation of life.
--Paul Davies, The Fifth Miracle


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Sentient comes from Latin sentiens, "feeling," from sentire, "to discern or perceive by the senses."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday May 11, 2004

conflagration

\kon-fluh-GRAY-shuhn\, noun:
1. A large and destructive fire; a general burning.
2. Something like a conflagration; conflict; war.

When the cane fields were set alight to rid them of snakes and the sky was brilliant with orange and yellow, Kwaku knew that there was a profound meaning in the conflagration and the rain of ash that fell in its aftermath.
--Roy Heath, Kwaku

Every winter the city seemed to go up in a conflagration of house fires: faulty furnaces, kerosene lamps knocked over, exploding water heaters, damp wiring, bored kids playing with matches, burglars turned arsonists this year, to cover their tracks, always something.
--Alvin Greenberg, How the Dead Live

Though now we talk about lots of smaller wars, what's to prevent a really big conflagration?
--Robert D. Kaplan, An Empire Wilderness


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Conflagration comes from Latin conflagratio, from conflagrare, "to burn up," from com-, intensive prefix + flagrare, "to blaze."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday May 12, 2004

bromide

\BROH-myd\, noun:
1. A compound of bromine and another element or a positive organic radical.
2. A dose of potassium bromide taken as a sedative.
3. A dull person with conventional thoughts.
4. A commonplace or conventional saying.

"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em." The words are in fact already a bromide when the pompous Malvolio finds and reads them.
--Marjorie Garber, Symptoms of Culture

He cannot resist the occasional bromide: "Ninety percent of diplomacy is a question of who blinks first."
--Gary J. Bass, "The Negotiator," New York Times, July 11, 1999

The next president could live up to that old political bromide "Let's run the government like a business" by staffing his cabinet with some leading figures from the new world of business.
--Daniel H. Pink, "Fast.Gov," Fast Company, October 2000


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Bromide was formed from the first element of English bromine and the suffix -ide; the pair of bromine/bromide parallel chlorine/chloride. Bromine itself comes from French brome, from Greek bromos, "bad smell." The adjective form is bromidic (pronounced \broh-MID-ik\).

Trivia: The figurative sense of "a dull, conventional person or saying" was popularized by American humorist Gelett Burgess in his book Are You a Bromide? (1906).

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday May 13, 2004

suasion

\SWAY-zhun\, noun:
The act of persuading; persuasion.

As in the 1960s, violence converged with dynamism in American life, but unlike that subsequent period of protest, the militancy of the 1930s was restrained by the long arm of an American political tradition that favored reform by moral suasion.
--Nona Balakian, The World of William Saroyan

He visualized a world wherein power is exercised peacefully by moral suasion and political acumen, a world of idealism in many ways.
--George Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb

Some of the earliest protests of the incipient civil rights movement demanded the removal of baseball's color line. Beyond this cultural suasion, legal efforts to mandate integration were under way almost two years before Jackie Robinson donned a Brooklyn Dodger uniform.
--Dean Chadwin, Those Damn Yankees

Even more reassuring--more wishful and escapist, from our secularist-modern perspective--is the idea that the universe is moral and hence responsive to moral suasion.
--Yi-Fu Tuan, Escapism


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Suasion comes from Latin suasio, from suadere, "to present in a pleasing manner," hence, "to advise." It is related to suave, "gracious or agreeable in manner."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday May 14, 2004

roue

\roo-AY\, noun:
A man devoted to a life of sensual pleasure; a debauchee; a rake.

I spent some time with Desmond, an old roue who was recovering from a lifetime of excesses in a village near Fontainebleau.
--Roger Scruton, "Purely medicinal," New Statesman, October 15, 2001

She caught the eye of New York aristocrat Gouverneur Morris, ex-U.S. Minister to France, a one-legged cosmopolitan roue. (Rumor had it that a jealous husband had shot Morris's leg off.)
--Bill Kauffman, "Unwise Passions," American Enterprise, January 2001

Yet he acted the roue to the end, carrying on an intimate liaison with a girl who worked at the asylum -- he was 74, she was 17.
--Rex Roberts, "Write Stuff," Insight on the News, December 11, 2000


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Roue comes from French, from the past participle of rouer, "to break upon the wheel" (from the feeling that a roue deserves such a punishment), ultimately from Latin rota, "wheel."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday May 16, 2004

neologism

\nee-OLL-uh-jiz-um\, noun:
1. A new word or expression.
2. A new use of a word or expression.
3. The use or creation of new words or expressions.
4. (Psychiatry) An invented, meaningless word used by a person with a psychiatric disorder.
5. (Theology) A new view or interpretation of a scripture.

The word "civilization" was just coming into use in the 18th century, in French and in English, and conservative men of letters preferred to avoid it as a newfangled neologism.
--Larry Wolff, "'If I Were Younger I Would Make Myself Russian': Voltaire's Encounter With the Czars," New York Times, November 13, 1994

If the work is really a holding operation, this will show in a closed or flat quality in the prose and in the scheme of the thing, a logiclessness, if you will pardon the neologism, in the writing.
--Harold Brodkey, "Reading, the Most Dangerous Game," New York Times, November 24, 1985

The word popularizing was a relative neologism (the Review boasted five years later, "Why should we be afraid of introducing new words into the language which it is our mission to spread over a new world?").
--Edward L. Widmer, Young America


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The French word neologisme, from which the English is borrowed, is made up of the elements neo-, "new" + log-, "word" + -isme, -ism (all of which are derived from Greek).

A neologist is one who introduces new words or new senses of old words into a language. Neologistic, or neologistical, describes that which pertains to neology, "the introduction of a new word, or of words or significations, into a language." To neologize is to coin or use neologisms, and neologization is the act or process of doing so.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday May 17, 2004

redoubtable

\rih-DOW-tuh-buhl\, adjective:
1. Arousing fear or alarm; formidable.
2. Illustrious; eminent; worthy of respect or honor.

He had been particularly involved in and articulate over policy toward East Asia, stressing the threat from China after the Communists won power there in 1949, and had made dramatic impressions of competence and coolness on two occasions -- under the physical threat of a crowd in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1958, and in a dramatic kitchen debate in the Soviet Union in 1959 with the redoubtable Nikita Khrushchev.
--William Bundy, A Tangled Web

The prospect was daunting, not least because Evelyn was still a redoubtable figure on campus whom I saw almost every day and to whom I went for advice almost as regularly.
--Keith Stewart Thomson, The Common But Less Frequent Loon and Other Essays

At the head of the table, as committee chair, sat the redoubtable Howard Mumford Jones—a teacher famed even at Harvard for his fierce authority, his wide-ranging erudition, and his intolerant exacting preciseness.
--Nicholas Delbanco, The Lost Suitcase


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Redoubtable derives from Old French redouter, "to dread," from Medieval Latin redubitare, "to fear," literally "to doubt back at," from Latin re- + dubitare, "to doubt."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday May 18, 2004

accede

\ak-SEED\, intransitive verb:
1. To agree or assent; to give in to a request or demand.
2. To become a party to an agreement, treaty, convention, etc.
3. To attain an office or rank; to enter upon the duties of an office.

Well, after much blustering and standing and sitting, he acceded to my demand.
--Alfred Alcorn, Murder in the Museum of Man

Jiang Zemin, the Chinese president, announced that China would accede to the Information Technology Agreement signed last winter, which will eliminate China's steep tariffs on imported computer and telecommunications equipment.
--John M. Broder, "U.S. and China Reach Trade Pacts but Clash on Rights," New York Times, October 30, 1997

She is looking down at him with a tender smile, as if he were a prince, Harry thinks, and she a servant, grateful to accede to his every whim.
--Millicent Dillon, Harry Gold


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Accede derives from Latin accedere, "to approach, to accede," from ad-, "toward, to" + cedere, "to move, to yield."

Synonyms: acquiesce, agree, assent, comply, concur, consent.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday May 19, 2004

doyen

\DOY-en; DWAH-yan\, noun:
1. The senior member of a body or group.
2. One who is knowledgeable or uniquely skilled as a result of long experience in some field of endeavor.

doyenne \doy-(Y)EN; dwah-YEN\, noun:
A woman who is a doyen.

Two dozen reporters, led by Helen Thomas of United Press International, the seventy-six-year-old doyenne of the press corps, filed into the room.
--Howard Kurtz, Spin Cycle

Christian Dior, doyen of fashion, introduced the New Look for women, with long flowing skirts and a strong emphasis on nonpractical femininity.
--Zachary Karabell, The Last Campaign


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Doyen is from French, from Late Latin decanus, "leader or chief of ten persons," from decem, "ten."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday May 20, 2004

abecedarian

\ay-bee-see-DAIR-ee-uhn\, noun:
1. One who is learning the alphabet; hence, a beginner.
2. One engaged in teaching the alphabet.

adjective:
1. Pertaining to the letters of the alphabet.
2. Arranged alphabetically.
3. Rudimentary; elementary.

Lorraine Heggessey and executive producer Jeremy Mills adroitly tapped into a national obsession at exactly the right time, presenting the topic in a way that appealed to experts and abecedarians alike.
--Victor Lewis-Smith, "Lords of the mobile dance," The Evening Standard, June 11, 2001

While much of the work resembled abecedarian attempts of a novice choreographer, "Duet," sensitively danced by Jennifer A. Cooper and William Petroni, is surprisingly sophisticated in its careful deployment of formal thematic manipulations in the service of emotional expression.
--Lisa Jo Sagolla, "Open 24 Hours Dance Company," Back Stage, September 1, 1998

The approach may seem abecedarian today, but his was among the first endeavors of the sort.
--Jennifer Liese, "May 1973," ArtForum, May 2003

It is also quite abecedarian in that it presents introductory material apt to be known by all linguists and Semitists.
--Alan S. Kaye, "Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew," Journal of the American Oriental Society, January 1, 1994

Columba's poem is fittingly 'abecedarian', each stanza starts with a subsequent letter of the alphabet -- a harbinger of the Scottish appetite for cataloguing, and delight in craft.
--WN Herbert, "A rhyme and a prayer," Scotland on Sunday, December 10, 2000


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Abecedarian derives from Latin abecedarius, from the first four letters of the alphabet.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday May 21, 2004

crabwise

\KRAB-wyz\, adjective:
1. Sideways.
2. In a cautiously indirect manner.

Grass tells this story in awkward fashion, coming at it crabwise indeed, with hesitations, shifts of direction, and out of sequence, allowing his narrator to display his own confusion, uncertainty, resentment of a history that has deformed his own life.
--Allan Massie, review of Crabwalk, by Gunter Grass, The Scotsman, April 5, 2003

Atwood moves crabwise through such questions as the place of moral or ideological content in art, the conflict between artistic purity and commercial necessity, and the nature of the relationship between writer, text and reader.
--Christopher Tayler, review of Negotiating with the Dead, by Margaret Atwood, Sunday Telegraph March 10, 2002

Without taking his eyes from the road his left hand moved seamlessly from the old-fashioned gear stick to Sally's lap where, after a brief professional rummage, it moved crabwise on to me in the back seat.
--Sue Arnold, "The difference between a grope and a caress," The Independent, October 4, 2003

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday May 22, 2004

glabrous

\GLAY-bruhs\, adjective:
Smooth; having a surface without hairs, projections, or any unevenness.

How much more powerful then will be the effect -- next week? next month? soon enough -- when Gore, resplendent, clean-shaven, glabrous in his glory, returns from the dead! Radiant! Reborn!
--Lance Morrow, "Al Gore, and Other Famous Bearded Men," Time, August 16, 2001

We offered to the rebarbative Senator Patrick Leahy's demands on us amused resistance and the promise to buy the glabrous old boy a proper hairpiece.
--R Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., "Jumpin' Jim Jehoshaphat!" The American Spectator, July 1, 2001


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Glabrous is from Latin glaber, "smooth, bald."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday May 23, 2004

tarradiddle

\tair-uh-DID-uhl\, noun:
1. A petty falsehood; a fib.
2. Pretentious nonsense.

Oh please! Even in the parallel universe, tarradiddles of this magnitude cannot go unchallenged.
--"Taxation in the parallel universe," Sunday Business, June 11, 2000

Mr B did not tell a whopper. This was no fib, plumper, porker or tarradiddle. There was definitely no deceit, mendacity or fabrication.
--"Looking back," Western Mail, May 11, 2002

Other amendments, such as a chef at the birthday party, a dancing bear in the hunting scene, and a brief solo for the usually pedestrian Catalabutte, seemed more capricious, and the synopsis suggested further changes had been planned but perhaps found impractical. Some tarradiddle with roses for death and rebirth also necessitated different flowers for the traditional Rose Adagio.
--John Percival, "The other St Petersburg company," Independent, November 22, 2001


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Tarradiddle is of unknown origin.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday May 24, 2004

irrupt

\ih-RUHPT\, intransitive verb:
1. To burst in forcibly or suddenly; to intrude.
2. (Ecology) To increase rapidly in number.

Furthermore, and most decisively, the 1848 revolutions had shown how the masses could irrupt into the closed circle of their rulers, and the progress of industrial society itself made their pressure constantly greater even in non-revolutionary periods.
--The Age of Capital: 1848-1875 by Eric J. Hobsbawm

What happens in these flashes of inspiration is a kind of transcendence in science in which a new concept, something that has never been dreamt or thought of before, irrupts into the scientist's imagination.
--Roy Bhaskar, Reflections on Meta-Reality

What sounds are these that sting as they caress, that irrupt into my soul and twine about my heart?
--Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls

Archetypes are primordial forces, hidden within the collective unconscious, which normally lie dormant and unnoticed but which can suddenly irrupt into the conscious mind and produce the most unexpected results.
--Dewi Rees, Death and Bereavement

But unlike the populations of some of their more famous relatives (more famous to ecologists, at least), whose population fluctuations follow a regular, three-year cycle, some meadow vole populations irrupt sporadically and others almost always stay high or low.
--Richard S. Ostfeld, "Little loggers make a big difference," Natural History, May 2002


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Irrupt is derived from the past participle of Latin irrumpere, from ir-, in-, "in" + rumpere, "to break."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday May 25, 2004

agrestic

\uh-GRES-tik\, adjective:
Pertaining to fields or the country; rural; rustic.

The funniest and most agrestic of all his paintings were, undoubtedly, the cows.
--Robert Hughes, "An Outlaw Who Loved Laws," Time, July 26, 1993

Grass plants possess an agrestic simplicity that probably connects them, at sorne level of mind, with wholesome grain and the restorative country life.
--George Schen, The Complete Shade Gardener


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Agrestic is from agrestis, from ager, "field." It is related to agriculture.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday May 26, 2004

cap-a-pie

\cap-uh-PEE\, adverb:
From head to foot; at all points.

Yet it is increasingly hard to ignore other scientific predictions sashaying into the press dressed cap-a-pie in silver lining.
--Andrew Marr, "Skegness: not so much bracing as basking?" Daily Telegraph, January 14, 2004

The dress code was smart but informal and Cherie Blair cut an appropriately dark but bohemian figure dressed cap-a-pie in floor-length black leather.
--Cassandra Jardine, "Court of King Tony takes centre stage," Daily Telegraph, September 8, 2001

They are of one shade cap-a-pie, black as midnight and fleet of wing.
--M.D. Harmon, "Sorry, but it's true: Birds of a feather do flock together," Portland Press Herald, January 5, 2004

In another age, there would have been beheadings, clanging prison doors in the dark Tower; there would have been a second royal court with an army preparing to do battle, prancing steeds and knights armored cap-a-pie.
--Arnold Beichman, "Spellbinding farewell . . . and fantasy," Washington Times, September 10, 1997


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cap-a-pie is from Middle French (de) cap a pé, "from head to foot," from Latin ped, "foot" + caput, "head."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday May 27, 2004

fetor

\FEE-tuhr; FEE-tor\, noun:
A strong, offensive smell; stench.

Inside it's pitch black & the air is hot & wet with the sweet fetor of rotting grass.
--Peter Blegvad, "The Free Lunch," Chicago Review, June 22, 1999

When I close my eyes and summon the fond smells of childhood . . . the aroma that fills, as it were, the nostrils of my memory is the sulfurous, protein-dissolving fetor of Nair.
--Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex


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Fetor comes from Latin foetor, from foetere, "to stink."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday May 28, 2004

olla podrida

\ol-uh-puh-DREE-duh; oy-uh-\, noun; plural olla podridas /-DREE-duhz/ or ollas podridas:
1. A stew of highly seasoned meat and vegetables.
2. A mixture; a hodgepodge.

This complex, Byzantine, at times long-winded work, which spent more than 60 weeks on Spain's best sellers list, throws together mystery, romance, and crime into one big mix like an olla podrida.
--Lawrence Olszewski, review of The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Library Journal, February 1, 2004

The whole piece is an olla podrida of light music, in which the jig is the most conspicuous.
--Juanita Karpf and Tom Scott, "Populism with Religious Restraint," review of Esther, the Beautiful Queen, by William B. Bradbury, Popular Music and Society, Spring 1999

Continuously testing the resilience of the melting pot differentiates America from other places; and the olla podrida of colors and cultures creates a reservoir of talents unduplicated on the planet.
--Rotan E. Lee, "Black gay men suffer double racism," Philadelphia Tribune, August 22, 2003


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Olla podrida comes from the Spanish, literally "rotten pot," from olla, "pot" (from Latin olla) + podrida, feminine of podrido, "rotten," from Latin putridus.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday May 29, 2004

[B]pernicious]/B]

\pur-NISH-us\, adjective:
Highly injurious; deadly; destructive; exceedingly harmful.

Half-truths can be more pernicious than outright falsehoods.
--Wendy Lesser, "Who's Afraid of Arnold Bennett?" New York Times, September 28, 1997

But he said they were not thinkers but snobs, and their influence was pernicious.
--Saul Bellow, Ravelstein

Racism should be condemned because its effects are pernicious.
--Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Genes, Peoples, and Languages


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Pernicious comes from Latin perniciosus, "destructive, ruinous," from pernicies, "destruction, disaster, ruin," from per-, "through, thoroughly" + nex, nec-, "violent death."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday May 30, 2004

aegis

\EE-jis\, noun:
1. Protection; support.
2. Sponsorship; patronage.
3. Guidance, direction, or control.
4. A shield or protective armor; -- applied in mythology to the shield of Zeus.

It is this ideal of the human under the aegis of something higher which seems to me to provide the strongest counterpressure against the fragmentation and barbarization of our world.
--Ted J. Smith III (Editor) In Defense of Tradition: Collected Shorter Writings of Richard M. Weaver, 1929Ð1963

A third round of talks is scheduled to begin on May 23rd in New York under the aegis of the United Nations.
--"Denktash declared head after rival withdraws," Irish Times, April 21, 2000

In real life, Lang's father was commercially astute and fantastically hardworking, and under his aegis the construction business flourished.
--Patrick McGilligan, Fritz Lang: The Nature of the Beast


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Aegis derives from the Greek aigis, the shield of Zeus, from aix, aig-, "a goat," many primitive shields being goatskin-covered.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday May 31, 2004

politic

\POL-ih-tik\, adjective:
1. Of or pertaining to polity, or civil government; political (as in the phrase "the body politic").
2. (Of persons): Sagacious in promoting a policy; ingenious in devising and advancing a system of management; characterized by political skill and ingenuity; hence, shrewdly tactful, cunning.
3. (Of actions or things): Pertaining to or promoting a policy; hence, judicious; expedient; as, "a politic decision."

Plato, in Aristotle's judgment, confused and treated as one the diverse elements that make up the body politic -- household, community (village), and state.
--Richard Pipes, Property and Freedom

It also occurred to me then that members of the circle around Peres thought that since negotiations with Syria were bound to continue, it would be more politic to present the concessions that would have to be made as having been made by the late Rabin.
--Itamar Rabinovich, The Brink of Peace

I, on the other hand, loathed Philby . . . but it hardly seems politic to say this to my host.
--John le Carre, "My New Friends in the New Russia: In Search of A Few Good Crooks, Cops and Former Agents," New York Times, February 19, 1995

It didn't seem too politic to give voice to this thought.
--Lesley Hazleton, Driving To Detroit


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Politic derives from Greek politikos, from polites, "citizen," from polis, "city."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday June 1, 2004

starveling

\STARV-ling\, noun:
One who is thin from lack of food, or who is starving or being starved.

adjective:
1. Being a starveling.
2. Poor in quality; inadequate.

Even a starveling could look musclebound if he had enough gear on.
--Michel Faber, Under the Skin

In her privations she is like Bjartur's starveling sons.
--Annie Dillard, "Hard Times in Ultima Thule," New York Times, April 20, 1997

Our meagre starveling way of preparing teachers degrades the schools and the profession.
--Samuel P. Orth, "Plain Facts About Public Schools," The Atlantic, March 1909


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Starveling is from starve (from Old English steorfan, "to die") + the suffix -ling (from Old English).

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday June 2, 2004

autochthonous

\aw-TOK-thuh-nuhs\, adjective:
1. Aboriginal; indigenous; native.
2. Formed or originating in the place where found.

For cultures are not monoliths. They are fragmentary, patchworks of autochthonous and foreign elements.
--Anthony Pagden, "Culture Wars," The New Republic, November 16, 1998

I thought of the present-day Arcadians, autochthonous, sprung from the very earth on which they live, who with every draught from a stream drink up millennia of history and legend.
--Zachary Taylor, "Hot Land, Cold Water," The Atlantic, June 17, 1998


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Autochthonous derives from Greek autochthon, "of or from the earth or land itself," from auto-, "self" + chthon, "earth." One that is autochthonous is an autochthon (pronounced \aw-TOCK-thuhn\).

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday June 3, 2004

palliate

\PAL-ee-ayt\, transitive verb:
1. To reduce in violence (said of diseases, etc.); to lessen or abate.
2. To cover by excuses and apologies; to extenuate.
3. To reduce in severity; to make less intense.

I had held a hope that she would take my class, that I would have the chance not only to cope with but to help palliate her pain.
--Steven Polansky, "Pantalone," Harper's Magazine, February 1997

He was widely praised in both East and West as a humanitarian seeking to palliate the excesses of a cruel regime.
--Joseph Finder, "The Trade in Spies: Not All Black or White," New York Times, June 22, 1993

The response to industrial decline was to cling even more to the British state, which had the resources to palliate its effects, and ease a transformation to a new economy -- or, indeed, as many hoped, to prop up the declining industries.
--Allan Massie, "Scotland not so brave in push for home rule," Irish Times, September 4, 1997


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Palliate derives from Late Latin palliatus, past participle of palliare, "to cloak, to conceal," from Latin pallium, "cloak."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday June 4, 2004

vade mecum

\vay-dee-MEE-kuhm; vah-dee-MAY-\, noun:
1. A book for ready reference; a manual; a handbook.
2. A useful thing that one regularly carries about.

The reader who wants honestly to understand it, and not merely read into it his own ideas, needs some kind of vade mecum to provide the necessary background and explain unfamiliar words and allusions and strange turns of thought.
--Robert C. Dentan, "Including Uz and Buz," New York Times, November 17, 1968

Roget's Thesaurus, which had come into being as a linguistic example of the Platonic ideal, became instead a vade mecum for the crossword cheat.
--Simon Winchester, "Word Imperfect," The Atlantic, May 2001


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Vade mecum is from Latin, literally meaning "go with me."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday June 5, 2004

comely

\KUHM-lee\, adjective:
1. Pleasing or agreeable to the sight; good-looking.
2. Suitable or becoming; proper; agreeable.

Why should it matter if an author is comely or plain?
--Robb Forman Dew, "Silence of the Father," New York Times, January 19, 1992

Although aware that she was considered quite comely, she had never felt entirely confident of her charms, a hangover from her childhood.
--Kate Lehrer, Out of Eden

His glossy nails made his hands look ornamental and special, caressive, comely and lovely with which to be touched.
--Anne O'Brien Rice, The Vampire Armand


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Comely derives from Old English cymlic, from cyme, "pretty, beautiful, fine, delicate" + lic, adjectival suffix.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday June 6, 2004

dictum

\DIK-tuhm\, noun:
1. An authoritative statement; a formal pronouncement.
2. (Law) A judicial opinion expressed by judges on points that do not necessarily arise in the case, and are not involved in it.

I have taken to heart Francis Bacon's dictum that "truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion".
--Donald B. Calne, Within Reason: Rationality and Human Behavior

As an editor, Rahv took seriously Trotsky's dictum that "Art can become a strong ally of revolution only in so far as it remains faithful to itself."
--David Laskin, Partisans

What happened to Horace's dictum that literature should entertain and instruct?
--Scott Stossel, "Right, Here Goes," The Atlantic, April 1996


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Dictum is literally "a thing said," from the past participle of Latin dicere, "to say."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday June 7, 2004

mendicant
\MEN-dih-kunt\, noun:
1. A beggar; especially, one who makes a business of begging.
2. A member of an order of friars forbidden to acquire landed property and required to be supported by alms.

adjective:
Practicing beggary; begging; living on alms; as, "mendicant friars."

Money has ever posed problems. Not even love, said Gladstone, has made so many fools of men. Throughout time the most obvious but universal dilemma -- that there is never enough of it -- has confounded everyone, from mendicants to monarchs, and their ministers.
--Janet Gleeson, Millionaire

She was well dressed, obviously not a mendicant.
--William Safire, Scandalmonger


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Mendicant derives from Latin mendicare, "to beg," from mendicus, "beggar."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday June 8, 2004

enjoin

\en-JOIN\, transitive verb:
1. To direct or impose with authority; to order.
2. To prohibit; to forbid.

While the Qur'an contains a number of references, some direct and some oblique, to the other four pillars, in only one place does it specifically enjoin fasting during the month of Ramadan: "O you faithful, fasting is ordained for you in the same way that it was ordained for those who came before you, so that you may fear God. . . . It was during the month of Ramadan that the Qur'an was sent down as a guidance for humanity. . . . Whoever among you sees the moon, then he should fast, but the one who is sick or on a journey, [can fast] an equal number of other days" (Sura 2:183-85).
--Jane I. Smith, Islam in America

Few judges were friendly to unions, as demonstrated by a steady stream of decisions enjoining strikes, boycotts, picket lines, and other collective actions.
--Sanford M. Jacoby, Modern Manors


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Enjoin derives from Old French enjoindre, from Latin injungere, "to attach, to fasten to; also, to bring upon," from in- + jungere, "to join."

Trivia: Enjoin is its own antonym. Other self-antonyms include fast ("moving quickly; fixed firmly in place") and cleave ("to split; to adhere").

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday June 9, 2004

braggadocio

\brag-uh-DOH-see-oh; -shee-oh; -shoh\, noun:
1. A braggart.
2. Empty boasting.
3. A swaggering, cocky manner.

. . . all charm and "aw shucks" humility one moment, full of braggadocio the next.
--David S. Broder, "An Opportunity Missed," Washington Post, January 26, 1995

David was charming, offsetting his usual braggadocio with vulnerability.
--Tom King, The Operator

She came storming out of east Texas like a whirlwind, a raw-boned tomboy with more than enough braggadocio to go with her matchless athleticism, commanding Olympian headlines in 1932 and holding the spotlight as the world's greatest female golfer for 25 years.
--Shav Glick, "Babe in the Woods," Los Angeles Times, December 29, 1999


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Braggadocio is from Braggadocchio, a boastful character in Spenser's Faerie Queene.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday June 10, 2004

homily

\HAH-muh-lee\, noun:
1. A sermon; a discourse on a religious theme.
2. A moralizing lecture or discourse.
3. An inspirational saying; also, a platitude.

Trumpets sounded, wine ran from fountains, bishops delivered homilies, magistrates presented the keys to their cities, triumphal arches sprang up along the way.
--Christine Pevitt, Philippe, Duc D'Orleans: Regent of France

He launched into a homily about marriage as a garden that requires care.
--Janet Maslin, " 'Somehow Form a Family': Between the Hills and Gilligan's Island," New York Times, June 7, 2001

Fathers Cyprien and Marie-Nizier were the first to nod off during the homily on bad thoughts.
--Rémy Rougeau, "Cello"

The book consisted of easy-to-remember rhyming homilies on the subjects of selling, winning, and making money ("If you want to earn your dough, get up in the morning and GO, GO, GO!").
--Brad Barkley, Money, Love

A Washington homily fit the situation: "That which must be done eventually is best done immediately."
--Ward Just, Echo House


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Homily ultimately derives from Greek homilia, "instruction," from homolein, "to be together or in company with," hence "to have dealings with," from homilos, "an assembled crowd," from homos, "same." One who delivers homilies is a homilist. Homiletic means "of or pertaining to a homily."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday June 11, 2004

recumbent

\rih-KUM-bunt\, adjective:
1. Reclining; lying down.
2. Resting; inactive; idle.

While the lovers' intricately carved tombs -- with their host of angels surrounding the recumbent figures of the deceased -- draw crowds, the soaring space of the Gothic cathedral and the peaceful abbey cloisters seem to swallow and silence the busloads of visitors.
--Jill Knight Weinberger, "Monuments To Love's Labors," New York Times, August 15, 1999

Winser was still recumbent but in his frenzy he was trying to writhe his way back onto his knees, kicking and twisting like a felled animal, struggling to wedge his heels under him, half rising, only to topple back again onto his side.
--John le Carré, Single & Single

Mr. Bloom, semi-recumbent on a reclining chair, speaks in long sentences, interrupting himself with long parenthetical remarks that contain parentheses of their own.
--Richard Bernstein, "A Perennial Scrapper Takes On God and the Bible," New York Times, October 24, 1990


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Recumbent comes from the present participle of Latin recumbere, "lie back, to recline," from re-, "back" + -cumbere "to lie."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday June 12, 2004

sonorous

\suh-NOR-uhs; SAH-nuh-rus\, adjective:
1. Giving sound when struck; resonant; as, "sonorous metals."
2. Loud-sounding; giving a clear or loud sound; as, "a sonorous voice."
3. Yielding sound; characterized by sound; as, "the vowels are sonorous."
4. Impressive in sound; high-sounding.

Tecumseh spoke fluently in the Shawnee tongue, adding weight to his emphatic and sonorous words with elegant gestures.
--John Sugden, Tecumseh: A Life

The safety video began, optimistically, with Scott's "Great God, this is an awful place" delivered in a sonorous thespian voice and accompanying footage of well-clad individuals crashing into crevasses.
--Sara Wheeler, Terra Incognita

The Web, in Locke's view, brings the revolution against the sonorous all-knowing corporate voice to its inevitable climax and resolution in favor of the plebeians.
--Leslie Kaufman, "Internet Scene May Have a Lot in Common With the '60s," New York Times, April 10, 2000


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Sonorous comes from Latin sonorus, from sonor, "sound."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday June 13, 2004

bedizen

\bih-DY-zuhn\, transitive verb:
To dress or adorn in gaudy manner.

At 18, he attended a party "frizzled, powdered and curled, in radiant pink satin, with waistcoat bedizened with gems of pink paste and a mosaic of colored foils and a hat blazing with 5,000 metallic beads," according to Michael Battersberry in "Fashion, The Mirror of History."
--Donna Larcen, "Details, Details: Everything Old Is New Again," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 19, 1994

. . . Ford's 2001-model F-150 SuperCrew "Harley-Davidson" model. This special edition pickup truck is bedizened with enough chrome, leather, and H-D logos to bring a RUBbie (Rich Urban Biker) weeping to his knees.
--"Summer Autos 2001," Newsday, May 19, 2001


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Bedizen is the prefix be-, "completely; thoroughly; excessively" + dizen, an archaic word meaning "to deck out in fine clothes and ornaments," from Middle Dutch disen, "to dress (a distaff) with flax ready for spinning," from Middle Low German dise, "the bunch of flax placed on a distaff."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday June 14, 2004

equanimity

\ee-kwuh-NIM-uh-tee; ek-wuh-\, noun:
Evenness of mind; calmness; composure; as, "to bear misfortunes with equanimity."

For one whose mind has been notoriously troubled, Brian Lara is at least retaining a sense of equanimity.
--Richard Hobson, "Croft offers no respite as Lara's theme continues," Times (London), June 8, 2000

When one is happy, one can look at both comedy and tragedy with equanimity.
--Phillip Lopate, Totally, Tenderly, Tragically

I think one person can hardly understand why another has conducted his life in such a way, how he came to commit certain actions and not others, whether he looks upon the past with mostly pleasure or equanimity or regret.
--Chang-Rae Lee, A Gesture Life


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Equanimity comes from Latin aequanimitas, "impartiality, calmness," from aequanimus, "impartial, even-tempered," from aequus, "even" + animus, "mind, soul."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday June 15, 2004

primogeniture

\pry-moh-JEN-ih-choor\, noun:
1. The state of being the firstborn of the same parents; seniority by birth among children of the same family.
2. (Law) An exclusive right of inheritance that belongs to the eldest son.

Anglo-Saxon kings did not succeed on the basis of primogeniture. All the kings offspring were known as aethelings -- throneworthy -- and from this gene pool the royal family would select the aetheling who seemed best qualified for the job.
--Danny Danziger, The Year 1000

Only now is the British government getting around to eliminating primogeniture and hereditary rights from the British Constitution by expelling hereditary peers from the upper house (still called the House of Lords).
--Paul Johnson, "Thicker Than Water," National Review, August 11, 2003


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Primogeniture is from Late Latin primogenitura, from Latin primus, "first" + genitura, "a begetting, birth, generation," from the past participle of gignere, "to beget."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday June 16, 2004

ancillary

\AN-suh-lair-ee\, noun:
1. Subordinate; subsidiary.
2. Auxiliary; helping.

noun:
Something that is subordinate to something else.

The dining room, never used except as an ancillary larder, a cool place in which to set jellies and store meat, eggs and fish for the cat, is unchanged in essentials since I first came here in 1945.
--Angela Carter, Shaking a Leg

The forty-two active divisions, comprising 600,000 men, would on mobilisation take with them into the field another twenty-five reserve divisions and ancillary reserve units, raising the war strength of the army to over three million.
--John Keegan, The First World War

Narrow streets, reeking of horse and pig manure, were crowded with boardinghouses, countless shops and warehouses, and a sea of trade signs, all surrounded by a forest of masts, intricate webs of spars and rigging, shipyard ways, ropewalks, breweries, a distillery, and grog shops -- the innumerable ancillaries of a booming seaport.
--Richard M. Ketchum, Saratoga


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Ancillary comes from Latin ancillaris, from ancilla, "female servant."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday June 17, 2004

Potemkin village

\puh-TEM(P)-kin\, noun:
An impressive facade or display that hides an undesirable fact or state; a false front.

When will the West have the guts to call Russia what it really is: a semi-totalitarian state with Potemkin village-style democratic institutions and a fascist-capitalist economy?
--"Western Investors Defend a Potemkin Village," Moscow Times, January 9, 2004

It's a lie, a huge Potemkin village designed to give North Korea the appearance of modernity.
--Kevin Sullivan, "Borderline Absurdity," Washington Post, January 11, 1998

Unless U.S. imperial overstretch is acknowledged and corrected, the United States may someday soon find that it has become a Potemkin village superpower -- with a facade of military strength concealing a core of economic weakness.
--Christopher Layne, "Why the Gulf War Was Not in the National Interest," The Atlantic, July 1991

The "evil empire" had been a mighty facade at least since Kruschev, a termite-infested Potemkin village congenitally incapable of regeneration.
--Frank Pellegrini, "Reagan At 90: Still A Repository For Our American Dreams," Time, February 6, 2001

"Christianity is a series of Potemkin villages inhabited by Eddie Haskells and a whole bunch of gullible little Beavers."
--M. Love, on line


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A Potemkin village is so called after Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin, who had elaborate fake villages built in order to impress Catherine the Great on her tours of the Ukraine and the Crimea in the 18th century.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday June 18, 2004

favonian

\fuh-VOH-nee-uhn\, adjective:
Pertaining to the west wind; soft; mild; gentle.

With dusk came cool, favonian breezes.
--Ed Darack, Wind, Water, Sun

As God said to Adam on one of those favonian edenic days, "Pick a bone, any bone."
--Norah Labiner, Our Sometime Sister


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Favonian is derived from Latin Favonius, "the west wind."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday June 19, 2004

trenchant

\TREN-chunt\, adjective:
1. Characterized by or full of force and vigor; as, "a trenchant analysis."
2. Caustic; biting; severe; as, "trenchant criticism."
3. Distinct; clear-cut; clearly or sharply defined.

Her insistence that women's rights should be upheld universally, notwithstanding concerns about cultural diversity, led some to criticise her for being too narrowly entrenched within western liberalism, while others celebrated her trenchant defence of egalitarianism.
--Judith Squires, "Susan Moller Okin," The Guardian, March 26, 2004

His revolutionary music, abrasive personality and trenchant writings about art and life divided the city into warring factions.
--Jonathan Carr, Mahler: A Biography

The trenchant divisions between right and wrong, honest and dishonest, respectable and the reverse, had left so little scope for the unforseen.
--Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence


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Trenchant comes from Old French, from the present participle of trenchier, "to cut." It is related to trench.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday June 20, 2004

yeasty

\YEE-stee\, adjective:
1. Of, pertaining to, or resembling yeast.
2. Not yet settled or formed; immature or incomplete.
3. Marked by agitation or change.
4. Frothy or trivial; frivolous.
5. Full of vitality; exuberant.

Aunt Mari had the basket open and was taking out freshly baked rolls, which had been carefully wrapped in a tea towel. The yeasty smell of them and of fried chicken made Eve realize how hungry she was.
--Mary Balog, Slightly Married

"We are living in the time of the parenthesis, a great and yeasty time," he concluded. "Make uncertainty your friend."
--Bill Sweetman, "A yeasty time," Interavia Business & Technology, July 1, 2001

In that yeasty time in the mid-sixties when I went to work as a reporter in Paris, the world was about to pop.
--Raymond Sokolov, Why We Eat What We Eat

I see you bubbling all over the place -- you're yeasty, and I think it's grand!
--Joan Anderson, A Year by the Sea


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Yeasty is from yeast, from Middle English yeest, from Old English gist.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday June 21, 2004

deipnosophist

\dyp-NOS-uh-fist\, noun:
Someone who is skilled in table talk.

At the age of six his future as a deipnosophist seemed certain. Guzzling filched apples he loved to prattle. Hogging the pie he invariably piped up and rattled on.
--Ellis Sharp, "The Bloating of Nellcock"


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Deipnosophist comes from the title of a work written by the Greek Athenaeus in about 228 AD, Deipnosophistai, in which a number of wise men sit at a dinner table and discuss a wide range of topics. It is derived from deipnon, "dinner" + sophistas, "a clever or wise man."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday June 22, 2004

jeremiad

\jair-uh-MY-uhd\, noun:
A tale of sorrow, disappointment, or complaint; a doleful story; also, a dolorous or angry tirade.

This age in which leisure and letters were gilded with commerce did not see the decline and fall of art, despite the jeremiads of such artists as William Blake ('Where any view of money exists,' he prophesied, 'art cannot be carried on').
--Roy Porter, English Society in the Eighteenth Century

Johnson's jeremiad against what he sees as American imperialism and militarism exhaustively catalogs decades of U.S. military misdeeds
--Stan Crock, review of The Sorrows of Empire, by Chalmers Johnson, Business Week, February 2, 2004

Economics ministers in general were taken aback when a recent World Bank report -- after a year of jeremiads -- suggested the crisis was being exaggerated
--Lance Castle, "The economic crisis revisited," Jakarta Post, April 1, 1999


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Jeremiad comes from French jérémiade, after Jérémie, Jeremiah, the prophet.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday June 23, 2004

delectation

\dee-lek-TAY-shun\, noun:
Great pleasure; delight, enjoyment.

In the eighteenth century, the Qing emperor, Qianlong, created . . . a park for his own delectation, full of diminutive Chinese landmarks, so that he could canter round his whole kingdom without leaving home.
--Kate Lowe and Eugene McLaughlin, "Dollars and dim sum," History Today, June 1995

At other times she'll get so worked up by some pet poeticism that she forgets she's not writing just for her own delectation.
--David Klinghoffer, "Black madonna," National Review, February 9, 1998

Animals are not puppets, put on earth for our delectation.
--Colin Tudge, "Why this scene is unnatural," New Statesman, February 18, 2002


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Delectation derives from Latin delectatio, from the past participle of delectare, "to please."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday June 24, 2004

pin money

, noun:
1. An allowance of money given by a husband to his wife for private and personal expenditures.
2. Money for incidental expenses.
3. A trivial sum.

Women's groups have contended that jobs that usually go to men pay more because of the old-fashioned idea that a man is supporting a family while a woman is merely working for pin money.
--Juan Williams, "A Question of Fairness," The Atlantic, February 1987

Many young people take jobs in hotels and pubs as a way of earning a bit of pin money, or to top up the student loans and parental hand-outs that see them through the cash-strapped college years
--Nick Pandya, "Failed to make the grade? You're still wanted," The Guardian, September 7, 2002

A record-smashing fine sounds tough, but it's pin money for Credit Suisse.
--Nick Cohen, "Life in a bubble bath," The Observer, December 22, 2002


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Pin money originally referred to money given by husbands to their wives for the specific purpose of buying pins.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday June 25, 2004

ab ovo

\ab-OH-voh\, adverb:
From the beginning.

I will begin ab ovo -- at the very beginning.
--War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

The performers do not have to discover these techniques and processes ab ovo; they learn them from the previous generation, who learned them from their predecessors, and so on.
--William L. Benzon, Beethoven's Anvil


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Ab ovo is from Latin, literally, "from the egg."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday June 26, 2004

woolgathering

\WOOL-gath-(uh)-ring\, noun:
Indulgence in idle daydreaming.

Similarly, in the meadow, if you laze too late into the fall, woolgathering, snow could fill your mouth.
--Edward Hoagland, "Earth's eye," Sierra, May 1999

It would be easy to slip off into woolgathering and miss a deadline.
--Jeraldine Saunders, Washington Post, March 4, 2004

Plagued by guilt, they took refuge in wine, women, and woolgathering.
--Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust

The soprano roused Fergus from his woolgathering.
--Sandra Brown, Where There's Smoke


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Woolgathering derives from the literal sense, "gathering fragments of wool."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday June 27, 2004

peccant

\PEK-unt\, adjective:
1. Sinning; guilty of transgression.
2. Violating a rule or a principle.

There must be redemption even for a formerly peccant father.
--John Simon, review of Lone Star, National Review, July 29, 1996

The peccant fellow is Cliff, who cheats, or tries to cheat, on his wife.
--John Simon, review of Crimes and Misdemeanors, National Review, December 8, 1989

No accuser, however, was prepared to come forward to initiate a prosecution, nor could the bishop find the necessary eyewitnesses to support a criminal case against the peccant clergymen.
--Peter Linehan and Janet L. Nelson, Medieval World


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Peccant comes from the present participle of Latin of peccare, "to sin."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday June 28, 2004

nolens volens

\NO-lenz-VO-lenz\:
Whether unwilling or willing.

Beneath the surface, little-noticed but fundamental changes are taking place that must compel both sides, nolens volens, sooner or later to reconfigure their tortured but inseparable relationship.
--Bernard Wasserstein, Israelis and Palestinians

Events have put NATO in a position where it is the policeman of Europe and beyond, nolens volens.
--"NATO then, Nato now," Daily Telegraph, April 23, 1999

After all, I'm not sure that I'm so angry with them, for it means that now you've got to remain here indefinitely -- nolens volens.
--Mina McDonald, "True Stories Of The Great War: Some Experiences In Hungary," History of the World, January 1, 1992


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Nolens volens is from the Latin, from nolle, "to be unwilling" + velle, "to wish, to be willing."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday June 29, 2004

quisling

\KWIZ-ling\, noun:
Someone who collaborates with an enemy occupying his or her country; a traitor.

In the clutches of Herod, a quisling whom even his Roman paymasters despise, John is an all-too-perfect personification of Israel under Roman rule abetted by Jewish collaboration.
--Jack Miles, Christ : A Crisis in the Life of God

This circle had already closed ranks around Tito in the prewar period of illegal struggle, and our ensuing sacrifices, our suffering, the exploits of both Party and people as they made war against the Nazi and Fascist occupiers and their quislings and supporters, had only further toughened and hardened the leaders.
--Milovan Djilas, Fall of the New Class


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A quisling is so called after Vidkun Quisling (1887-1945), Norwegian politician and officer who collaborated with the Nazis.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday June 30, 2004

misprize

\mis-PRYZ\, transitive verb:
1. To hold in contempt.
2. To undervalue.

I hesitate to appear to misprize my native city, but how can the history of dear, sedate old London town possibly compare to Paris for sheer excitement?
--Alistair Horne, Seven Ages of Paris

Or did he misprize such fidelity and harden his heart against so great a love as hers?
--Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, translated by Guido Waldman

Alternatively, when disagreements are noticed, they may by chance be overemphasized by those who misprize their significance by failing to assess the pressure exerted by economic and institutional factors as opposed to the purely intellectual.
--Ellen Handler Spitz, "Warrant for trespass/ permission to peer," The Art Bulletin, December 1, 1995


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Misprize comes from Middle French mesprisier, from mes-, "amiss, wrong" + prisier, "to appraise."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday July 1, 2004

tete-a-tete

\TAYT-uh-TAYT; TET-uh-TET\, adjective:
Private; confidential; familiar.

noun:
1. A private conversation between two people.
2. A short sofa intended to accommodate two persons.

Once you have a couple of offers in hand, ask the boss for a tete-a-tete.
--Michelle Cottle, "Seeking That Fair Day's Pay." New York Times, January 24, 1999

George Adamski, a penny-ante guru already in the flying saucer business, lecturing on the subject and selling his own UFO photos, had his first tete-a-tete with a Venusian named Orthon, who explained by dumb show and telepathy that his saucer was powered by Earth's magnetism.
--Thomas M. Disch, The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of

Raw garlic will give you plenty of this disulfide, but cooking gets rid of it because it is volatile enough to evaporate during cooking. This is the reason you can safely eat a soup or stew that has lots of garlic in the recipe, and still enjoy a friendly tete-a-tete with someone.
--John Emsley, Molecules at an Exhibition


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Tete-a-tete comes from the French, literally "head-to-head."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday July 2, 2004

agon

\AH-gahn; ah-GOHN\,
plural agones \uh-GOH-neez\ noun:
A struggle or contest; conflict; especially between the protagonist and antagonist in a literary work.

Conflicts about moral claims are part of what it means to be human, and a political ideal stripped of sentimentality and the utopian temptation is one committed to the notion that political life is a permanent agon between clashing, even incompatible goods.
--Jean Bethke Elshtain, Real Politics

It is the irresolvable love-hate agon between men and women that drives all cultures.
--Lawrence Osborne, "False goddess," Salon, June 28, 2000

Almost every poem Auden wrote in the weeks before and after his arrival in New York portrayed the agon of an artist in combat with his gift.
--Edward Mendelson, Later Auden


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Agon comes from Greek agon, "a struggle or contest." It is related to agony.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday July 3, 2004

collegial

\kuh-LEE-jee-uhl; -juhl\, adjective:
1. Characterized by or having authority or responsibility shared equally by each of a group of colleagues.
2. Characterized by equal sharing of authority especially by Roman Catholic bishops.
3. Of or relating to a college or university; collegiate.
4. Characterized by camaraderie among colleagues.

These collaborations also tend to be collegial, with the leader perceived as one among equals, rather than as one in possession of unique skills or knowledge.
--Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman, Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration

Through Marshall's own instinct for building consensus and, most important, through the power of collegial discussion, the Justices of that era overcame sharp divisions and succeeded in separating the interests of the Court and of the Constitution from politics.
--Edward Lazarus, Closed Chambers

[The council] imparted legitimacy to a more democratic or collegial form of church governance, and thus reopened the debate on papal infallibility which Pope Pius IX had attempted definitively to resolve a century earlier at the First Vatican Council.
--Michael W. Cuneo, The Smoke of Satan

His eccentricities were easily accommodated in the . . . collegial climate.
--Carole Klein, "Red Brick and Brownstone: A Literary Tour of Gramercy Park," New York Times, March 13, 1988


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Collegial comes from Medieval Latin collegialis, "of or relating to colleagues," from Latin collegium, "an association," from collega, "a colleague, one chosen with [col- for con-, 'with'] another, a partner in office," from con- + legare, "to send or choose as deputy," from lex, legis, "law."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday July 4, 2004
ludic

\LOO-dik\, adjective:
Of or relating to play; characterized by play; playful.

Um, there's only one problem: her mother. Who, being a substantial executive, has a somewhat different attitude to the worth of the professions than her wastrel, ludic husband.
--Pat Kane, "Pleasing papa," The Guardian, July 11, 2001

He is indeed the outstanding imaginative prose stylist of his generation, with an entirely recognizable literary manner, fizzy and playful (I am trying to avoid the words "pyrotechnic" and "ludic").
--Geoffrey Wheatcroft, "What Kingsley Can Teach Martin," The Atlantic, SeptemberÊ2000Ê

But within this ludic tale there lurks a tragedy of love and loss that does not lose its tenderness even when embedded in [the author's] perpetually farcical frame of mind.
--Richard Bernstein, "Lalita, Post-Modern Object of Desire," New York Times, September 8, 1999


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Ludic derives from Latin ludus, "play." Ludicrous, "amusing or laughable," shares the same root.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday July 5, 2004

refractory
\rih-FRAK-tuh-ree\, adjective:
1. Stubbornly disobedient; unmanageable.
2. Resisting ordinary treatment or cure.
3. Difficult to melt or work; capable of enduring high temperature.

It's a head shot of Lucien Bouchard peering out of the dark, openmouthed, teeth showing, eyes glittering and appearing not to have shaved in a week. In another age, the shot might have been held up to a refractory kid with the warning, "The boogeyman will get you if you don't watch out."
--George Bain, "Whose Reality?" Time, October 13, 1997

And even those most refractory infections of all, those caused by viruses--formerly dismissed as untreatable because viruses disappeared into the inner labyrinths of the living cells, merging into the very genomes--were becoming amenable to early treatments.
--Frank Ryan, M.D., Virus X

Bauxite is mined in only a few places. It is used to make aluminum, iron, copper and dozens of refractory products such as the bricks used to line blast furnaces.
--Robert Goodrich, "Melvin Price Support Center's Bauxite Will Be Sold," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 10, 2000


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Refractory comes from Latin refractarius, "stubborn," from refragari, "to oppose, to withstand, to thwart."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday July 6, 2004

congeries

\KON-juh-reez\, noun (singular and plural):
A collection; an aggregation.

As the great French historian Fernand Braudel pointed out in his last major work, The Identity of France (1986), it was the railroad that made France into one nation and one culture. It had previously been a congeries of self-contained regions, held together only politically.
--Peter F. Drucker, "Beyond the Information Revolution," Atlantic Monthly, October 1999

William Rothenstein described the Academie as a "congeries of studios crowded with students, the walls thick with palette scrapings, hot, airless and extremely noisy."
--Jeffrey Meyers, Bogart: A Life in Hollywood

More important, he doesn't tell us that the Kennedy Administration was a very uneasy congeries of vastly differing types of Democrats with conflicting foreign-policy agendas.
--James C. Thomson Jr., "Whose Side Were They On?" review of Friends and Enemies: The United States, China, and the Soviet Union, 1948-1972, by Gordon H. Chang, New York Times, July 29, 1990


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Congeries is from Latin congeries, "a heap, a mass," from congerere, "to carry together, to bring together, to collect," from com-, "with, together" + gerere, "to carry." It is related to congest, "to overfill or overcrowd," which derives from the past participle of congerere.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday July 7, 2004

errant

\AIR-uhnt\, adjective:
1. Wandering; roving, especially in search of adventure.
2. Deviating from an appointed course; straying.
3. Straying from the proper standards (as of truth or propriety).
4. Moving aimlessly or irregularly; as, an errant breeze.

The year 1565 finds him at Ferrara, the city where our errant poet will spend the most stable years of his life.
--Anthony M. Esolen, introduction to Jerusalem Delivered, by Torquato Tasso

They called him, "Hey, mister!" and asked him to throw their errant baseballs back to them.
--Judith McNaught, Night Whispers

Conformity was the rule, and one young mother, imploring Peabody not to expel her errant son because he was a "very unusual" boy, heard the stony response: "Groton, madam, is no place for the unusual boy."
--Benjamin Welles, Sumner Welles: FDR's Global Strategist

"Not anymore," she says, putting her bag between her feet and moving errant hairs out of her face.
--Joseph Clark, Jungle Wedding


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Errant comes from Middle French errer, "to travel," from Late Latin iterare, from Latin iter, "a journey"; confused somewhat with Latin errare, "to wander; to err."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday July 8, 2004

teetotaler

\TEE-TOH-tuh-lur\, noun:
One pledged to entire abstinence from all intoxicating drinks.

Her son, in his idealized recollections, would describe her as a near teetotaler, hardly venturing beyond a lady-like glass of champagne.
--A. M. Sperber and Eric Lax, Bogart

Her father, previously a teetotaler, had begun drinking, and his health had taken a turn for the worse.
--Stephen A. Black, Eugene O'Neill: Beyond Mourning and Tragedy


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Teetotaler is from tee (the letter t, as in total) + total + -er. Teetotalism is the principle or practice of complete abstinence from alcoholic drinks.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday July 9, 2004

flummery

\FLUHM-uh-ree\, noun:
1. A name given to various sweet dishes made with milk, eggs, flour, etc.
2. Empty compliment; unsubstantial talk or writing; mumbo jumbo; nonsense.

He had become disturbed by the number of listeners phoning in with such flummery as tales of self-styled clairvoyants' uncannily correct forecasts.
--Suzanne Seixas, "One Man's Finances," Money, September 1, 1986

One reason there is so much flummery in the global warming debate is that the weather in the Northeast United States, where the opinion-makers live, has a disproportionate effect on whether greenhouse concerns are taken seriously.
--Gregg Easterbrook, "Warming Up," New Republic, November 8, 1999

It is Dr. August's claim that he receives inspiration from spirits, that through his music the departed can speak to those they left behind. Although this is sometimes unabashed flummery, there are moments when Fitz seems to make a real connection with those who have crossed over.
--Paul Quarrington, "Psychic Hotline," New York Times, September 3, 2000


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Flummery comes from Welsh llymru, a soft, sour oatmeal food.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday July 10, 2004

overweening

\oh-vur-WEE-ning\, adjective:
1. Overbearing; arrogant; presumptuous.
2. Excessive; immoderate; exaggerated.

In a story as old as the Greeks, overweening pride brought condign disaster.
--David Frum, How We Got Here

She was warring with her children, having pushed them away with her overweening possessiveness.
--James Fox, Five Sisters

Overweening personal ambition is no virtue; but while I had it, I could have danced on a bed of nails.
--Joyce Maynard, At Home in the World


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Overweening is from Middle English overwening, present participle of overwenen, "to be arrogant," from over + wenen "to ween," from Old English wenan.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday July 11, 2004

acrimony

\AK-ruh-moh-nee\, noun:
Bitter, harsh, or biting sharpness, as of language, disposition, or manners.

In years to come, liturgical infighting ranked alongside disputed patents, contested fortunes, and savage political feuds as a source of McCormick family acrimony.
--Richard Norton Smith, The Colonel

The partnership eventually broke up in acrimony.
--Henry Grunwald, One Man's America

As losses swelled, acrimony led to lawsuits, countersuits, and the bankruptcy of the ironworks.
--Patricia O'Toole, Money & Morals in America

Mr. Cioran himself once wrote: "However much I have frequented the mystics, deep down I have always sided with the Devil; unable to equal him in power, I have tried to be worthy of him, at least, in insolence, acrimony, arbitrariness and caprice."
--Eric Pace, "E. M. Cioran, 84, Novelist And Philosopher of Despair," New York Times, June 22, 1995


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Acrimony is from Latin acrimonia, from acer, "sharp."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday July 12, 2004

remunerate

\rih-MYOO-nuh-rate\, transitive verb:
1. To pay an equivalent to for any service, loss, or expense; to recompense.
2. To compensate for; to make payment for.

Not to suggest that our bosses remunerate us for our high moral standards, but creative bureaucrats at Mesa City Hall have invented a new fund from tax revenue that sets up a $20,000 account for each virtuous City Council member.
--Art Thomason, "Mesa Puts Quite a Price on Discretion," Arizona Republic, May 18, 2000

The plaintiff could therefore only recover payment for her services if there was evidence of an implied or express contract by the business of which he was a partner (or by the plaintiff personally) to remunerate her for the work which she had done.
--Kate O'Hanlon, "No damages for wife's gratuitous work," Independent, May 27, 1999

[The firm] wanted to meet long-term investment requirements out of retained profits and also to be able to properly remunerate all the staff and give them a share of the profits.
--Roger Trapp, "Legal firms 'go offshore' to avoid litigation," Independent, May 2, 1996


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Remunerate comes from Latin remunerari, "to reward," from re-, "back, again" + munerari, "to give, to present," from munus, "a gift."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday July 13, 2004

supernal

\soo-PUR-nuhl\, adjective:
1. Being in or coming from the heavens or a higher place or region.
2. Relating or belonging to things above; celestial; heavenly. 3. Lofty; of surpassing excellence.

In 1616, a pope and a cardinal inquisitor reprimanded Galileo, warning him to curtail his forays into the supernal realms.
--Dava Sobel, Galileo's Daughter

Liu Mengmei has more to worry about from earthly authorities who would behead him for plundering tombs than from any supernal force.
--Edward Rothstein, "Even for Death's Escapees, the Myth Says, There Are Rules," New York Times, July 24, 1999

Then comes what may be the most supernal sequence in all opera -- the Countess' lament in "Dove sono" and the letter duet, with only the tiniest interruption in the middle as the Count and Antonio cross the stage plotting to snare Cherubino.
--"In Review: From Around the World," Opera News, May 1999


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Supernal derives from Latin supernus, "above, upper, top, hence celestial," from super, "over, above."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday July 14, 2004

libation

\ly-BAY-shun\, noun:
1. The act of pouring a liquid (usually wine) either on the ground or on a victim in sacrifice to some deity; also, the wine or liquid thus poured out.
2. A beverage, especially an alcoholic beverage.
3. An act or instance of drinking.


Hearing that the train had lost one of its engines and that the remainder of the trip would be very slow, I headed for the bar car for a libation and a snack or two to soothe my growing hunger pangs.
--Lawrence Van Gelder, "Tales of Flying Cars and Trees," New York Times, May 28, 2000

Giving careful packing instructions to his Sherpas who would be freighting the spirits to his Base Camp, Todd more than half-anticipated some nights when the libation might serve to take off the edge.
--Anatoli Boukreev and G. Weston DeWalt, The Climb


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Libation is from Latin libatio, from libare, "to take a little from anything, to taste, to pour out as an offering."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday July 15, 2004

acuity

\uh-KYOO-uh-tee\, noun:
Acuteness of perception or vision; sharpness.

[T]hey fail to understand how a person can hold beliefs so contrary to theirs and still retain any mental acuity.
--Charles Krauthammer, ". . . Why Bush Will Win," Washington Post, November 3, 2000

With unusual acuity, one of the wire service reporters pounced on that possibility with an insinuating question.
--Alfred Alcorn, Murder in the Museum of Man

Monkeys, diurnal animals that have a high visual acuity -- necessary for finding food and for moving through the trees without bumping into things or missing one's hold on a branch -- have a large visual area of the neocortex.
--Stephen Budiansky, If a Lion Could Talk

Horses tend to shy a lot because the construction of their eyes is optimized for a near 360-degree field of view, useful for spotting danger, but the price the horse pays for that is relatively poor acuity and some out-of-focus spots that can cause objects within the field of view to suddenly sail into sharp focus.
--Stephen Budiansky, If a Lion Could Talk


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Acuity comes from Latin acutus, "sharpened, pointed, acute," past participle of acuere, "to sharpen."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday July 16, 2004

salient

\SAY-lee-unt; SAYL-yunt\, adjective:
1. Shooting out or up; projecting.
2. Forcing itself on the attention; prominent; conspicuous; noticeable.
3. Leaping; springing; jumping.

noun:
1. An outwardly projecting part of a fortification, trench system, or line of defense.
2. A projecting angle or part.

What I had in mind was an autobiography in which, while treating my person with due reverence, I would present a firsthand account of recent events in Europe that put me in the running for both the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Nobel Peace Prize (to acquaint you right away with one of my salient characteristics: megalomania).
--Thomas Brussig, Heroes Like Us, Translated by John Brownjohn

He gave science an exciting, positive image when many Americans were skeptical of it, worried that its most salient effect was to disenchant the universe and undercut religion.
--David A. Hollinger, "Star Power," New York Times, November 28, 1999

The strength of the hypothesis is that it simultaneously explains all these salient features, none of which had satisfactory independent explanations.
--Paul F. Hoffman and Daniel P. Schrag, "Snowball Earth," Scientific American, January 2000

He was killed during an attack on German positions dug into Ploegsteert Wood on the Ypres salient.
--Russell Jenkins and Stephen Farrell, "Search begins for family of Flanders fusilier," Times (London), January 10, 2000


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Salient derives from the present participle of Latin salire, "to leap." Other words deriving from salire are sally, "to leap forth or rush out suddenly," and perhaps salmon, the "leaping" fish.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday July 17, 2004

pandemic

\pan-DEM-ik\, adjective:
Affecting a whole people or a number of countries; everywhere epidemic.

noun:
A pandemic disease.

Believed to have originated in India in ancient times before first ravaging the Roman world as early as A.D. 165, since then it [smallpox] had scourged humanity in what amounted to a permanent pandemic, causing incalculable loss of life and misery through morbidity and disfigurement.
--Frank Ryan, M.D., Virus X

Within a decade, half a million had perished. Nobody guessed that such a rare disease would become a pandemic.
--Steve Jones, Darwin's Ghost

TV, in particular, spreads the common culture to the far corners of the world; it is a kind of global pandemic, but it spreads at a speed that makes the old plagues and pandemics unbearably slow.
--Lawrence M. Friedman, The Horizontal Society


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Pandemic ultimately derives from Greek pandemos, "of all the people," from pan-, "all" + demos, "people."

Usage: endemic, epidemic, and pandemic. Endemic is peculiar to a district or particular locality, or class of persons ("diseases endemic to the tropics"). That which is epidemic is common to, or affecting at the same time, a large number in a community ("an epidemic outbreak of influenza"). Pandemic is epidemic over a wide geographical area.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday July 18, 2004

entreat

\en-TREET\, intransitive verb:
To make an earnest petition or request; to plead.

transitive verb:
To ask earnestly; to beseech; to petition for.

They entreat her to impart her wisdom. But she is silent.
--John Darnton, "In Sweden, Proof of The Power of Words," New York Times, December 8, 1993

In an age that extols thinness, only a cookbook can entreat us "never to forget the sacred role of bread" or remind us that the preparation of soup "embodies ritual, which in cooking, as in all things, magnifies meaning and pleasure."
--Rita Licciardolo, "Food for Thought Has No Calories," New York Times, May 29, 1983


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Entreat derives from Medieval French entraiter, from en- (from Latin in-), intensive prefix + traiter, "to treat," from Latin tractare, frequentative of trahere, "to draw, to pull, to drag."

Synonyms: beg, beseech, implore, solicit.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday July 19, 2004

ineffectual

\in-ih-FEK-choo-uhl\, adjective:
Not producing the proper effect; without effect; weak; useless; futile; unavailing.

Rush, the aging black Labrador that had waited patiently outside during lunch, ran joyfully on the beach, splashing in the water, making ineffectual attempts to catch a seagull.
--Annabel Davis-Goff, The Dower House

The case sobered Coley not only because of the speed with which the cancer killed, but because of the crude, puny, and utterly ineffectual obstacles hurled by her doctors to impede its fatal course.
--Stephen S. hall, A Commotion in the Blood

On the one hand, the North Korean leadership resolutely refused to experiment with any serious economic reforms and only dabbled in ineffectual foreign investment legislation.
--Nicholas Eberstadt, The End of North Korea


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Ineffectual ultimately comes from Latin in-, negative prefix + effectus, "effect, result," from efficere, "to produce, to effect," from ex, "out of" + facere, "to make."

Synonyms: bootless, fruitless, futile, unavailing, useless, vain.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday July 20, 2004

hypnagogic

\hip-nuh-GOJ-ik; -GOH-jik\, adjective:
Of, pertaining to, or occurring in the state of drowsiness preceding sleep.

It is of course precisely in such episodes of mental traveling that writers are known to do good work, sometimes even their best, solving formal problems, getting advice from Beyond, having hypnagogic adventures that with luck can be recovered later on.
--Thomas Pynchon, "Nearer, My Couch, to Thee," New York Times, June 6, 1993

. . . the phenomenon of hypnagogic hallucinations, or what Mr. Alvarez describes as "the flickering images and voices that well up just before sleep takes over."
--Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, "The Faces of Night, Many of Them Scary," New York Times, January 9, 1995

His uncensored and uncensoring subconscious allows him to absorb the world around him and in him, and to spit it out almost undigested, as if he were walking around in a constant hypnagogic state.
--Susan Bolotin, "Don't Turn Your Back on This Book," New York Times, June 9, 1985


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Hypnagogic (sometimes spelled hypnogogic) ultimately derives from Greek hupnos, "sleep" + agogos, "leading," from agein, "to lead."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday July 21, 2004

draconian

\dray-KOHN-ee-uhn; druh-\, adjective:
1. Pertaining to Draco, a lawgiver of Athens, 621 B.C.
2. Excessively harsh; severe.

The Irish Government last night announced a package of measures it described as "draconian" as part of an unprecedented crackdown on dissident republicans.
--"Draconian crackdown to help end the violence," Birmingham Post, August 20, 1998

In October 1996 Allen publicly admitted that his draconian cost-cutting campaign had had devastating effects on Delta's workforce.
--Daniel Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence

The most straightforward solution would be a draconian crackdown on all unrest -- curfews, house-to-house searches, firing on armed rioters, mass internment, widespread use of capital punishment for terrorists, and so on.
--John O'Sullivan, "Dangerous Restraint," National Review, April 6, 2004


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Draconian refers to a code of laws made by Draco. Their measures were so severe that they were said to be written in blood.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday July 22, 2004

eructation

\ih-ruhk-TAY-shuhn\, noun:
The act of belching; a belch.

Ignatius belched, the gassy eructations echoing between the walls of the alley.
--John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces

The explosion, at this distance, sounds like a faint, feeble eructation.
--Peter Conrad, "Bangs to whimpers," The Observer, March 7, 2004


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Eructation comes from Latin eructatio, from eructare, from e-, "out" + ructare, "to belch."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday July 23, 2004

treacly

\TREE-klee\, adjective:
1. Like, or composed of, treacle.
2. Overly sweet or sentimental.

Before the revolution Chukovsky had tried to free children's literature from treacly verse and goody-goody stories.
--St Petersburg : A Cultural History Solomon Volkov

Holmes flattered Gertie and Julia with smiles and gifts and treacly praise-especially Gertie-and how the women glowed in response.
--Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City

Everyone has already said so, so let me add my congratulations to NBC: You guys made this the most dumbed-down, unremittingly sappy, embarrassingly treacly, watch-this-mug cry-for-the-anthem Olympic coverage in television history.
--Paul Vitello, "Let the Sap Flow in Sydney," Newsday, August 6, 1996


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Treacly is formed from treacle, from Middle English triacle, "antidote against poison," from Old French, from Latin theriaca, from Greek theriake (antidotos), "(antidote against a poisonous bite from) a wild animal," feminine of theriakos, "of wild animals," from therion, diminutive of ther, "wild animal."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday July 24, 2004

sciolism

\SY-uh-liz-uhm\, noun:
Superficial knowledge; a superficial show of learning.

Religion was mostly superstition, science for the most part sciolism, popular education merely a means of forcing the stupid and repressing the bright, so that all the youth of the rising generation might conform to the same dull, dead level of democratic mediocrity.
--Charles Waddell Chesnut, Conjure Tales and Stories of the Color Line

American classics teachers' choice in the early national period to focus on gammer rather than other aspects of the classical inheritance resulted from their primary pedagogical goals: to mold gentlemen who navigated between sciolism and pedantry, ministers who could intelligently read the Bible, and citizens who were moral and dutiful.
--Caroline Winterer, The Culture of Classicism


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Sciolism comes from Late Latin sciolus, "a smatterer," from diminutive of Latin scius, "knowing," from scire, "to know." One who has only superficial knowledge is a sciolist.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday July 25, 2004

beau ideal

\boh-ay-DEEL\, noun;
plural beau ideals:
A perfect or an idealized type or model.

Their commentaries inspired generations of schoolboys to pen compositions in praise of the Spartan lad who flinched not as the fox gnawed his vitals, and shaped the American beau ideal of the "strong silent type."
--Florence King, "Oh, Sparta!" National Review, September 12, 1994

To the populace, of course, Hindenburg remains the national hero and beau ideal; nay, almost the national Messiah.
--H.L. Mencken, "Ludendorff," The Atlantic, June 1917


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Beau ideal is from the French beau idéal, "ideal beauty."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday July 26, 2004

incarnadine

\in-KAR-nuh-dyn\, adjective:
1. Having a fleshy pink color.
2. Red; blood-red.

transitive verb:
To make red or crimson.

Captain Dobo opened the castle's wine cellars and broke open the casks for his men, who greeted the sultan's soldiers without first politely wiping the incarnadine wine from their blood-red lips and bearded chins.
--Kevin Keating, "Kilroy Was Here!" International Travel News, October 1, 2001

The more he scrubbed it, the more it bled.
It made the seas incarnadine, he said.
--Judy Driscoll, "Biddy takes pink gin to the country dance," Hecate, May 1, 1993

In a night of rain, the ruddy reflections of their lights incarnadine the clouds till the entire city appears to be the prey of a monster conflagration.
--Alvan F. Sanborn, "New York After Paris," The Atlantic, October 1906

Will all great NeptuneÕs ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
--Shakespeare, Macbeth


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from Italian incarnatino, which came from the Latin incarnato, something incarnate, made flesh, from in + caro, carn-, "flesh." It is related to carnation, etymologically the flesh-colored flower; incarnate, "in the flesh; made flesh"; and carnal, "pertaining to the body or its appetites."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday July 27, 2004

roborant

\ROB-uh-ruhnt\, adjective:
Strengthening; restoring vigor.

adjective:
A strengthening medicine; a tonic; a restorative.
A major field study of the effect of pollen extracts on the common cold and its roborant . . . effects in 775 Swedish military recruits did not give unequivocal results in relation to the prophylactic effect of the preparation used against the common cold.
--James P. Carter, Racketeering in Medicine

That day, I felt the need of a roborant after my ghost-ridden night, and I swigged down two doses.
--William Least Heat Moon, River Horse


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Roborant derives from the present participle of Latin roborare, "to strengthen," from robur, roboris, "strength."

[Lazy Agnostic]

'noun:' where you wrote the 2nd 'adjective:' Your proofreading needs some roborant.Good eye. Too late to edit, though. Thanks.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday July 28, 2004

aerie or eyrie

\EYE-ree\, noun:
1. The bird's nest built on a lofty place, such as a cliff or mountaintop.
2. A dwelling or stronghold located in a lofty place.

The sun is beating down on the Braes of Balquhidder, at the fringes of the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park, as three of us, each trying to ignore a halo of midges, are peering through binoculars, surveying a cleft in a rock face where an untidy rickle of twigs indicates a golden eagle's eyrie.
--Jim Gilchrist, "End of a golden age?" The Scotsman, August 18, 2001

Saunière regaled them with sumptuous banquets and other forms of largess, maintaining the life-style of a medieval potentate presiding over an impregnable mountain domain. In his remote and well-nigh inaccessible aerie he received a number of notable guests.
--Michael Baigent, Holy Blood, Holy Grail

We could not afford a nicer house and all those luxuries besides; he did elaborate sums on the backs of envelopes to regretfully prove it -- and then would climb back happily to the little eyrie he'd made for himself in the attic, where he would lie on his bed listening to obscure continental stations on his radio, smoking his pipe.
--Angela Carter, Shaking a Leg


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Aerie derives from Medieval Latin aeria, "nest of a bird of prey," perhaps from Latin area, "an open space (for birds of prey like to build their nests on flat and open spaces on the top of high rocks)."

[Lazy Agnostic]

I don't understand. Isn't there an edit button on your posts?I guess they disappear after a day or so.

[Xavier]

It does expire...

Thanks LA for the great job you do... :smile:

[Lazy Agnostic]

Thanks for the thanks. Can I get a raise?

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday July 29, 2004

ensorcell or ensorcel \en-SOR-suhl\, transitive verb:
To enchant; to bewitch.

Had she tried to ensorcell him with a charm spell?
--Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb, Finder's Bane

That was a very serious accusation to make, and Gruffydd realized he'd gone too far; he had no proof whatsoever that Joanna had ever used the Black Arts to ensorcell his father.
--Here be Dragons Sharon Kay Penman

I have been a journalist too long to be ensorcelled by conspiracy theories.
--Nat Hentoff, Speaking Freely


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Ensorcell comes from Middle French ensorceler, alteration of Old French ensorcerer, from en-, intensive prefix + sorcier, "sorcerer."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday July 30, 2004

lapidary

\LAP-uh-dair-ee\, adjective:
1. Of or pertaining to the art of cutting stones or engraving on them.
2. Engraved in stone.
3. Of or pertaining to the refined or terse style associated with inscriptions on monumental stone.

noun:
1. One who cuts, polishes, and engraves precious stones.
2. A dealer in precious stones.

Here, disgusted by venality and intrigue, the retired courtier would come to compose lapidary maxims and wise but sympathetic letters to ardent youth.
--Michael Foley, Getting Used to Not Being Remarkable

If I asked how long it took to simmer the meat sauce, Emilia would answer with a grumble and her usual lapidary phrase: "Quanto basta. As long as it takes."
--Patrizia Chen, Rosemary and Bitter Oranges

The settings for Jim Crace's fiction are always evoked with superb, lapidary precision.
--Caroline Moore, "The timid Don Juan," Sunday Telegraph, August 31, 2003

Nor is he dismissive of the benefits of modern technology; but a constant theme, like a mounting basso continuo in his story, is the destructive modern emergence of "the cult of the quantitative method known as scientism, physicalism, and reductionism," leading to what C. S. Lewis called in a lapidary phrase "the abolition of man."
--M. D. Aeschliman, "Faithful Reason," National Review, September 16, 2002

These writers have long and eloquently regretted the latter's lapsed reputation and the unavailability (until now) of his work, pointing to his plain, unobtrusive prose and to his bleak take on life (traits that can be traced, in their view, to Hemingway's lapidary sentences and to his Lost Generation pessimism).
--Lee Siegel, "The Easter Parade," Harper's Magazine, July 2001


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is from Latin lapidarius, "pertaining to stone," from lapis, lapid-, "stone."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday July 31, 2004

megrim

\MEE-grim\, noun:
1. A migraine.
2. A fancy; a whim.
3. In the plural: lowness of spirits -- often with 'the'.

That might justify her, fairly enough, in being kept away from meeting now and again by headaches, or undefined megrims.
--Harold Frederic, The Damnation of Theron Ware

Tonight, by some megrim of the scheduler, I have the honor of working with the departmental chairman, Dr. B.
--Pamela Grim, Just Here Trying to Save a Few Lives

They do say it's always darkest before the dawn, she thought. I reckon this is proof of it. I've got the megrims, that's all.
--Stephens Mitchell, Scarlett

Kate had learned a long time ago that the best way to deal with Effie's megrims was to maintain an attitude of determined cheerfulness.
--Susan Carroll, Midnight Bride


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Megrim is from Middle English migrem, from Middle French migraine, modification of Late Latin hemicrania, "pain in one side of the head," from Greek hemikrania, from hemi-, "half" + kranion, "skull."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday August 1, 2004

apotheosis

\uh-pah-thee-OH-sis; ap-uh-THEE-uh-sis\, noun
plural apotheoses \-seez\:
1. Elevation to divine rank or stature; deification.
2. An exalted or glorified example; a model of excellence or perfection of a kind.

Following martyrdom at the Alamo and apotheosis in song, tall tale, and celluloid myth, this bumpkin from west Tennessee [Davy Crockett] became better known and more revered than all but a handful of American presidents.
--Mark Royden Winchell, Cleanth Brooks and the Rise of Modern Criticism

Plato's Athens, conventionally the apotheosis of civilized Western urbanity, endured Diogenes the Cynic, who (according to tradition) dwelt in contented filth under an overturned bathtub outside the city gates, heaping ribald scorn on philosophers and citizens alike.
--Mark Caldwell, A Short History of Rudeness

Charles I's court represented the English apotheosis of this Renaissance ideal of kingship.
--John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination


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Apotheosis comes from Greek, from apotheoun, "to deify," from apo- + theos, "a god."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday August 2, 2004

fructuous

\FRUHK-choo-uhs\, adjective:
Fruitful; productive.

It had by now reached much beyond even that status to appear in our minds as a place sentient, actively helping these once forlorn and homeless sailors, presenting us with fructuous soil to grow our food, bountifully adding its own edible offerings, its waters supplying us with an abundance of fish.
--William Brinkley, Last Ship

Theory does not provide us worthy marching orders for a fructuous future, for theory in itself tells us nothing about how and when it is applicable.
--Sheila McNamee and Kenneth J. Gergen, Relational Responsibility


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Fructuous comes from Latin fructuosus, from fructus, "enjoyment, product, fruit," from the past participle of frui, "to enjoy."

[Augustine2004]

LA you have been most fructuous in this thread, thank you again.

[Lazy Agnostic]

LA you have been most fructuous in this thread, thank you again.De rien.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday August 3, 2004

providential

\prov-uh-DEN(T)-shuhl\, adjective:
1. Of or resulting from divine direction or superintendence.
2. Occurring through or as if through divine intervention; peculiarly fortunate or appropriate.

For Boston's progressive Unitarians in this period, rejecting the Calvinism of their forebears increasingly meant opposing the old idea that suffering was inevitable, irremediable, and providential.
--Elisabeth Gitter, The Imprisoned Guest

The laws of nature seem to have been carefully arranged so that they can be discovered by beings with our level of intelligence. That not only fits the idea of design, but it also suggests a providential purpose for humankind -- that is, to learn about our habitat and to develop science and technology.
--Robin Collins, quoted in The Case for a Creator, by Lee Strobel

In the very first sentences of Mein Kampf, Adolf was to emphasize -- what became a Nazi stock-in-trade -- how providential it was that he had been born in Braunau am Inn, on the border of the two countries he saw it as his life's task to unite.
--Ian Kershaw, Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris


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Providential derives from Latin providentia, from providens, provident-, present participle of providere, literally, "to see ahead," from pro-, "forward" + videre, "to see."

[Augustine2004]

de rien?

[Lazy Agnostic]

de rien?It is French response to thank you. Literally: Of Nothing.

[Augustine2004]

merci, merci.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday August 4, 2004

conflate

\kuhn-FLAYT\, transitive verb:
1. To bring together; to fuse together; to join or meld.
2. To combine (as two readings of a text) into one whole.

Scott Reynolds's creepy debut feature [film] conflates the present and the past with ingenious use of flashbacks.
--Anne Billson, "Bent beneath the weight of its own righteousness," Sunday Telegraph, March 1, 1998

Painting America as a drug-ridden society leads to bad policy -- as does the tendency in some quarters to conflate the various drug abuses into a single dreadful statistic.
--William Raspberry, "Not a Drug-Ridden Society," Washington Post, April 21, 2000

. . . lean and mobile military units that conflate the traditional categories of police officers, commandos, emergency-relief specialists, diplomats, and, of course, intelligence officers.
--Robert D. Kaplan, "The roles of the CIA and the military may merge," The Atlantic, February 1998


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Conflate is from Latin conflatus, past participle of conflare, "to blow together; to put together," from con-, "with, together" + flare, "to blow."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday August 5, 2004

bloviate

\BLOH-vee-ayt\, intransitive verb:
To speak or write at length in a pompous or boastful manner.

Anyone who has ever spent an idle morning watching the Washington talk shows has probably wondered: how did these people become entitled to earn six-figure salaries bloviating about the week's headlines?
--Robert Worth, "Quick! The Index!" New York Times, June 3, 2001

After five years as president and thirty years as a political figure, this colossal oaf is still unable to discipline his urge to . . . bloviate.
--R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., American Spectator, December 19, 1997

We follow him minute by minute through a day in his office -- bloviating amiably with colleagues on the telephone, letting his secretary rewrite his clumsy letters and worrying about the possible hatred of his subordinates.
--John Brooks, "Fiction of the Managerial Class," New York Times, April 8, 1984


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Bloviate is from blow + a mock-Latinate suffix -viate. Compare blowhard, "a boaster or braggart." Bloviation is the noun form; a bloviator is one who bloviates.

Trivia: Bloviate is closely associated with U.S. President Warren G. Harding, who used it frequently and who was known for long, windy speeches. H.L. Mencken said of him, "He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for bloviate

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday August 6, 2004

sui generis

\soo-eye-JEN-ur-us; soo-ee-\, adjective:
Being the only example of its kind; constituting a class of its own; unique.

This man, in fact, was sui generis, a true original.
--Ruth Lord, Henry F. du Pont and Winterthur

They're a special case, a category of their own, sui generis.
--Eric Kraft, Leaving Small's Hotel

In the degree of their alienation from their society and of their impact on it, the Russian intelligentsia of the nineteenth century were a phenomenon almost sui generis.
--Aileen M. Kelly, Toward Another Shore

William Randolph Hearst did not speak often of his father. He preferred to think of himself as sui generis and self-created, which in many ways he was.
--David Nasaw, The Chief


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Sui generis is from Latin, literally meaning "of its own kind": sui, "of its own" + generis, genitive form of genus, "kind."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday August 7, 2004

nonpareil

\non-puh-REL\, adjective:
Having no equal; peerless.

noun:
1. Something of unequaled excellence; a peerless thing or person.
2. A flat disk of chocolate covered with beads of colored sugar.

It's not often that Mike Emrick, the nonpareil hockey voice, errs. His play by play is peerless.
--Richard Sandomir, "Later Post Ensures That Derby Is Alone for Hammond's Dream Call," New York Times, May 4, 2001

Some birds make and use tools and show evidence of culture, and many are vocalists nonpareil.
--Bernd Heinrich, "So, This Parrot Comes Into a Bar and Says . . . ," New York Times, January 30, 2000

But when it comes to his profession, he is a nonpareil.
--Peter Andrews, "A Jazzy Murder Case," New York Times, October 30, 1983

Steve Redgrave won his third gold medal at his third successive Olympic Games and we hymned the man as if he were the greatest athlete we had ever seen: a superman, a nonpareil, a demigod walking the earth.
--Simon Barnes, "Honour and praise to three athletes who graced the sporting arena," Times (London), December 27, 2000


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Nonpareil comes from Old French, from non, "not" + pareil, "equal," from (assumed) Vulgar Latin pariculus, diminutive of Latin par, "equal."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday August 8, 2004

efface

\ih-FAYS\, transitive verb:
1. To cause to disappear by rubbing out, striking out, etc.; to erase; to render illegible or indiscernible.
2. To destroy, as a mental impression; to wipe out; to eliminate completely.
3. To make (oneself) inconspicuous.

Her fingerprints were gone, she thought. Effaced.
--Rosellen Brown, Half a Heart

Death, so omnipresent in the past that it was familiar, would be effaced, would disappear.
--Philippe Aries, Western Attitudes Toward Death from the Middle Ages to the Present

Conversely, as a reaction, one may note in passing that more serious and dedicated writers choose to keep a low profile and to disguise or to efface themselves as much as possible.
--Sergio Perosa, "The Heirs of Calvino and the Eco Effect," New York Times, August 16, 1987


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Efface comes from French effacer, from Old French esfacier, from es-, "out" (from Latin ex-) + face, "face" (from Latin facies)

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday August 9, 2004

gamine

\gam-EEN; GAM-een\, noun:
1. A girl who wanders about the streets; an urchin.
2. A playfully mischievous girl or young woman.

And the whole world is whacked out with fear of nuclear doom, except for Claire, a French gamine who is "living her own nightmare" and waking up in lots of strange places.
--Joe Brown, Washington Post, January 17, 1992

. . . the delectable young gamine employed as a waitress in a Montmartre cafe.
--Peter Bradshaw, "Jolie good show," The Guardian, October 5, 2001


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Gamine comes from the French. A boy who wanders about the street is a gamin (pronounced \GAM-in\).

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday August 10, 2004

senescence

\sih-NEH-suhn(t)s\, noun:
The state of being old; the process of growing old; aging.

Our own bodies are simultaneously and subtly undergoing the same inexorable process that will lead eventually to senescence and death.
--Sherwin B. Nuland, How We Die

Is there a middle ground between an obsession with aging and an intelligent commitment to a healthier lifestyle? How much time, money, energy, and angst should we devote to the fight against senescence?
--Tony Schwartz, "In My Humble Opinion," Fast Company, November 1999

Trying to understand the factors that determine maximum possible lifespan is one of the most puzzling aspects of the overall study of senescence and death.
--William R. Clark, A Means to an End


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Senescence is from Latin senescere, "to grow old," from senex, "old." It is related

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday August 11, 2004

arcanum \ar-KAY-nuhm\, noun;
plural arcana \-nuh\:

1. A secret; a mystery.
2. Specialized or mysterious knowledge, language, or information that is not accessible to the average person (generally used in the plural).

Through the years, Usenet evolved into an international forum on thousands of topics, called Usenet news groups, from the arcana of programming languages to European travel tips.
--Katie Hafner, "James T. Ellis, 45, a Developer of Internet Discussion Network, Is Dead," New York Times, July 1, 2001

Here we must enter briefly into the technical arcana of employment law.
--Paul F. Campos, Jurismania The Madness of American Law


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Arcanum is from the Latin, from arcanus "closed, secret," from arca, "chest, box," from arcere, "to shut in."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday August 12, 2004

flaneur

\flah-NUR\, noun:
One who strolls about aimlessly; a lounger; a loafer.

Burrows and Wallace show how New York embraced the idea of the flaneur -- of the disinterested, artistically inclined wanderer in the city, of what they call "city watching."
--Jed Perl, "The Adolescent City," New Republic, January 22, 2001

The restricted hotel lobby has replaced the square or piazza as a public meeting place, and our boulevards, such as they are, are not avenues for the parade and observation of personality, or for perusal by the flaneur, but conveyor belts to the stores, where we can buy everything but human understanding.
--Anatole Broyard, "In Praise of Contact," New York Times, June 27, 1982

Baudelaire saw the writer as a detached flaneur, a mocking dandy in the big-city crowd, alienated, isolated, anonymous, aristocratic, melancholic.
--Ian Buruma, "The Romance of Exile," New Republic, February 12, 2001


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Flaneur comes from French, from flâner, "to saunter; to stroll; to lounge about."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Dayfor Friday August 13, 2004


hurricane

\Hur"ri*cane\, n. [Sp. hurracan; orig. a Carib word signifying, a high wind.] A violent storm, characterized by extreme fury and sudden changes of the wind, and generally accompanied by rain, thunder, and lightning; -- especially prevalent in the East and West Indies. Also used figuratively.

Like the smoke in a hurricane whirl'd. --Tennyson.

Each guilty thought to me is A dreadful hurricane. --Massinger.

I may not be able to post due to the hurricase---LA

---------------------------------------------------------------
Word of the Day for Friday August 13, 2004

presentiment

\prih-ZEN-tuh-muhnt\, noun:
A sense that something will or is about to happen; a premonition.

He'd had a presentiment of this. Yes, he had known that this was precisely what would be said.
--Nina Berberova, Cape of Storms (translated by Marian Schwartz)

High ranking North Korean officers had "only the barest presentiment" of hostilities until the final orders were issued for the attack.
--Nicholas Eberstadt, The End of North Korea

Lituma pictured the blank faces and icy narrow eyes that the people in Naccos . . . would all turn toward him when he asked if they knew the whereabouts of this woman's husband, and he felt the same discouragement and helplessness he had experienced earlier when he tried to question them about the other men who were missing: heads shaking no, monosyllables, evasive glances, frowns, pursed lips, a presentiment of menace.
--Mario Vargas Llosa, Death in the Andes


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Presentiment derives from Latin praesentire, "to feel beforehand," from prae-, "before" + sentire, "to feel."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday August 14, 2004

countervail

\kown-tur-VAYL\, transitive verb:
1. To act against with equal force, power, or effect; to counteract.
2. To compensate for; to offset; to furnish or serve as an equivalent to.

intransitive verb:
To exert force against an opposing, often bad, influence or power.

In spite of its keel's weight, and even without the countervailing underwater resistance of its mast, Dubois's boat seemed comfortably stable upside down.
--Derek Lundy, Godforsaken Sea

The failure also tended to countervail his undoubted gifts as an international negotiator and his achievements as Foreign Secretary.
--Alden Whitman, "Career Built on Style and Dash Ended with Invasion of Egypt," New York Times, January 15, 1977

Until the middle of the 1920s Hook's commitment to revolutionary action and passion for philosophy acted as countervailing forces and ambitions, pulling him first one way, then the other.
--Christopher Phelps, Young Sidney Hook


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Countervail derives from Old French contrevaloir, from contre-, "counter-" (from Latin contra, "against") + valoir, "to be worth" (from Latin valere, "to be strong, to avail").

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday August 15, 2004

abominate

\uh-BOM-uh-nayt\, transitive verb:
To hate in the highest degree; to detest intensely; to loathe; to abhor.

I had no wish to study or learn anything, and as for Latin, I abominated it.
--Charles Tyng, Before the Wind

"Sir Laurence," he said, smiling wanly, "I detest literature. I abominate the theatre. I have a horror of culture. I am only interested in magic!"
--John Lahr (editor), The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan


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Abominate comes from Latin abominari, "to deprecate as a bad omen, to hate, to detest," from ab- + omen, "an omen."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday August 16, 2004

pervicacious

\puhr-vih-KAY-shuhs\, adjective:
Refusing to change one's ideas, behavior, etc.; stubborn; obstinate.

In fact, I'm a word nerd. I get a kick out of tossing a few odd ones into my column, just to see if the pervicacious editors will weed them out.
--Michael Hawley, "Things That Matter: Waiting for Linguistic Viagra," Technology Review, June, 2001

One of the most pervicacious young creatures that ever was heard of.
--Samuel Richardson, Clarissa

The language of the bureaucrats and administrators must needs be recognized as an outgrowth of legal parlance. There is no other way to explain its pervading, pervicacious and pernicious meanderings.
--New York Law Journal, 1973


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Pervicacious is from Latin pervicax, pervicac-, "stubborn, headstrong," from root pervic- of pervincere, "to carry ones point, maintain ones opinion," from per-, "through, thoroughly" + vincere, "to conquer, prevail against" + the suffix -ious

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday August 17, 2004

foofaraw

\FOO-fuh-raw\, noun:
1. Excessive or flashy ornamentation or decoration.
2. A fuss over a matter of little importance.

A somber, muted descending motif opens and closes the work, which is brief but effective. It provided much needed relief from the fanfares and foofaraw in which brass-going composers so often indulge.
--Philip Kennicott, "Brass Spectacular is a Spectacle of Special Sound," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 17, 1997

After working in the news business for a number of years, I've become a bit cynical about mass-media coverage of events like the Y2K foofaraw.
--Roy Clancy, "Ready for Y2K...," Calgary Sun, December 15, 1999

Making the Times best-seller list, or a movie, or all that other foofaraw is not necessarily proof of [a novel's] lasting significance.
--Roger K. Miller, "'Peyton Place' was remarkably good bad novel," Minneapolis Star Tribune, December 29, 1996


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Foofaraw is perhaps from Spanish fanfarrón, "a braggart."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday August 18, 2004

Cockaigne

\kah-KAYN\, noun:
An imaginary land of ease and luxury.

Outside, in the dark, a wobbly patch of life upon the blue snow, the deer perhaps browsed, her soft blob of a nose rapturously sunk in the chilly winter greenery, her modest brain-stem steeped in some dream of a Cockaigne for herbivores.
--John Updike, Toward the End of Time

Everyone was seeking renewal, a golden century, a Cockaigne of the spirit.
--Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum


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Cockaigne comes from Middle English cokaygne, from Middle French (pais de) cocaigne "(land of) plenty," ultimately adapted or derived from a word meaning "cake."

Trivia: References to Cockaigne are prominent in medieval European lore. George Ellis, in his Specimens of Early English Poets (1790), printed an old French poem called "The Land of Cockaign" (13th century) where "the houses were made of barley sugar and cakes, the streets were paved with pastry, and the shops supplied goods for nothing."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday August 19, 2004

imprimatur

\im-prih-MAH-tur; -MAY-\, noun:
1. Official license or approval to print or publish a book, paper, etc.; especially, such a license issued by the Roman Catholic episcopal authority.
2. Approval; sanction.
3. A mark of approval or distinction.

Vatican officials have overruled a 1994 decision by a bishop in England, ordering him to withdraw his imprimatur from a popular religious education text that had come under attack from conservatives.
--"Vatican orders bishop to remove imprimatur," National Catholic Reporter, February 27, 1998

His name was known and respected on both sides of the Atlantic; his imprimatur on a stock or bond offering could be worth millions to the firm doing the issue.
--H. W. Brands, Masters of Enterprise

But neither controversial phenomena nor potentially illuminating but statistically insignificant research has had the imprimatur of a peer-reviewed journal -- until now.
--Kaja Perina, "Probing folklore & fringe science," Psychology Today, July-August 2002


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Imprimatur is from New Latin imprimatur, "let it be printed," from imprimere, "to imprint," from Latin, from in- + premere, "to press."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday August 20, 2004

punctilio

\punk-TIL-ee-oh\, noun:
1. A fine point of exactness in conduct, ceremony, or procedure.
2. Strictness or exactness in the observance of formalities; as, "the punctilios of a public ceremony."

His godmother, Mary Delany, however, while acknowledging Garret Wesley's musical talents, found him rather deficient in 'the punctilios of good breeding', and had consequently been much gratified when he announced that he was to marry Lady Louisa Augusta Lennox, daughter of the second Duke of Richmond.
--Christopher Hibbert, Wellington: A Personal History

The utmost in punctilio was observed as each side was retired scoreless for two innings.
--Red Smith, Red Smith on Baseball

Unbending on protocol and punctilio, the Emperor, in his public appearances, recalled the splendor and opulence of Suleiman the Magnificent or Louis XIV, with the difference that he lived and worked in a modern atmosphere and journeyed abroad in a commandeered Ethiopian Airlines plane.
--Alden Whitman, "Haile Selassie of Ethiopia Dies at 83," New York Times, August 28, 1975


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Punctilio comes from Obsolete Italian punctiglio, from Spanish puntillo, diminutive of punto, "point," from Latin punctum, from pungere, "to prick."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday August 21, 2004

verbose

\vuhr-BOHS\, adjective:
Abounding in words; using or containing more words than are necessary; tedious by an excess of words; wordy; as, "a verbose speaker; a verbose argument."

. . . his singular style of flattening verbose politicians with the phrase: "Will you please get to the point."
--Paul McCann, "Pioneer of TV debate put end to deference," Times (London), August 8, 2000

One reason I admire Oscar is that he's the least verbose, if sometimes plain to the point of being uninteresting.
--Frank Rich, "Conversations with Sondheim," New York Times Magazine, March 12, 2000

Many tombstones have inscriptions that are not only touching but also, by modern standards, verbose.
--Francine Prose, "Entering New Castle, Del.," New York Times Magazine, February 27, 2000


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Verbose comes from Latin verbosus, from verbum, "a word." Hence it is related to verbal, "expressed in words."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday August 22, 2004

excrescence

\ik-SKRESS-uhn(t)s\, noun:
1. Something (especially something abnormal) growing out from something else.
2. A disfiguring or unwanted mark, part, or addition.

Even Henry Mee's well-known portrait of Anthony Powell makes the novelist look as if he had some odd excrescence growing out of his head.
--DJ Taylor, "Picture this dead chicken, then ponder a fine artistic tradition," Independent, June 22, 2001

Conservatives have always opposed the independent counsel as an extra-constitutional excrescence unmoored from any political accountability.
--"Enough," National Review, February 5, 2001

It wasn't just predictable curmudgeons like Dr. Johnson who thought the Scottish hills ugly; if anybody had something to say about mountains at all, it was sure to be an insult. (The Alps: "monstrous excrescences of nature," in the words of one wholly typical 18th-century observer.)
--Stephen Budiansky, "Nature? A bit overdone," U.S. News & World Report, December 2, 1996


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Excrescence is from Latin excrescentia, "excrescences," from excrescere, "to grow out," from ex-, "out" + crescere, "to grow."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday August 23, 2004

amicable

\AM-ih-kuh-buhl\, adjective:
Characterized by friendliness and good will; friendly; peaceable.

He is back on amicable terms with his first wife and with his children.
--Bruce Weber, "Raymond Carver: A Chronicler of Blue-Collar Despair," New York Times, June 24, 1984

While the discussion was very spirited, the most amicable feelings were displayed on all sides.
--"The Inauguration of the President of the Southern Confederacy," New York Times, February 18, 1861

The stage was set for simmering hostility between the two sects, and the breakdown in amicable relations was hastened by the high-handed attitude of the Maronite emirs towards the Druze barons, who lost many of their ancestral privileges and lands.
--Robin Waterfield, Prophet: The Life and Times of Kahlil Gibran

Quarrels over property, for example, severed long-amicable bonds between siblings and neighbors.
--Katherine Verdery, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies


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Amicable derives from Latin amicus, "friend," from amare, "to love."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday August 24, 2004

fungible

\FUHN-juh-buhl\, adjective:
1. (Law) Freely exchangeable for or replaceable by another of like nature or kind in the satisfaction of an obligation.
2. Interchangeable.

noun:
Something that is exchangeable or substitutable. Usually used in the plural.

People think this tax is for Social Security. But tax monies are really fungible. They get raided all the time.
--Eugene Ludwig, "Motivated to Work," interview by Kerry A. Dolan, Forbes, March 20, 2000

The setting is Ireland in the 1950's, but, a cynical reader might reflect, this sort of fiction is so common that the characters will be completely fungible.
--Susan Isaacs, "Three Little Girls From School," New York Times, December 30, 1990

Genuine eros makes us desire a particular person; crude desire is satisfiable by fungible bodies.
--Edward Craig (general editor), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy


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Fungible comes from Medieval Latin fungibilis, from Latin fungi (vice), "to perform (in place of)."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday August 25, 2004

nimbus

\NIM-buhs\, noun:
1. (Fine Arts) A circle, or disk, or any indication of radiant light around the heads of divinities, saints, and sovereigns, upon medals, pictures, etc.; a halo.
2. A cloud or atmosphere (as of romance or glamour) that surrounds a person or thing.
3. (Meteorology) A rain cloud.

Sometimes when she stood in front of a lamp, the highlights on her hair made a nimbus.
--James Morgan, The Distance to the Moon

The two lights over the front steps were haloed with a hazy nimbus of mist, and strange insects fluttered up against the screen, fragile, wing-thin and blinded, dazed, numbed by the brilliance.
--Karen V. Kukil (Editor), The Journals of Sylvia Plath, 1950-1962

Mara felt she could practically see a nimbus of light around her, like the biblical Esther before she becomes queen.
--Anna Shapiro, The Scourge

Decorated in royal green and gold with crystal chandeliers and plush furniture, the office featured a lighted full-length portrait of Johnson leaning against a bookcase and two overhead lamps projecting "an impressive nimbus of golden light" as Lyndon sat at his desk.
--Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant


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Nimbus is from the Latin nimbus, "a rain cloud, a rain storm."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday August 26, 2004

eddy

\ED-ee\, noun:
1. A current of air or water running in a direction contrary to the main current, or moving in a circular direction; a whirlpool.
2. A tendency or current (as of opinion or history) contrary to or separate from a main current.

intransitive verb:
To move in an eddy or as if in an eddy; to move in a circle.

transitive verb:
To cause to move in an eddy or as if in an eddy.

Many inanimate systems have lifelike qualities -- flickering flames, snowflakes, cloud patterns, swirling eddies in a river.
--Paul Davies, The Fifth Miracle

Egypt, like many countries, was caught up in the eddies of the Great Depression, which overtook Europe and America and which came in Egypt just as the new graduates of the expanded schooling were entering the workforce, looking for the professional opportunities their education had promised.
--Leila Ahmed, A Border Passage

The indifferent river swirls on, eddying past small promontories where grass peeks through the snow.
--Roger Cohen, Hearts Grown Brutal

The fragrant water is not completely still but, stirred perhaps by his own entry, seems to eddy around him as if he were being bathed in a rippling brook fed by hot springs, one that cleanses itself even as it cleanses him.
--Robert Coover, Ghost Town


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Eddy is from Middle English ydy, probably of Scandinavian origin.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday August 27, 2004

Methuselah

\muh-THOO-zuh-luh\, noun:
1. The name of a biblical patriarch said to have lived 969 years.
2. An extremely old man.

And he must've got it from his great-grandpa, who must've bought it off Methuselah!
--Trevanian, Incident at Twenty-Mile

Opass is 80 years old, a Parisian Methuselah living alone on the 13th floor of a tower block.
--Dominic Bradbury, "A picture never quite in focus," Times (London), January 10, 2001


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Methuselah is from Hebrew Methushelah, Biblical patriarch represented as having lived 969 years.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday August 28, 2004

bon vivant

\bon-vee-VONT\, noun:
A person with refined and sociable tastes, especially one who enjoys fine food and drink.

For the unregenerate "peasant" (the term that he often used about his mother, whom he despised) had gone there with the successful glass distributor, shrewd investor, versatile talker, and . . . bon vivant whose motto was "The best is good enough for me."
--Ted Solotaroff, Truth Comes in Blows

Girard is a bon vivant and intellectual while his son is a pragmatic city financier.
--Akin Ojumu, "There's little and Lars," The Observer, May 25, 2003


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Bon vivant comes from French bon, "good" (from Latin bonus) + vivant, present participle of vivre, "to live," from Latin vivere.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday August 29, 2004

copse

\KOPS\, noun:
A thicket or grove of small trees.

A lit window shone from between the trees below them, then vanished again as the car dipped over a ditch and passed through a copse.
--Kate Bingham, Mummy's Legs

Among the mountains, hills, streams, waterfalls, and little copses, the child rejoiced in "savouring the delights of freedom" that stimulated his boyish dreams and reveries.
--Suheil Bushrui and Joe Jenkins, Kahlil Gibran: Man and Poet

They sang freely in the copses and thickets round Bohain, and in the ruins of the mediaeval castle where he played as a boy.
--Hilary Spurling, The Unknown Matisse


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Copse derives from Old French copeiz, "a thicket for cutting," from coper, couper, "to cut." It is related to coupon, at root "the part that is cut off."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday August 30, 2004

contrite

\KON-tryt; kuhn-TRYT\, adjective:
1. Deeply affected with grief and regret for having done wrong; penitent; as, "a contrite sinner."
2. Expressing or arising from contrition; as, "contrite words."

Contrite sinners forgiven, yes.
--Richard de Mille, My Secret Mother

Within days, a contrite Clarence Arthur was sending her roses and violets, even a bad poem.
--Paul Mariani, The Broken Tower

Often he'd look contrite and even apologize.
--Rafer Johnson with Philip Goldberg, The Best That I Can Be


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Contrite derives from Latin conterere, "to rub away, to grind," hence "to obliterate, to abase," from con- + terere, "to rub, to rub away."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday August 31, 2004

sere, also sear

\SEER\, adjective:
Dry; withered.

. . . a country that has been transformed from a place of lush abundance to a sere, mutilated, inhospitable land.
--Zofia Smardz, "A Nice Place for Extinction," New York Times, June 15, 1997

Recent rains have done little to relieve the sere conditions.
--Thomas Omestad, "The struggle over water," U.S. News and World Report, April 10, 2000

Mr. Campbell, a biologist, spent three seasons in the Antarctic and returned with eerily clear perceptions of that sere and uninhabitable place.
--Review of The Crystal Desert, by David G. Campbell New York Times, December 5, 1993

There was a lavatory at the end of the garden beyond a scraggy clump of Michaelmas daisies that never looked well in themselves, always sere, never blooming, the perennial ghosts of themselves, as if ill-nourished by an exhausted soil.
--Angela Carter, Shaking a Leg


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Sere comes from Old English sear, "dry."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday September 1, 2004

dolorous

\DOH-luh-ruhs\, adjective:
Marked by, causing, or expressing grief or sorrow.

Climbing out on to a narrow ledge, we waving cheerily at the people passing by on the street below, until my mother was informed of our misdemeanour -- by a waitress wickedly known to great-aunt Mary, behind her table napkin, as Sourpuss for her perpetually dolorous expression -- and we were lured back inside.
--Mary Varnham, "Voices of young and old are rarely heard," The Evening Post (Wellington, New Zealand), March 30, 1995

And at the centre of this intense display of devotion Carlo himself, bearing aloft the relic of the Holy Nail from the cathedral, shoeless and oblivious to his bleeding feet, walked amid a dolorous procession of penitents.
--Helen Langdon, Caravaggio: A Life


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Dolorous derives from Latin dolor, "pain, grief, sorrow," from dolere, "to suffer pain, to grieve."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday September 2, 2004

plenipotentiary

\plen-uh-puh-TEN-shee-air-ee; -shuh-ree\, adjective:
Containing or conferring full power; invested with full power; as, "plenipotentiary license; plenipotentiary ministers."

noun:
A person invested with full power to transact any business; especially, an ambassador or diplomatic agent with full power to negotiate a treaty or to transact other business.

There were two accounts, one in a news article, the second in the editorial section, telling the minihistory of Pol Pot, sometime plenipotentiary ruler of Cambodia.
--William F. Buckley Jr., The Redhunter

At that time, Egypt was our protectorate, which meant the High Commissioner was the plenipotentiary of George V and carried independent authority.
--David Freeman, One of Us


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Plenipotentiary derives from Latin plenus, "full" + potens, "powerful."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday September 3, 2004

myriad

\MIR-ee-uhd\, adjective:
1. Consisting of a very great, but indefinite, number; as, myriad stars.
2. Composed of numerous diverse elements or aspects.

noun:
1. The number of ten thousand; ten thousand persons or things.
(Chiefly in reference to the Greek numeral system, or in translations from Greek or Latin).
2. An immense number; a very great many; an indefinitely large number.

Home is a place to which one is attached by myriad habits of thought and behavior--culturally acquired, of course, yet in time they become so intimately woven into everyday existence that they seem primordial and the essence of one's being.
--Yi-Fu Tuan, Escapism

Hawks and condors hunted all along the river, while myriad other bird species including cuckoos, owls, vireos, and woodpeckers inhabited the willow groves that flourished along its course.
--Blake Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River

The myriad mind of Shakespeare.
--H. Reed, Lectures on the British Poets

The catastrophic melting of Earth's surface is just one out of a myriad of events that are waiting to occur as the universe and its contents grow older.
--Fred Adams and Greg Laughlin, The Five Ages of the Universe


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Myriad is from Greek myrias, myriad-, "ten thousand; a myriad," from myrios, "numberless; countless; ten thousand."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday September 4, 2004

bricolage

\bree-koh-LAHZH; brih-\, noun:
Construction or something constructed by using whatever materials happen to be available.

The Internet is a global bricolage, lashing together unthinkable complexities of miscellaneous computers with temporary lengths of phone line and fiber optic, bits of Ethernet cable and strings of code.
--Bernard Sharratt, "Only Connected," New York Times, December 17, 1995

Cooking with leftovers was bricolage--a dialogue between the cook and the available materials.
--Susan Strasser, Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash

I point out to my students that no one ever really reads Hamlet for the first time now; we've heard it all before in bits and pieces, cultural bricolage.
--Marjorie Garber, "Back to Whose Basics?" New York Times, October 29, 1995


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Bricolage comes from the French, from bricole, "trifle; small job."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday September 5, 2004

malodorous

\mal-OH-duhr-uhs\, adjective:
Having a bad odor.

Working inside this tomb means coming to terms with rock falls, malodorous dust and faulty electrical supplies.
--John Ray, "Splendid Digs," New York Times, October 18, 1998

But people were accustomed to the odors of chamber pots and outdoor privies and to the stench of manure on city streets as well as in the country. Even the most refined could scarcely have been squeamish about malodorous garbage.
--Susan Strasser, Waste and Want


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Malodorous is from Latin mal-, "bad" + odorus, from odor, "smell."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday September 6, 2004

pied-a-terre
\pee-ay-duh-TAIR; pyay-dah-TAIR\,
plural pieds-a-terre
\pee-ay-duh-TAIR; pyay-dah-TAIR\: noun;

A temporary or second place of lodging.

And with Frank on the move so much of the time, shuttling between . . . offices and factories in Europe and Asia and South America, it made sense for her to establish some kind of pied-a-terre in New York.
--Amanda Vaill, Everybody Was So Young

. . . gentlemen with estates in the country who wished to have a pied-a-terre in town.
--Michael Ignatieff, Isaiah Berlin: A Life


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Pied-a-terre is from French, literally "foot to the ground."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday September 7, 2004

epicene

\EP-uh-seen\, adjective:
1. Having the characteristics of both sexes.
2. Effeminate; unmasculine.
3. Sexless; neuter.
4. (Linguistics) Having but one form of the noun for both the male and the female.

noun:
1. A person or thing that is epicene.
2. (Linguistics) An epicene word.


He has a clear-eyed, epicene handsomeness -- cruel, sensuous mouth; cheekbones to cut your heart on -- the sort of excessive beauty that is best appreciated in repose on a 50-foot screen.
--Franz Lidz, "Jude Law: He Didn't Turn Out Obscure at All," New York Times, May 13, 2001

She smothers (almost literally at times) her weak, epicene son Vladimir, and is prepared to commit any crime to see him become Tsar, despite his reluctance.
--Ronald Bergan, Sergei Eisenstein: A Life in Conflict


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Epicene derives from Latin epicoenus, from Greek epikoinos, "common to," from epi-, "upon" + koinos, "common."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday September 8, 2004

skulduggery, also skullduggery

\skul-DUG-uh-ree\, noun:
Devious, dishonest, or unscrupulous behavior or activity; also: an instance thereof.

And then the inquests, and the coroner's reports, and the hints of diplomatic cover-ups, and skulduggery in high places.
--Hilary Mantel, Eight Months on Ghazzah Street

Laptop theft was the third most common electronic skulduggery, behind viruses (84 percent) and unauthorized employee use of computers and software (78 percent), according to the survey by the Computer Security Institute in San Francisco.
--Michael Cooper, "Low Tech Joins the Fight Against High-Tech Theft," New York Times, April 23, 1998

For instance, the Federal Trade Commission already goes after some kinds of Internet skulduggery, like selling products that promise more than they deliver.
--David Stout, "New Internet Anti-Fraud Center Announced by Attorney General," New York Times, May 8, 2000


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The origin of skulduggery is unknown.

[Augustine2004]

What skulduggery has been commited that there is no word today? Fear not, friends, into the breach I rush . . .

breach

noun 1. A violation or infraction, as of a law, obligation, contract or promise.
2. A gap or rift, especially in a solid structure such as a dike or fortification.
3. A breaking up or disruption of friendly relations, an estrangement.

The defendant was declared to be in breach of the contract with Maraby. The whale breached the surface in a magnificent shower of spray. The L'Hopital affair caused a breach between Great Britian and France.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Sorry, Augie. Not sure why it didn't post.

Word of the Day for Thursday September 9, 2004

adage

\AD-ij\, noun:
An old saying, which has obtained credit by long use; a proverb.

Did she sense the proverbial limp in my walk: proverbial as the Somali adage in which it is said that a lie has a lame leg, truth a healthy one.
--Nuruddin Farah, Secrets

We may find out too late the wisdom of the adage that cautions us to be careful what we wish for lest we get it.
--Charles Murray, What It Means to Be a Libertarian

"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me," the old adage goes.
--Zachary Karabell "No Left Turn," New York Times, September 24, 2000


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Adage derives from the Latin adagium (akin to aio, "I say").

Trivia: It is sometimes said that the expression "old adage" is redundant, since an adage is by definition a saying with some tradition behind it. But the first recorded instance of the word in the Oxford English Dictionary occurs in the phrase "old adage": "He forgat the olde adage, saynge in tyme of peace provyde for warre."

Synonyms: aphorism, proverb, saw, saying.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday September 10, 2004

wizened

\WIZ-und\, adjective:
Dried; shriveled; withered; shrunken; as, "a wizened old man."

Her eyes were clear and shining, full of love, and set deeply in the creases of her wizened face.
--Catherine Whitney, The Calling

At five foot six, 130 pounds, Erdos had the wizened, cadaverous look of a drug addict, but friends insist he was frail and gaunt long before he started taking amphetamines.
--Paul Hoffman, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers

A thorny bramble bearing wizened leaves grew with the bittersweet in a crevice that ran downhill from the duo of trees.
--Mary Parker Buckles, Margins: A Naturalist Meets Long Island Sound


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Wizened is the past participle of wizen, "to wither, to dry," from the Old English wisnian.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday September 11, 2004

indefatigable

\in-dih-FAT-ih-guh-bul\, adjective:
Incapable of being fatigued; not yielding to fatigue; not readily exhausted; untiring; unwearying.

For the next thirteen years, with indefatigable zeal he rummages the libraries for charts and details of the spice trade and Pacific voyages.
--Alan Gurney, Below the Convergence

She was always seeking to add to her collection and was an indefatigable first-nighter at Broadway shows.
--Meryle Secrest, Stephen Sondheim: A Life

Ernest Hemingway was, luckily, an indefatigable letter-writer.
--Carlos Baker, "A Search for the Man As He Really Was," New York Times, July 26, 1964


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Indefatigable comes from Latin indefatigabilis, from in-, "not" + defatigare, "to tire out," from de-, intensive prefix + fatigare, "to weary."

Synonyms: active, tireless, unflagging, vigorous.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday September 12, 2004

disport

\dis-PORT\, intransitive verb:
To amuse oneself in light or lively manner; to frolic.

transitive verb:
1. To divert or amuse.
2. To display.

If you confine the kids' drinking to the college area, they will disport there and lessen the problem of the drunken car ride coming back from the out-of-town bar.
--William F. Buckley Jr., "Let's Drink to It," National Review, February 27, 2001

I had to laugh, picturing Stuart and me in a red enamel tub, disporting ourselves among the suds.
--Jacquelyn Mitchard, The Most Wanted

Few of the "carriage ladies and gentlemen" who disport themselves in Newport during the summer months, yachting and dancing through the short season, then flitting away to fresh fields and pastures new, realize that their daintily shod feet have been treading historic ground, or care to cast a thought back to the past.
--Eliot Gregory, Worldly Ways and Byways

. . . those dolphins and narwhals who disport themselves upon the edges of old maps.
--Virginia Woolf, Night and Day


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Disport derives from Old French desporter, "to divert," from des-, "apart" (from Latin dis-) + porter, "to carry" (from Latin portare) -- hence to disport is at root "to carry apart, or away" (from business or seriousness).

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday September 13, 2004

appellation

\ap-uh-LAY-shun\, noun:
1. The word by which a particular person or thing is called and known; name; title; designation.
2. The act of naming.

For as long as Olympia can remember, her mother has been referred to, within her hearing and without, as an invalid -- an appellation that does not seem to distress her mother and indeed appears to be one she herself cultivates.
--Anita Shreve, Fortune's Rocks

A communist or a revolutionary, for example, would likely readily accept and admit that he is in fact a communist or a revolutionary. Indeed, many would doubtless take particular pride in claiming either of those appellations for themselves.
--Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism

I feel honored by yet undeserving of the appellation "novelist." I am merely a craftsperson, a cabinetmaker of texts and occasionally, I hope, a witness to our times.
--Francine Du Plessix Gray, "I Write for Revenge Against Reality," New York Times, September 12, 1982


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Appellation comes from Latin appellatio, from appellare, "to name."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday September 14, 2004

longueur

\long-GUR\, noun:
A dull and tedious passage in a book, play, musical composition, or the like.

One of the commentators compared my speech to one of Gladstone's which had lasted five hours. "It was not so long, but some of the speech's . . . longueurs made Gladstone seem the soul of brevity," he wrote.
--Lord Lamont of Lerwick, "Been there, done that," Times (London), March 6, 2001

If this book of 400 pages had been devoted to her alone, it would have been filled with longueurs, but as the biography of a family it has the merit of originality.
--Peter Ackroyd, review of Gwen Raverat: Friends, Family and Affections, by Frances Spalding, Times (London), June 27, 2001

This book . . . has its defects. Sometimes it loses focus (as in a longueur on Chechens living in Jordan).
--Colin Thubron, "Birth of a Hundred Nations," New York Times, November 19, 2000


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Longueur is from French (where it means "length"), ultimately deriving from Latin longus, "long," which is also the source of English long.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday September 15, 2004

rivulet

\RIV-yuh-lut\, noun:
A small stream or brook; a streamlet.

But Stephen speaks of water in the desert, and triumphal swelling progress: raindrop, runnel, rivulet, river, sea.
--Blake Morrison, As If

There was a rivulet of scummy water heading for his highly polished black shoe.
--Joanne Harris, Chocolat

After two minutes in the steam chamber, sweat began to flow in rivulets from every pore in my body, dripping steadily from my fingertips.
--Fen Montaigne, Reeling in Russia


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Rivulet is from Italian rivoletto, diminutive of rivolo, from Latin rivulus, diminutive of rivus, "a brook, a stream."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday September 16, 2004

chimera

\ky-MIR-uh\, noun:
1. (Capitalized) A fire-breathing she-monster represented as having a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail.
2. Any imaginary monster made up of grotesquely incongruous parts.
3. An illusion or mental fabrication; a grotesque product of the imagination.
4. An individual, organ, or part consisting of tissues of diverse genetic constitution, produced as a result of organ transplant, grafting, or genetic engineering.

Asa Whitney, with no previous experience and having nothing but his faith and self-assurance to tell him he was not pursuing a chimera, began to outline how he would get a railroad across the vast, uninhabited middle of the American continent to the Pacific shores, where the lure of Asia beckoned, within reach.
--David Haward Bain, Empire Express

She seems to spend most of the book sobbing, throwing up and generally marinating in a stew of self-absorption while searching fruitlessly for that chimera, her true self, inexpertly aided by astrologers and new-age therapists.
--"Cutting through fantasies to crazy life," USA Today, December 2, 1999

These "chimeras" can be created because of our power--derived from the recombinant DNA technology developed in the early 1970s--to move DNA from one species to another.
--Bryan Appleyard, Brave New Worlds


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Chimera comes from Latin chimaera, from Greek chimaira "she-goat, chimera."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday September 17, 2004

avoirdupois

\av-uhr-duh-POIZ; AV-uhr-duh-poiz\, noun:
1. Avoirdupois weight, a system of weights based on a pound containing 16 ounces or 7,000 grains (453.59 grams).
2. Weight; heaviness; as, a person of much avoirdupois.

Claydon . . . was happy to admit that he has shed some avoirdupois.
--Mel Webb, "Claydon's loss leads to net gain," Times (London), February 18, 2000

Yet until middle age and avoirdupois overtook her, Mary was no slouch.
--John Updike, "How to Milk a Millionaire," New York Times, March 29, 1987

Tired of putting on and taking off the same five pounds? Don't delay, buy this book today -- and watch yourself shed both respectability and surplus avoirdupois!
--David Galef, "'J. Faust's Guide to Power' And Other Self-Help Classics," New York Times, December 18, 1994


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Avoirdupois is from Middle English avoir de pois, "goods sold by weight," from Old French aveir de peis, literally "goods of weight," from aveir, "property, goods" (from aveir, "to have," from Latin habere, "to have, to hold, to possess property") + de, "from" (from the Latin) + peis, "weight," from Latin pensum, "weight."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday September 18, 2004

machination

\mack-uh-NAY-shuhn; mash-\, noun:
1. The act of plotting.
2. A crafty scheme; a cunning design or plot intended to accomplish some usually evil end.

He was telling me how he could have married the royal princess as a reward for his bravery in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where he was an infantryman in the Kaiserliche und Konigliche Austro-Hungarian army, but for the machinations of the evil Archduke somebody-or-other.
--George Lang, Nobody Knows the Truffles I've Seen

Alongside the various representations of sincere tears, then, are a series of representations of insincerity and emotional machination.
--Tom Lutz, Crying

To keep away from them and steer clear of their inveigling schemes and grasping machinations . . . has been my constant life-long effort.
--Jeff Stryker, "They Couldn't Resist: Oh, One Last Thing," New York Times, May 21, 2000

He declared that the tale he could tell would not be of generals or kings, for the political machinations of the great, he said, he was and had been in no position to observe.
--Steven Pressfield, Gates of Fire


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Machination derives from Latin machinatio, "a contrivance, a cunning device, a machination," from machinari, "to contrive, to devise, especially to plot evil." It is related to machine, from Latin machina, "any artificial contrivance for performing work." To machinate is to devise a plot, or engage in plotting. One who machinates is a machinator.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday September 19, 2004

calumny

\KAL-uhm-nee\, noun:
1. False accusation of a crime or offense, intended to injure another's reputation.
2. Malicious misrepresentation; slander.

They would see to it that every suspicious whisper and outright calumny would be repeated in print, breathing fire into the growing spirit of faction.
--William Safire, Scandalmonger

They protest to him against the universal order, and then reward his kind words by calumny and accusations of . . . inhumanity and cruelty.
--Paola Capriolo, Floria Tosca

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.
--Shakespeare, Hamlet


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Calumny comes, via Middle French, from Latin calumnia, from calvi, "to form intrigues, to deceive." The adjective form is calumnious.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday September 20, 2004

fatidic

\fuh-TID-ik\, adjective:
Of, relating to, or characterized by prophecy; prophetic.

Throughout his very considerable body of work, there is an obsession with time, with dates, with temporal coincidences, with the fatidic power of numbers over our birth and death.
--James Kirkup, "Obituary: Ernst Junger," Independent, February 18, 1998

With a fatidic clarity that comes only occasionally and only to the young, she understood that . . . this too was a sign, an omen.
--Kathleen Cambor, In Sunlight, in a Beautiful Garden


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Fatidic comes from Latin fatidicus, from fati- (from fatum, "fate") + -dicus (from dicere, "to say").

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday September 21, 2004

tatterdemalion

\tat-uhr-dih-MAYL-yuhn; -MAY-lee-uhn\, noun:
A person dressed in tattered or ragged clothing; a ragamuffin.

adjective:
Tattered; ragged.
Last time peasant blouses surfaced, in the 1960s and '70s, they were part of an epidemic of Indian bedspread dresses, homemade blue-jean skirts, Army surplus jackets, Greek bookbag purses and love beads, the whole eclectic tatterdemalion mix meant to express egalitarian sentiments and countercultural solidarity with underdogs everywhere.
--Patricia McLaughlin, "The peasant look," Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine, April 25, 1999

I was expecting a wild hair, clanking jewelry, a tatterdemalion velvet cape from whose folds wafted the scent of incense, a house full of candles, dream catchers, cats, and bad art.
--David Rakoff, Fraud

To my ear, though, the prose has the tatterdemalion feel of something hooked together by commas, tacked together by periods.
--Brad Leithauser,"Capturer of Hearts," New York Times, April 7, 1996


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Tatterdemalion derives from tatter + -demalion, of unknown origin, though perhaps from Old French maillon, "long clothes, swadding clothes" or Italian maglia, "undershirt."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday September 22, 2004

confabulation

\kon-FAB-yuh-lay-shuhn\, noun:
1. Familiar talk; easy, unrestrained, unceremonious conversation.
2. (Psychology) A plausible but imagined memory that fills in gaps in what is remembered.

Their sentiments were reflected neither in the elegant exchanges between the Viceroy and Secretary of State, nor in the unlovely confabulations between the Congress and the League managers.
--Mushirul Hasan, "Partition: The Human Cost," History Today, September 1997

Sigmund Freud, a stubborn, bullying interrogator of hysterical women, harangued his patients into building fantasies and traumas that fit into his grand narrative scheme, eliciting confabulations rather than actual memories.
--Jennifer Howard, "Neurosis 1990s-Style," Civilization, April/May 1997


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Confabulation comes from Late Latin confabulatio, from the past participle of Latin confabulari, "to talk together," from con-, "together, with" + fabulari, "to talk." It is related to fable, "a fiction, a tale," and to fabulous, "so incredible or astonishing as to resemble or suggest a fable."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday September 23, 2004

inkhorn

\INK-horn\, adjective:
Affectedly or ostentatiously learned; pedantic.

noun:
A small bottle of horn or other material formerly used for holding ink.

. . . the widespread use of what were called (dismissively, by truly learned folk) "inkhorn terms."
--Simon Winchester, "Word Imperfect," The Atlantic Monthly, May 2001

In prison he wrote the De Consolatione Philosophiae, his most celebrated work and one of the most translated works in history; it was translated . . . by Elizabeth I into florid, inkhorn language.
--The Oxford Companion to English Literature, s.v. "Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus (c. 475 - 525)."


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Inkhorn derives from the name for the container formerly used (beginning in the 14th century) for holding ink, originally made from a real horn. Hence it came to refer to words that were being used by learned writers and scholars but which were unknown or rare in ordinary speech.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday September 24, 2004

quash

\KWOSH\, transitive verb:
1. (Law) To abate, annul, overthrow, or make void; as, "to quash an indictment."
2. To crush; to subdue; to suppress or extinguish summarily and completely; as, "to quash a rebellion."

The Shelby Globe attributed her death to acute heart failure and yellow jaundice and did its best to quash a curious town rumor that had her being poisoned by eating oyster sandwiches.
--Tim Page, Dawn Powell: A Biography

The German-French entente made NATO intervention to quash the Balkan civil wars possible, and the collapse of the Soviet Union made NATO's intervention deep into the former Soviet sphere of influence permissible.
--Thomas L. Friedman, "Was Kosovo World War III?" New York Times, July 2, 1999

[The law] . . . also installed newspaper censorship, enabling the government to quash anything "calculated to jeopardise the success of the operations of any of His Majesty's forces or to assist the enemy."
--Philip Hoare, Oscar Wilde's Last Stand


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Quash comes from Medieval French quasser, from Latin quassare, "to shake violently, to shatter," frequentative form of quatere, "to shake." Quash, "to annul," has been sense-influenced by Late Latin cassare, "to annul," from Latin cassus, "empty," whereas quash, "to crush," has been sense-influenced by squash.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday September 25, 2004

wiseacre

\WY-zay-kuhr\, noun:
One who pretends to knowledge or cleverness; a would-be wise person; a smart aleck.

All across the United States, journalists and other wiseacres would soon have a field day with the popular mayor's personal problems and public trials.
--Herbert Mitgang, Once Upon a Time in New York

A wiseacre on the Oakland to Los Angeles shuttle this week said the next technological leap would be implanting cell phones into people's heads. He was kidding -- we think.
--Chuck Raasch, "California is November prize for candidates," USA Today August 24, 2000


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Wiseacre comes from Middle Dutch wijssegger, "a soothsayer," from Old High German wissago, alteration of wizago, "a prophet."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday September 26, 2004

cacophony

\kuh-KAH-fuh-nee\, noun:
1. Harsh or discordant sound; dissonance.
2. The use of harsh or discordant sounds in literary composition.

New York was then a cacophony of sounds -- a dozen accents ricocheting off surrounding buildings as immigrant mothers called their children home for supper, noon whistles blowing, vendors hawking their wares on the streets, children shouting, horses whinnying, and people yelling.
--Herbert G. Goldman, Banjo Eyes

The mammoth central station towered over the platforms, and with the cacophony from whooshing steam, shrill whistles, shouts and the heaving of hand and horse carts, not only was it the biggest, noisiest, most confusing experience any of them had ever encountered, but the city was almost unimaginable.
--Christopher Ogden, Legacy: A Biography of Moses and Walter Annenberg


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Cacophony comes from Greek kakophonia, from kakophonos, from kakos, "bad" + phone, "sound." The adjective form is cacophonous. The opposite of cacophony is euphony.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday September 27, 2004

excursus

\ik-SKUR-sus\, noun:
1. A dissertation that is appended to a work and that contains a more extended exposition of some important point or topic.
2. A digression.

And the eels not only have a role in the narrator's story . . . but receive a 12-page excursus on their genesis and (as it were) life style.
--William H. Pritchard, "The Body in the River Leem," New York Times, March 25, 1984

Sometimes, however, Mr. Honan's historical digressions wander far away from Jane Austen's concerns. An excursus on George III's insanity has precious little to do with "Pride and Prejudice," the subject nominally under discussion.
--Peter Conrad, "'Beside Her Joyce Seems Innocent as Grass,'" New York Times, February 28, 1988

Perhaps the most important objection to Mr. Hughes's method is that he views structural changes in both the Western and the Communist world systems chiefly through the filter of his rebels; sometimes I would have preferred an excursus on economic issues to one on intellectual history.
--Peter Schneider, "A New Breed at the Barricades," New York Times, January 8, 1989

Somewhat sprightlier than the long chapter on Stolypin is his 80-page historical excursus about Nicholas II, the last of Russia's hereditary autocrats.
--Irving Howe, "The Great War and Russian Memory," New York Times, July 2, 1989


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Excursus comes from the past participle of Latin excurrere, "to run out," from ex-, "out" + currere, "to run."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday September 28, 2004

credulous

\KREJ-uh-lus\, adjective:
1. Ready or inclined to believe on slight or uncertain evidence.
2. Based on or proceeding from a disposition to believe too readily.

Credulous monarchs were easy game for the numerous charlatans and tricksters who toured the courts of Europe trying to dupe them into parting with real gold by means of little more than a promise that they would repay such investments thousandfold.
--Janet Gleeson, The Arcanum

To her critics, she was a madam and con artist who charged credulous clients . . . small fortunes to cast spells and bring about the deaths of rivals.
--Laurence Bergreen, Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life

And unless our educational system focuses more on teaching students how to think than on what to think, our populace will become increasingly credulous.
--Theodore Schick Jr., "The End of Science?" Skeptical Inquirer, March/April 1997


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Credulous derives from Latin credulus, "believing easily," from credere, "to believe

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday September 29, 2004

harangue

\huh-RANG\, noun:
1. A speech addressed to a large public assembly.
2. A noisy or pompous speech; a rant.

transitive verb:
To deliver a harangue to; to address by a harangue.

intransitive verb:
To make a harangue; to declaim.

His emissaries, had attended the Priest's convocation of the people, and, without delaying to hear more than the main point of the harangue, hurried back with their intelligence to the rebel camp.
--Wilkie Collins, Iolani: Or, Tahiti as It Was

Wont to harangue the citizenry in public speeches with such lines as "Remember! My father gave you freedom!" Mrs. Gandhi did not take lightly to government officers with an independent turn of mind.
--Gita Mehta, Snakes and Ladders

Mostly, though, he functions as Exhibit A in the playwright's harangue against capitalist exploitation of the workingman.
--Matthew Gurewitsch, "A Country of Lesser Giants," New York Times, April 4, 1999

And Alexander Lebed, a Siberian governor and presidential hopeful, seemed to typify the punchy, touchy national mood when he lost control recently in front of television cameras and harangued a local businessman with bleeped-out expletives.
--Michael R. Gordon, "On Russia's Far-East Fringe, Unrealpolitik," New York Times, February 14, 1999

She was hardly anyone's idea of a good time, but at least she kept her hands to herself and showed him considerable amounts of affection, enough warmth of heart to counterbalance the periods when she nagged him and harangued him and got on his nerves.
--Paul Auster, Timbuktu


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Harangue derives from Medieval French arenge, from Old Italian aringa, from aringare, "to speak in public," from aringo, "a public place for horse racing and popular assemblies," ultimately of Germanic origin.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday September 30, 2004

ignoble

\ig-NOH-bul\, adjective:
1. Of low birth or family; not noble; not illustrious; plebeian; common; humble.
2. Not noble in quality, character, or purpose; characterized by baseness, lowness, or meanness.

Heroes are only human. Their noble deeds inspire, as they should. Their ignoble deeds make clear that even the greatest human is no god.
--Don Wyclif, "Dr. King's Moral Debit," New York Times, November 14, 1989

Although she returns to Ireland, Billy counts on her coming back to marry him, and when Dennis tells him she has died from pneumonia, he's shattered for life, drowning his romantic sorrow in alcohol and sliding passively toward a drunk's ignoble death.
--Celia McGee, "'Billy' captivates with quiet strength," USA Today, December 2, 1999


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Ignoble derives from Latin ignobilis, from in- "not" + nobilis (Old Latin gnobilis), "noble."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday October 1, 2004

enunciate

\ee-NUN-see-ayt; ih-\, transitive verb:
1. To utter articulately; to pronounce.
2. To state or set forth precisely or systematically.
3. To announce; to proclaim; to declare.

intransitive verb:
To utter words or syllables articulately.

And all agree that he was from his college days a wonderful speaker, one who enunciated clearly and crisply and never seemed to have to grope for a word.
--Louis Auchincloss, Woodrow Wilson

John Maynard Keynes, a famous economist and outstandingly successful investor, enunciated the theory most lucidly in 1936.
--Burton G. Malkiel, A Random Walk Down Wall Street

His concern about America's incipient drift out of manufacturing was widely challenged by many feel-good commentators, who proceeded to enunciate the now widely accepted doctrine that a shift to postindustrialism would boost U.S. income growth.
--Eamonn Fingleton, In Praise of Hard Industries

This is such an obvious, commonsensical truism that it seems almost foolish to enunciate it.
--Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism


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Enunciate comes from Latin enuntiare, "to tell; to disclose; to declare; to pronounce clearly," from e- + nuntiare, "to announce," from nuntius, "a messenger."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday October 2, 2004

acclimate

\uh-KLY-mit; AK-luh-mayt\, transitive and intransitive verb:
To accustom or become accustomed to a new climate, environment, or situation.

"Getting acclimated to being in the suburbs, Sally?" Mrs. Westin asked.
--Julia Slavin, The Woman Who Cut Off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club and Other Stories

The Korbels did not have much time to pull their lives together and acclimate themselves to English culture.
--Ann Blackman, Seasons of Her Life


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Acclimate is from French acclimater, from a-, "to" (from Latin ad-) + climat, "climate," from Late Latin clima, climat-, from Greek klima, "inclination; the supposed slope of the earth toward the pole; region; clime," from klinein, "to lean."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday October 3, 2004

cudgel

\KUH-juhl\, noun:
A short heavy stick used as a weapon; a club.

transitive verb:
To beat with or as if with a cudgel.

Whatever had been making her dogs uneasy, she'd have to handle it on her own. Rosie Bowe took a heavy piece of firewood as a cudgel and followed them.
--Jim Crace, Signals of Distress

The Grand Vizier Kuprili of Constantinople, for example, . . . closed the city's coffeehouses. Anyone caught drinking coffee was soundly cudgeled.
--Mark Pendergrast, Uncommon Grounds


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Cudgel derives from Old English cycgel.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday October 4, 2004

abulia, also aboulia

\uh-BOO-lee-uh; uh-BYOO-\, noun:
Loss or impairment of the ability to act or to make decisions.

I was suffering from an aboulia, you know. I couldn't seem to make decisions.
--Anatole Broyard, "Reading and Writing; (Enter Pound and Eliot)," New York Times, May 30, 1982

There's little escape from her black hole of abulia.
--James Saynor, "Woman in the Midst of a Nervous Breakdown," New York Times, June 12, 1994


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Abulia derives from Greek a-, "without" + boule, "will." The adjective form is abulic

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday October 5, 2004

didactic

\dy-DAK-tik; duh-\, adjective:
1. Fitted or intended to teach; conveying instruction; instructive; teaching some moral lesson; as, "didactic essays."
2. Inclined to teach or moralize excessively; moralistic.

The show trial may be defined as a public theatrical performance in the form of a trial, didactic in purpose, intended not to establish the guilt of the accused but rather to demonstrate the heinousness of the person's crimes.
--Sheila Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism

In class, embarrassed girlish laughter joined the "hee-haws" of our male classmates when centerfolds appeared in the middle of medical lectures, ostensibly to add a wake-up jolt to otherwise uninspired didactic presentations.
--Frances K. Conley, M.D., Walking Out on the Boys

While Cooper offers a nice message about the demands of friendship and the need to share and be flexible, her writing is not the least bit didactic or dogmatic.
--Stephen Del Vecchio, review of Pumpkin Soup, by Helen Cooper, Teacher Magazine, May 2000


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Didactic comes from Greek didaktikos, "skillful in teaching," from didaktos, "taught," from didaskein, "to teach, to educate."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday October 6, 2004

rapprochement

\rap-rosh-MAWN\, noun:
The establishment or state of cordial relations.

Mikhail Gorbachev and his team of self-described reformers were publicly heralding a new era of rapprochement with the West.
--Ken Alibek with Stephen Handelman, Biohazard

The documentary record of initial White House-level efforts to initiate rapprochement with China . . . remains slim.
--William Burr, The Kissinger Transcripts

But I have no desire for some kissy rapprochement.
--Zoë Heller, Everything You Know


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Rapprochement comes from the French, from rapprocher, "to bring nearer," from Middle French, from re- + approcher, "to approach," from Old French aprochier, from Late Latin appropire, from Latin ad- + propius, "nearer," comparative of prope, "near."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday October 7, 2004

tremulous

\TREM-yuh-luhs\, adjective:
1. Shaking; shivering; quivering; as, a tremulous motion of the hand or the lips; the tremulous leaf of the poplar.
2. Affected with fear or timidity; trembling.

With an address for his father at last in his possession, Sead could scarcely contain a tremulous excitement.
--Roger Cohen, Hearts Grown Brutal

In any event, when I thrust myself out of bed so violently, my heart became tremulous, . . . and I had the direst sense of mortality I have ever experienced.
--Jim Harrison, The Road Home


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Tremulous comes from Latin tremulus, from tremere, "to tremble."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday October 8, 2004

histrionic

\his-tree-ON-ik\, adjective:
1. Of or relating to actors, acting, or the theater; befitting a theater; theatrical.
2. Overly dramatic; deliberately affected.

As late as 1895, when George Bernard Shaw was reviewing new London productions of scripts by Henry James and Oscar Wilde, he was dealing with the interpretations imposed by an actor-manager, who would often select a play mainly because it had a role that promised to showcase his particular histrionic talents.
--Wendy Lesser, A Director Calls

And the same is true for the other judgments we make about tears, as when we deem them to be normal or excessive, sincere or manipulative, expressive or histrionic.
--Tom Lutz, Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears

Rose does have too many repetitive, histrionic fits.
--Frank Rich, "Miller's 'American Clock,'" New York Times, November 21, 1980


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Histrionic comes from Latin histrionicus, from histrio, histrion-, "an actor."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday October 9, 2004

cohort

\KOH-hort\, noun:
1. A group or band of people.
2. A companion; an associate.
3. A group of people sharing a common statistical factor (as age or membership in a class) in a demographic study.
4. (Roman Antiquity) A body of about 300 to 600 soldiers; the tenth part of a legion.
5. Any group or body of warriors.

Ultimately we could have the know-how to breed these groups of human beings -- called 'clones' after the Greek word for a throng -- to produce a cohort of super-astronauts or dustmen, soldiers or senators, each with identical physical and mental characteristics most suited to do the job they have to do.
--William Breckon

"We," he indicated his cohorts, "are stopping at the Marriot.
--Hilary Mantel, Eight Months on Ghazzah Street

[I]f his own cohorts strayed from the path of honor, he was quick to become the most terrible of enemies.
--Adrian Frazier, George Moore, 1852-1933

Worldwide, about 7 percent of the relevant age cohort (twenty to twenty-four years) attend postsecondary educational institutions--a statistic that has shown an increase each decade since World War II.
--Thomas J. Stanley, The Millionaire Next Door

Some of Custer's harsh juvenile humor was shared by his cavalry cohort, who put a premium on toughness.
--Louise Barnett, Touched by Fire


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Cohort derives from Latin cohors, "an enclosure, a yard," hence, "a division of an army camp," hence "a troop, a company," hence, "a division of the Roman army."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday October 10, 2004

egress

\EE-gress\, noun:
1. The act of going out or leaving, or the right or freedom to leave; departure.
2. A means of going out or leaving; an exit; an outlet.

intransitive verb \ee-GRESS\:
To go out; to depart; to leave.

Today gates and walls, much more hard and fixed barriers than street patterns, control entrance and egress in suburban subdivisions and urban neighborhoods around the country.
--Edward J. Blakely and Mary Gail Snyder, Fortress America

New York's superb natural harbor and its links westward via the Erie Canal and, later, several trunk railroads made it an ideal entry and egress point for goods and people.
--Joshua B. Freeman, Working-Class New York

In order to keep the crowds moving through the exhibits in his traveling show . . . Mr. [P.T.] Barnum posted signs that read: "This Way to the Egress." Eager to view this presumably strange and exotic exhibit, the throngs would push through the door labeled "Egress" -- and find themselves in the street.
--Laurie A. O'Neill, "Almanac Is Itself a Rare Occurrence," New York Times, December 27, 1981


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Egress is from Latin egressus, from egredi, "to go out," from e-, "out" + gradi, "to step."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday October 12, 2004

effusive

\ih-FYOO-siv\, adjective:
Excessively demonstrative; giving or involving extravagant or excessive emotional expression; gushing.

His speeches are embarrassingly effusive; treacle drips from their pages: "I yield to none in my admiration for our teachers, doctors, nurses and police . . . Our public servants are the best in the world, and when given the leadership and investment they need, they achieve world-class standards."
--Mary Ann Sieghart, "Blair lays bare his iron fist for change," Times (London), June 1, 2001

The effusive praise of critics has no doubt bolstered Beowulf's popularity.
--Brendan I. Koerner, "Required reading," U.S. News, March 20, 2000

This rectitude, even severity, was also a roundabout way of showing his affection and his generosity, for he was altogether incapable of indulging in effusive sentimentality.
--Patrice Debré, Louis Pasteur (translated by Elborg Forster)


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Effusive, at root meaning "pouring out," comes from Latin effusus, past participle of effundere, "to pour out," from ex-, "out" + fundere, "to pour."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday October 13, 2004

obeisance

\oh-BEE-suhn(t)s; oh-BAY-suhn(t)s\, noun:
1. An expression of deference or respect, such as a bow or curtsy.
2. Deference, homage.

They made obeisance right to the floor, coiling like bright snakes from the arms of their astonished handlers.
--Ann Wroe, Pontius Pilate

His presence was betrayed to Miloš, who ordered his execution and then sent his rival's head to the Sultan to demonstrate his obeisance.
--Misha Glenny, The Balkans

In all, it had served to create a highly restrictive society where the arrogance of superiors was as ingrained as their subordinates' fawning obeisance.
--Robert Whiting, Tokyo Underworld


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Obeisance comes from Old French obeissance, from obeissant, present participle of obeir, "to obey," from Latin oboedire, "to listen to," from ob-, "to" + audire, "to hear." The adjective form is obeisant.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday October 14, 2004

affray

\uh-FRAY\, noun:
A tumultuous assault or quarrel; a brawl.

Mounted encounters by armored knights locked in desperate hand-to-hand combat, stabbing and wrestling in tavern brawls, deceits and brutalities in street affrays, balletic homicide on the dueling field--these were the martial arts of Renaissance Europe.
--Sydney Anglo, The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe

An Irish soldier was stabbed with a boar spear by a German mercenary in 1544 during an affray that followed Henry VIII's capture of Boulogne.
--James Williams, "Hunting, hawking and the early Tudor gentleman," History Today, August 2003


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Affray comes from Old French esfrei, from esfreer, "to disquiet, to frighten."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday October 15, 2004

prima facie

\PRY-muh-FAY-shee; -shuh\, adverb:
At first view; on the first appearance.

adjective:
1. True, valid, or adequate at first sight; as it seems at first sight; ostensible.
2. Self-evident; obvious.
3. (Law) Sufficient to establish a fact or a case unless disproved.


Rather, they are the product of considerable artistry in the analysis and exposition of statistical data, giving the conclusions a prima facie credibility.
--Arnold R. Weber, "Keeping Management Awake," New York Times, June 10, 1984

With all rich men and women there is, of course, a substantial body of populist literature that concludes that their riches were won from the labor of others, or that the structure of capitalist society ensured that the rich would grow richer as the poor grew poorer, or that riches are prima facie evidence of unethical behavior.
--Robin W. Winks, Laurance S. Rockefeller: Catalyst for Conservation

Consumers pick up a CD at the store and think the difference between the 60 cents it takes to make a disk and the $16 retail price is prima facie evidence of gouging. But the dreary economic facts are these: Subtract all the costs and the overhead that serves to support other artists under the same roof, and the net profit that the record company retains is about 59 cents per CD.
--Randall E. Stross, "Napster nonsense," U.S.News & World Report, May 29, 2000


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Prima facie is from the Latin phrase meaning "at first appearance."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday October 16, 2004

undulant

\UN-juh-lunt; UN-dyuh-\, adjective:
Resembling waves in form, motion, or occurrence.

Finally he stood and moved to the side of the craft that had edged up to the freighter, his feet planted wide against the undulant rocking and swaying of the current.
--Tom Clancy and Martin Greenberg, Ruthless.com

The undulant landscape looks serene in every direction.
--Frances Mayes, Under The Tuscan Sun


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Undulant is from Late Latin undula, "a small wave," diminutive of Latin unda, "wave."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday October 17, 2004

convivial

\kuhn-VIV-ee-uhl\, adjective:
Relating to, occupied with, or fond of feasting, drinking, and good company; merry; festive.

The convivial atmosphere would continue on the way home, with a bag of toffees and more stories including, quite often, the story of How Grandpa Was Found.
--"The foundling who got a life and a history," Times, January 6, 2000

He hated to drink to excess, disliked convivial entertaining and had no gift for bonhomie.
--Stella Tillyard, Citizen Lord

Young Sam, steeped in the family's endless storytelling, confessions, musings about their aspirations, and bickering about politics, seemed destined to become happy and convivial.
--Andrew Hoffman, Inventing Mark Twain


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Convivial comes from Latin convivium, "a feast, entertainment, a banquet," from conviva, "a table-companion, a guest," from convivere, "to live with, hence to feast with," from com-, con-, with + vivere, "to live."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday October 18, 2004

maunder

\MON-duhr\, intransitive verb:
1. To talk incoherently; to speak in a rambling manner.
2. To wander aimlessly or confusedly.

[T]wo drunken couples . . . maunder in an all-too-familiar vein about love.
--Anatole Broyard, New York Times, April 15, 1981

It is a play with melodramatic themes, but García Lorca has put aside temptation to let it maunder, scream or otherwise let the emotions take over.
--Richard F. Shepard, "Stage: 'Bernarda Alba' Produced in Spanish," New York Times, November 23, 1979

As in one of his earlier novels , . . . Kerr invents a credibly grim scenario for our future: most of the earth's inhabitants are infected with a deadly virus and maunder in fetid cities.
--Charles Flowers, "Blood on the Moon (Really!)," New York Times, February 14, 1999


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Maunder is perhaps a dialectal variant of meander (possibly influenced by wander).

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday October 19, 2004

corpulent \KOR-pyuh-luhnt\, adjective:
Very fat; obese.

He grew ever more corpulent and suffered from "a variety of physical ailments aggravated by the greasy Tennessee food."
--Scott Morris, "Keeper of the Flame," National Review, April 28, 2001

She admonished the character played by the corpulent Welles to "lay off the candy bars."
--Peter B. Flint, "Marlene Dietrich, 90, Symbol of Glamour, Dies," New York Times, May 7, 1992


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Corpulent comes from Latin corpulentus, "fat, stout, corpulent," from corpus, "body."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday October 20, 2004

popinjay

\POP-in-jay\, noun:
A vain and talkative person.

One popinjay shrieking from the left and another from the right about last week's headlines is not the whole of Washington's political dramas. Occasionally, American politics is more complicated and more momentous.
--R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., "Feds Go Drug Crazy," American Spectator, May 26, 2000

A writer who appreciates the seriousness of writing so little that he is anxious to make people see he is formally educated, cultured or well-bred is merely a popinjay.
--Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon

The dignified, high density of personality of [Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart] is completely missing from our popinjay contemporary actors.
--Camille Paglia, Salon, March 1998


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Popinjay is from Middle English papejay, popingay, meaning "parrot," from Old French papegai, deriving ultimately from Arabic babagha.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday October 21, 2004

vatic

\VAT-ik\, adjective:
Of or characteristic of a prophet or prophecy; prophetic; oracular.

[He] needs to be reminded that . . . his poetry is just that -- poetry, not the vatic revelation of spiritual truth.
--Ruth Franklin, "Black Milk of Language," New Republic, December 25, 2000

One encounters plenty of vatic pronouncements in the pages devoted to, among others, Muriel Rukeyser, Kenneth Rexroth, William Everson, H. D. and Olson.
--William H. Pritchard, "Eliot, Frost, Ma Rainey and the Rest," New York Times, April 2, 2000


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Vatic comes from Latin vates, "a prophet, a soothsayer, a seer."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday October 23, 2004

caterwaul

\KAT-uhr-wawl\, intransitive verb:
1. To make a harsh cry.
2. To have a noisy argument.

noun:
A shrill, discordant sound.
John met Angela head-to-head and there was a lot of bellowing and caterwauling.
--Matthew Parris, "Prescott grapples with his feminine side," Times (London), December 14, 2000

In the early days, when people were still shocked by the novelty of cursing, screaming, caterwauling emotional incontinents attacking each other on stage, he [Jerry Springer] used to produce high-falutin' justifications for the show.
--Paul Hoggart, "Paul Hoggart's television choice," Times (London), December 9, 2000

The forest silence is impermeable, entirely undisturbed by the soft bell notes of hidden birds, the tick of descending leaves and twigs or soft thump of falling fruit, or even the far caterwaul of monkeys.
--Peter Matthiessen, African Silences


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Caterwaul is from Middle English caterwawen, "to cry as a cat," either from Medieval Dutch kater, "tomcat" + Dutch wauwelen, "to tattle," or for catawail, from cat-wail, "to wail like a cat."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday October 24, 2004

acerbic

\uh-SUR-bik\, adjective:
Sharp, biting, or acid in temper, expression, or tone.

But more than that, he is a social critic, and an efficient one, acerbic and devastating.
--Benoit Aubin, "Quebec's King of Comedy," Maclean's, August 27, 2001

Since I started out as a writer many years ago, I have built a reputation as an acerbic, mean-spirited observer of the human condition.
--Joe Queenan, My Goodness: A Cynic's Short-Lived Search for Sainthood

Joey gained a reputation as a smart aleck adept at delivering acerbic one-liners.
--"Joseph Heller, Author of 'Catch-22,' Dies at 76," New York Times, December 14, 1999


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Acerbic comes from Latin acerbus, "bitter, sour, severe, harsh."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday October 25, 2004

heterogeneous

\het-uh-ruh-JEE-nee-uhs; -JEE-nyuhs\, adjective:
Consisting of dissimilar elements, parts, or ingredients -- opposed to homogeneous.

According to the historian Albert Fein, New York embodied "the challenge of a democratic nation's capacity to plan for and maintain an urban environment to meet the needs of a uniquely heterogeneous population."
--Robert A. M. Stern, et al., New York 1880

He worked texture and color into the mortar and cement with heterogeneous bits of found junk, from seashells and stones to busted chunks of Phillips' Milk of Magnesia bottles.
--Gene Santoro, Myself When I Am Real

Fragmentation was inevitable within such a heterogeneous group, whose members had little in common.
--Lilia Shevtsova, et al., Yeltsin's Russia


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Heterogeneous derives from Greek heterogenes, from heter-, "other, different" + genos, "kind."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for heterogeneous

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday October 26, 2004

rodomontade

\rod-uh-muhn-TADE; roh-duh-; -TAHD\, noun:
Vain boasting; empty bluster; pretentious, bragging speech; rant.

These are rejoinders born out of a need to deflate a balloon filled with what others view as pomposity or rodomontade.
--Corey Mesler, "Dispatch #1: Buying the Bookstore (The Early Days)," ForeWord, August 2000

The very absurdity of some of his later claims (inventors of jazz, originators of swing) . . . has made him an easy target in a way far beyond anything generated by that other (and in some ways quite similar) master of rodomontade, Jelly Roll Morton.
--Richard M. Sudhalter, Lost Chords

. . . the me-me-me rodomontade of macho rap.
--Nicholas Barber, "In the very bleak midwinter," Independent, January 7, 1996

But what he said -- that if any official came to his house to requisition his pistol, he'd better shoot straight -- was more rodomontade than a call to arms or hatred.
--William F. Buckley, Jr., "What does Clinton have in mind?" National Review, May 29, 1995


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Rodomontade comes from Italian rodomontada, from Rodomonte, a great yet boastful warrior king in Italian epics of the late 15th - early 16th centuries. At root the name means "roller-away of mountains," from the Italian dialect rodare, "to roll away" (from Latin rota, "wheel") + Italian monte, "mountain" (from Latin mons).

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday October 27, 2004

hoary

\HOR-ee\, adjective:
1. White or gray with age; as, "hoary hairs."
2. Ancient; extremely old; remote in time past.

Once upon a time, memoirs were written by hoary chaps casting rheumy glances back towards their golden youth: no more.
--Erica Wagner, "Post-Post-Modern memoir," Times (London), July 19, 2000

Had Mozart lived to the hoary old age of 73, he might indeed have fallen out of favor in an era besotted with Rossini, becoming a "largely forgotten, neglected, unperformed composer."
--Marilyn Stasio, "Crime," New York Times, June 23, 1996

Mr. Weicker spends most of his time serving up hoary war stories and settling old political scores.
--Jeff Greenfield, "Politically Imprudent," New York Times, June 18, 1995

Compare that with the elements of a musical in about 1920: the star in a cliche story that was merely a framing device for generic musical numbers, hoary joke-book gags, and the usual specialty performers in a staging more often than not by a hack.
--Ethan Mordden, Coming Up Roses


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Hoary derives from Middle English hor, from Old English har, "gray; old (and gray-haired)."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday October 28, 2004

foundling

\FOWND-ling\, noun:
A deserted or abandoned infant; a child found without a parent or caretaker.

Some of her desires were more altruistic: she wanted to "send Phyllis to school for a year, take Auntie May for a winter in the Isle of Pines," and "raise foundlings."
--Tim Page, Dawn Powell: A Biography

Then one day her daughter returns home with a foundling, an abandoned baby boy.
--Charles R. Larson, Washington Post, September 26, 1999


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Foundling comes from Old English foundling, fundling, from finden, "to find" + the suffix -ling.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday October 29, 2004

cavort

\kuh-VORT\, intransitive verb:
1. To bound or prance about.
2. To have lively or boisterous fun; to behave in a high-spirited, festive manner.

. . . Enkidu, who was seduced by gradual steps to embrace the refinements of civilization, only to regret on his deathbed what he had left behind: a free life cavorting with gazelles.
--Yi-Fu Tuan, Escapism

But why struggle with a term paper on the elements of foreshadowing in Bleak House when I could be cavorting on the beach.
--Dani Shapiro, Slow Motion

By 1900, Leo-Chico would have been thirteen years old, and just past his bar mitzvah, or old enough to know better than to cavort with street idlers and gamblers.
--Simon Louvish, Monkey Business

The men spent the next few weeks there drinking beer, eating hibachi-grilled fish, and cavorting with the young ladies.
--Robert Whiting, Tokyo Underworld


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Cavort is perhaps an alteration of curvet, "a light leap by a horse" (with the back arched or curved), from Italian corvetta, "a little curve," from Middle French courbette, from courber, "to curve," from Latin curvare, "to bend, to curve," from curvus, "curved, bent."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday October 30, 2004

inexorable

\in-EK-sur-uh-bul; in-EKS-ruh-bul\, adjective:
Not to be persuaded or moved by entreaty or prayer; firm; determined; unyielding; unchangeable; inflexible; relentless.

But the idea of providence, whether the biblical version or the Enlightenment's or Marx's, is at bottom a tragic notion, for it implies that individual human choices count for nothing against the weight of an inexorable, overwhelming force, whether benign or cruel, whether known as God, History, Destiny, Progress or DNA.
--James Carrol, "Laughing Our Way to Defeat," New York Times, February 16, 1986

. . . such notions as the 'logic of the facts', or the 'march of history', which, like the laws of nature (with which they are partly identified), are thought of as, in some sense, 'inexorable', likely to take their course whatever human beings may wish or pray for, an inevitable process to which individuals must adjust themselves.
--Isaiah Berlin, The Sense of Reality

Confronted again with pictures of flag-draped coffins and mutilated bodies, with the sounds of random gunfire and angry chants, the world had to readjust to the fact that not every problem is solvable, that the global tide of peace is not inexorable, and that progress does not inevitably make civilizations more civilized.
--"Fires Of Hate," Time, October 23, 2000


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Inexorable comes from Latin inexorabilis, from in-, "not" + exorabilis, "able to be entreated, placable," from exorare, "to entreat successfully, to prevail upon," from ex-, intensive prefix + orare, "to speak; to argue; to pray."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday October 31, 2004

diablerie

\dee-OB-luh-ree; -AB-\, noun:
1. Sorcery; black magic; witchcraft.
2. Representation of devils or demons in words or pictures.
3. Mischievous conduct; deviltry.

She invariably had every child in the establishment at her heels, open-mouthed with admiration and wonder,--not excepting Miss Eva, who appeared to be fascinated by her wild diablerie, as a dove is sometimes charmed by a glittering serpent.
--Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin

His worst excesses of unfeeling diablerie belong to his early days.
--Robertson Davies, "The Making of a 'Dublin Smartie,' " New York Times, October 30, 1988


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Diablerie comes from the French, from diable, devil, from Latin diabolus, from Greek diabolos, "slanderer," from diaballein, "to slander," literally "to throw across," from dia-, "across" + ballein, "to throw."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday November 1, 2004

debouch

\dih-BOWCH; -BOOSH\, intransitive verb:
1. To march out (as from a wood, defile, or other narrow or confined spot) into the open.
2. To emerge; to issue.

transitive verb:
To cause to emerge or issue; to discharge.

When the mill hands hassled Pete at the Manchester Cafe, he took off his apron, debouched from behind the counter and beat them senseless.
--Richard Rhodes, Why They Kill

Bangladesh, one of the most populous spots on earth, is virtually the delta of the Brahmaputra and Ganga river systems, where numerous streams and rivers debouch to the Bay of Bengal.
-- "Blood on the Border," Times of India, April 23, 2001

. . . one of those ancient towns of central France where the streets wind upward from the railway track, through scowling walls of medievalism, until they debouch in the square outside the cathedral door, surveyed by huge stone animals from the cathedral tower and prowled around on Sunday mornings by cats and desultory tourists.
--Jan Morris, Fifty Years of Europe


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Debouch comes from French déboucher, from dé- (for de), "out of" (from Latin de) + bouche, "mouth" (from Latin bucca, "cheek, mouth"). The noun form is debouchment.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday November 2, 2004

jejune

\juh-JOON\, adjective:
1. Lacking in nutritive value.
2. Displaying or suggesting a lack of maturity; childish.
3. Lacking interest or significance; dull; meager; dry.

Were I to make this public now, it would be dismissed as the raving of a mind at the end of its tether, unable to distinguish fiction from reality, real life from the jejune fantasies of its youth.
--Ronald Wright, A Scientific Romance

By the inflection of his voice, the expression of his face, and the motion of his body, he signals that he is aware of all the ways he may be thought silly or jejune, and that he might even think so himself.
--Jedediah Purdy, For Common Things

A while ago, Michael Kinsley wrote that Jewish Americans envied Israelis for living out history in a way that made the comfort and security of life in New York or Los Angeles seem jejune.
--Geoffrey Wheatcroft, "The Big Kibbutz," New York Times, March 2, 1997


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Jejune derives from Latin jejunus, "fasting, hence hungry, hence scanty, meager, weak."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday November 3, 2004

redolent

\RED-uh-luhnt\, adjective:
1. Having or exuding fragrance; scented; aromatic.
2. Full of fragrance; odorous; smelling (usually used with 'of' or 'with').
3. Serving to bring to mind; evocative; suggestive; reminiscent (usually used with 'of' or 'with').

The 142-foot-long sidewheeled steamer . . . ferried people from place to place, . . . its two decks redolent with the aroma of fresh grapes, peaches, and other fruit headed for the rail spur at the Canandaigua pier, then on to markets in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.
--A. M. Sperber and Eric Lax, Bogart

The simple, semisweet and moist cake was redolent of cinnamon and nutmeg and studded with Mr. McCartney's favorite nuts, pecans.
--Bryan Miller, "Lots of Smidgens, But Hold the Meat," New York Times, September 7, 1994

Backed by soaring sax and energetic percussion, Martin makes the sort of celebratory, Spanish party music redolent of warm weather and cocktails.
--Lisa Verrico, Times (London), November 10, 2000

It's a fine word, "Fellowship", redolent of Oxbridge high tables and intellectual excellence.
--Paul Hoggart, Times (London), February 24, 2001


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Redolent derives from Latin redolens, -entis, present participle of redolere, "to emit a scent, to diffuse an odor," from red-, re- + olere, "to exhale an odor."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday November 4, 2004

imprecation

\im-prih-KAY-shuhn\, noun:
1. The act of imprecating, or invoking evil upon someone.
2. A curse.

After a while, he stopped hurling imprecations . . . and, as he often did after such an outburst, became quite remorseful.
--Wayne Johnston, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams

Would he criticize an erring colleague? "I shall," Dirksen would promise, in a voice like the finest whiskey aged in fog, "invoke upon him every condign imprecation."
--Lance Morrow, "We Lose a Great Speaker, We Gain a Great Book," Time, May 24, 2000

An honorable man is responsible for coming up with more than a feasible-sounding argument or a loud imprecation.
--Me, to RT

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Imprecation derives from Latin imprecatio, from imprecari, "to invoke harm upon, to pray against," from in- + precari, "to pray."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday November 5, 2004

obsequious

\ob-SEE-kwee-us\, adjective:
Servilely attentive; compliant to excess; fawning.

His wealth nevertheless turns the townspeople into groveling, obsequious sycophants.
--Stephen Holden, "'The Best Man': When She Says 'I Do,' She Means 'Not You'," New York Times, August 14, 1998

Politicians these days have to pretend to like football, and I am tired of their obsequious, crowd-pleasing football jokes.
--Margaret Drabble, "Will the BBC pay up?" Times (London), July 6, 2000

This is a brazenly stylish restaurant where the staff are razor-sharp and not remotely obsequious.
--Orna Mulcahy, "Brash, edgy -- and so good," Irish Times, August 1, 2000

Just what is the level of relationship which causes her to be so obsequious to the megalomaniac Holding?
--Me, in email
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Obsequious comes from Latin obsequiosus, from obsequium, "compliance," from obsequi, "to comply with," from ob-, "toward" + sequi, "to follow."

Synonyms: compliant, obedient, servile, slavish, subservient.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday November 6, 2004

effrontery

\ih-FRUN-tuh-ree\, noun:
Insulting presumptuousness; shameless boldness; insolence.

Who would have the effrontery to treat the chairman in this way?
--Tom King, The Operator

Passionately she sang of Yoshitsune, her love and yearning for him, and her joy that he had successfully managed to evade his evil half-brother Yoritomo. Yoritomo was torn between rage at such effrontery and pleasure at the exquisite beauty of her voice.
--Lesley Downer, Women of the Pleasure Quarters


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Effrontery is from French effronterie, ultimately from Late Latin effrons, effront-, "shameless," literally "without forehead" (to blush with), from Latin ex-, "out of" + frons, front-, "forehead."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday November 7, 2004

arriviste

\a-ree-VEEST\, noun:
A person who has recently attained success, wealth, or high status but not general acceptance or respect; an upstart.

Sherman, in his $1,800 imported suit and British hand-lasted shoes is . . . an arriviste and a poseur.
--Frank Conroy, "Urban Rats in Fashion's Maze," New York Times, November 1, 1987

He excavates enough dirt that, midway through the book, the reader loses sympathy with Bernays, who comes across as an insufferable egotist and insecure, name-dropping arriviste.
--Ron Chernow, "First Among Flacks," New York Times, August 16, 1998

Since January its market value in Europe has risen more than threefold, topping $7.5 billion and making its founder, a 34-year-old Cambridge University Ph.D., a billionaire arriviste.
--Elizabeth Corcoran, "The Searcher," Forbes, April 2000


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Arriviste comes from French, from arriver, "to arrive," from (assumed) Vulgar Latin arripare, "to reach the shore," from Latin ad-, "to, toward" + ripa, "shore."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday November 8, 2004

fallible

\FAL-uh-bul\, adjective:
1. Liable to make a mistake.
2. Liable to be inaccurate or erroneous.

But human beings are fallible. We know we all make mistakes.
--Robert S. McNamara, et al., Argument Without End

Jack Kerouac was neither a demon nor a saint but a fallible, notably gentle, deeply conflicted and finally self-destructive person whose dream from childhood was to be a writer.
--Morris Dickstein, "Beyond Beat," New York Times, August 9, 1998

On the other hand, mathematics does not rely on evidence from fallible experimentation, but it is built on infallible logic.
--Simon Singh, Fermat's Enigma


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Fallible derives from Medieval Latin fallibilis, from Latin fallere, "to deceive." It is related to fail, false (from falsum, the past participle of fallere), fallacy ("a false notion"), fault (from Old French falte, from fallere), and faucet (from Old Provençal falsar, "to falsify, to create a fault in, to bore through," from fallere).

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday November 9, 2004

gadabout

\GAD-uh-bout\, noun:
Someone who roams about in search of amusement or social activity.

In his unorthodox and callow way, he frequently upset and annoyed his countrymen, but they continued to vote for him, perhaps taking a vicarious pleasure in being led by such a world-famous gadabout.
--"Milestones of 2000," Times (London), December 29, 2000

She hugged him fiercely. "Oh, I love you, Jake Grafton, you worthless gadabout fly-boy, you fool that sails away and leaves me."
--Jack Anderson, Control

Teddy was a bon vivant and gadabout.
--Nadine Brozan, "Born in a Trunk: The Story of the Hornes," New York Times, June 20, 1986

Mr. Hart-Davis, as befits a professional literary man, is something of a gadabout.
--Daphne Merkin, "From Two Most English Men," New York Times, June 23, 1985


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Gadabout is formed from the verb gad, "to rove or go about without purpose or restlessly" (from Middle English gadden, "to hurry") + about.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday November 10, 2004

ribald

\RIB-uhld; RY-bawld\, adjective:
Characterized by or given to vulgar humor; coarse.

noun:
A ribald person; a lewd fellow.

Mr. Plummer's Barrymore delights you with his own delight in his silly, ribald jokes (most of which are unprintable here).
--Ben Brantley, "A Dazzler of a Drunk, Full of Gab and Grief," New York Times, March 26, 1997

The blues took form in the late nineteenth century as a musical synthesis that combined "worksongs, group seculars, field hollers, sacred harmonies, proverbial wisdom, folk philosophy, political commentary, ribald humor and elegiac lament."
--Constance Valis Hill, Brotherhood in Rhythm

Their contrasting habits and preoccupations are telling and endearing: Piccard, the fussy one, sleeps in pajamas, Jones in the nude. Piccard scribbles homages in his journal to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, while Jones tosses off ribald limericks.
--Louise Jarvis, "Are We There Yet?" New York Times, November 14, 1999


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Ribald derives from Old French ribaud, from riber, "to be wanton," from Old High German riban, "to be amorous" (originally, "to rub").

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday November 11, 2004

turbid

\TUR-bid\, adjective:
1. Muddy; thick with or as if with roiled sediment; not clear; -- used of liquids of any kind.
2. Thick; dense; dark; -- used of clouds, air, fog, smoke, etc.
3. Disturbed; confused; disordered.

Although both are found in the same waters, black crappies usually prefer clearer, quieter water, while white crappies flourish in warmer, siltier and more turbid water.
--Tim Eisele, "Crappie Facts," Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin), May 8, 1998

Rough or smooth, the Irish Sea at Blackpool is always turbid. Beneath the murk float unspeakable things.
--David Walker, "Is Labour right to end its affair with Blackpool? YES says David," Independent, March 26, 1998

Wesley's mind seems at this time to have been in a turbid and restless state.
--W. B. Stonehouse, The History and Topography of the Isle of Axholme


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Turbid comes from Latin turbidus, "confused, disordered," from turba, "disturbance, commotion."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday November 12, 2004

propitiate

\pro-PISH-ee-ayt\, transitive verb:
To render favorably inclined; to appease; to conciliate (one offended).

Azorka, a black house-dog, probably conscious of his guilt in barking for nothing and anxious to propitiate us, approached us, diffidently wagging his tail.
--Anton Chekhov, "Lights"

Yet the Fairy Bridge . . . didn't get its name for nothing. Here the locals lift a hand ever so slightly and mutter "Hello, little people," to propitiate the fairies underneath.
--Helen Gibson, "Rewards and Fairies," Time Europe, April 30, 2001

Cultivated pagans long survived but retreated to form private societies, practicing secret rites to propitiate the gods to avert drought or earthquake from their home cities.
--Henry Chadwick, "Greasing the 4th-Century Palm," New York Times, November 15, 1992


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Propitiate derives from Latin propitius, "favorable."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday November 13, 2004

discomfit

\dis-KUHM-fit; dis-kuhm-FIT\, transitive verb:
1. To make uneasy or perplexed, or to put into a state of embarrassment; to disconcert; to upset.
2. To thwart; to frustrate the plans of.
3. (Archaic). To defeat in battle.

A few of Dr. Baden's anecdotes ramble pointlessly, and his gusto in describing the anatomical characteristics of exhumed bodies may discomfit the squeamish.
--Teresa Carpenter, "Death Is Just the Beginning," New York Times, June 25, 1989

But the business of paradox is to discomfit the mind and force truths into connections that cannot be thought.
--Lore Segal, "A Passion for Polishness," New York Times, February 18, 1990

"Starr Bright" was used to the attention of strangers and would have been discomfited if no one noticed her, so leggy and glamorous.
--Joyce Carol Oates, Starr Bright Will Be With You Soon

Why were the men so discomfited, and why, in a group renowned for its openness, was there so much difficulty in speaking frankly?
--Hermione Lee, Virginia Woolf


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Discomfit comes from Old French desconfit, past participle of desconfire, from Latin dis- + conficere, "to make ready, to prepare, to bring about," from com- + facere, "to make."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday November 14, 2004

intrepid

\in-TREP-id\, adjective:
Fearless; bold; brave; undaunted; courageous; as, an intrepid soldier; intrepid spirit.

Join the few dozen rich and intrepid souls . . . who have paid hefty deposits to sign up for the first commercial rides into space.
--Dinesh D'Souza, The Virtue of Prosperity

Less than 70 years earlier, the intrepid James Cook in his ship Resolution had been the first explorer to cross the Antarctic Circle.
--Lennard Bickel, Shackleton's Forgotten Men


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Intrepid comes from Latin intrepidus, "calm," from in-, "not" + trepidus, "anxious, disturbed."

Synonyms: daring, dauntless, heroic, resolute, stalwart, valiant.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday November 15, 2004

chortle

\CHOR-tl\, transitive and intransitive verb:
To utter, or express with, a snorting, exultant laugh or chuckle.

noun:
A snorting, exultant laugh or chuckle.
Benjamin himself chortled now, an odd laugh to which I grew accustomed in years to come.
--Jay Parini, Benjamin's Crossing

Even Isaksson's stern wife, who rarely cracked a smile, chortled with glee, and Old Mothstead slapped his thighs and flapped his apron and danced around the couple, who moved in ever larger rings amongst the kegs.
--Kerstin Ekman, Witches' Rings, translated by Linda Schenck

A nation that was used to chortling over Charlie Chaplin or rejoicing with the high-stepping Ziegfeld girls found itself drawn to this more refined, decidedly European entertainment.
--Larry Tye, The Father of Spin


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Chortle a combination of chuckle and snort. It was coined by Lewis Carroll (Charles L. Dodgson), in Through the Looking-Glass, published in 1872.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday November 16, 2004

louche

\LOOSH\, adjective:
Of questionable taste or morality; disreputable or indecent; dubious; shady.

You've got to keep yourself free of any suggestion of louche behavior.
--Anthony West

A man in a bar, utterly average, though there is something louche about him, something sly.
--Andrew Holleran, In September, the Light Changes

Danny would be sipping a mai tai or a whiskey sour in some louche West End club.
--Will Self, Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys

In the louche era of the Regency she was almost a portent of the Victorian ideal to come; in an earlier age she might have been a Puritan.
--Mary S. Lovell, Rebel Heart


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Louche is from French louche, "shady, suspicious," from Old French losche, "squint-eyed," from Latin luscus, "one-eyed."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday November 17, 2004

supplant

\suh-PLANT\, transitive verb:
1. To take the place of (another), especially through intrigue or underhanded tactics; as, a rival supplants another.
2. To take the place of and serve as a substitute for.

He's your rival. The one you'll have to supplant.
--Peter Brooks, World Elsewhere

In traditional accounts, early Greek times appear as a succession of migrations; one tribe drives out and supplants another until driven out in turn by a third, and this process may have lasted many hundreds of years.
--Jacob Burckhardt, The Greeks and Greek Civilization

Economic opportunities for a saddler and harness maker were beginning to decline . . . as railroads supplanted the stagecoach trade.
--Dennis J. Hutchinson, The Man Who Once Was Whizzer White


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Supplant derives from Latin supplantare, "to put one's foot under another, to throw down a person by tripping up his heels," from sub-, "under" + plantare, "to stamp the ground with the foot," from planta, "the sole of the foot."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday November 18, 2004

clerisy

\KLER-uh-see\, noun:
The well educated class; the intelligentsia.

The clerisy of a nation, that is, its learned men, whether poets, or philosophers, or scholars.
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Table-Talk

Our academic clerisy, I'm sure, could point out factual inadequacies, along with examples of cultural bias.
--Robert D. Kaplan, "And Now for the News," The Atlantic, March 1997

Our clerisy contains journalists and pundits and think-tank experts and political historians.
--Michael Lind, "Defrocking the Artist," New York Times, March 14, 1999


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Clerisy is from German Klerisei, "clergy," from Medieval Latin clericia, from Late Latin clericus, "priest," from Late Greek klerikos, "belonging to the clergy," from Greek kleros, "inheritance, lot," in allusion to Deuteronomy 18:2 ("Therefore shall they have no inheritance among their brethren: the Lord is their inheritance, as he hath said unto them").

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday November 19, 2004

denouement

\day-noo-MAWN\, noun:
1. The final resolution of the main complication of a literary or dramatic work.
2. The outcome of a complex sequence of events.

And perhaps this helps to explain the frequency of the violent denouement in contemporary novels: in the country that embraced the slogan "Today is the first day of the rest of your life," how do you call it quits on a character who is still breathing?
--Brad Leithauser, "You Haven't Heard the Last of This," New York Times, August 30, 1998

Of course, the crusaders were losers in the short run, but Europe's storytellers have traditionally awarded them the righteous victory and not dwelt on the embarrassing denouement.
--Todd Gitlin, The Twilight of Common Dreams

Though still only a prospect on the horizon, this, I think, could well be the next revolution. What a denouement if it is!
--Julian Barbour, The End of Time


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Denouement is from French, from Old French denoer, "to untie," from Latin de- + nodare, "to tie in a knot," from nodus, "a knot."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday November 20, 2004

prink

PRINGK\, transitive verb:
To dress up; to deck for show.

intransitive verb:
To dress or arrange oneself for show; to primp.

Tara has supermodel legs and is already getting used to being prinked and coiffed as she prepares for her first beauty contest in the autumn.
--Raffaella Barker, "Diary hatched, matched and almost despatched," Daily Telegraph, September 6, 1997

The point is reinforced by a clutch of contemporary art photos . . . showing plump nudes prinking and preening like pouter pigeons, and, in one case, a couple of dancers deliberately posed to recreate a Degas painting.
--Hilary Spurling, Daily Telegraph, January 23, 1999


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Prink is probably an alteration of prank, from Middle English pranken, "to show off," perhaps from Middle Dutch pronken, "to adorn oneself," and from Middle Low German prunken (from prank, "display").

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday November 21, 2004

sagacious

\suh-GAY-shus\, adjective:
Of keen penetration and judgment; discerning and judicious; knowing; shrewd; wise.

Edward's uncle, a sagacious scholar equally at home with Celtic myth and Eastern wisdom, declines his nephew's request to tell the story of Hamlet (it would come too close to home).
--John Gross, New York Times, December 3, 1984

Others worked up sagacious-sounding comments about the French author that would serve until they could read some of his books themselves, or until the current interest fades.
--Maureen Dowd, "Nobel Panel's Pick Keeps Cognoscenti Guessing," New York Times, October 18, 1985

John Adams, another of the doctor's Congressional colleagues, said of him: "Franklin had a great genius, original, sagacious, and inventive, capable of discoveries in science no less than of improvements in the fine arts and the mechanic arts.
--Richard M. Ketchum, Saratoga


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Sagacious derives from Latin sagax, "keen; shrewd; clever."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday November 22, 2004

disquisition

\dis-kwuh-ZISH-uhn\, noun:
A formal discourse on a subject.

Hence, although the publisher calls Mr. Roth's work "An Essay on Evil in the Modern World," it will be found to differ materially in approach and manner of treatment from the usual disquisition on an ancient topic.
--Percy Hutchison, "That Old Arch-Enemy of Man, the Antichrist," New York Times, May 12, 1935

Gore was partial to eye-glazing disquisitions on reciprocal trade.
--Bill Turque, Inventing Al Gore

The treatises and pamphlets of the late eighteenth century about the reform of commerce were considered, very soon, to be disquisitions of only limited and technical interest.
--Emma Rothschild, Economic Sentiments

. . . a rambling disquisition, with copious historical discussion and many anecdotes.
--James McCourt, Delancey's Way

Holding claims that any apologetic requires disquisition and that is why he refuses to appear in any live public discussion with opponents. His opponents believe it is because he wouldn't be able to retreat into captious obfuscation and his patented brand of juvenile ad hominems and cruel-intent, before a live audience.
--Me, on-line


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Disquisition comes from Latin disquisitio, from disquirere, "to inquire into, to investigate," from dis- + quaerere "to seek." It is related to inquire ("to seek into") and exquisite, which describes something that is "sought out" (ex-, "out") because of beauty, delicacy, or perfection.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday November 23, 2004

panjandrum

\pan-JAN-druhm\, noun:
An important personage or pretentious official.

Needless to say, when governors and ministers and the panjandrums of British public life asked these appointed advisers and those from whose ranks they were largely drawn for their views on democratic development, they gave the answers that might have been expected.
--Christopher Patten, East and West

And so I have appointed myself the chairman, High Panjandrum, Grand Inquisitor -- and sole member -- of a grievance committee of my own making.
--Alan K. Simpson, Right in the Old Gazoo


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Panjandrum was coined by Samuel Foote (1720-1777) in a piece of nonsense writing:

So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf to make an apple-pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. "What! No soap?" So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber: and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyulies, and the grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they all fell to playing the game of catch-as-catch-can till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots.
It was composed on the spot to challenge actor Charles Macklin's claim that he could memorize anything. Macklin is said to have refused to repeat a word of it.

[Lazy Agnostic]

My lovely bride and I are leaving today on a belated honeymoon to France. Word of the Day will return mid-December. Au revoir. Bon chance.

[Augustine2004]

I didn't see the last two posts by Lazy A. I was wondering whether he had become hors de combat {out of action, usually the result of injury}. The theme for this week will be types of ships. Sloop, ketch, yacht, man-o'war, cutter. That's all I could think of at the moment, maybe I will find other words.

A sloop is no sloppy boat, fit only for slop.

sloop noun {Nautical word} A ship having one mast only, usually fore-and-aft rigged with a single headsail set from the forestay. Here's a picture http://www.weathervane.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=ud167&Category_Code=SPECVANE&Product_Count=2

"Ketch me if you can," the sloop's captain shouted gleefully at the ketch Lazy Agnostic as it wallowed in the sloop's wake.

[Augustine2004]

ketch

noun, nautical:
A two-mast fore-and-aft rigged sailing vessel with a mizzen or jigger mast situated aft of the taller mainmast but forward of the rudder. Here's a picture http://www.flyinglab.com/pirates/catalog/ship.php?type=ketch


The captain of the Lazy Agnostic, a ketch displacing four tons, shouted back, 'Ye'll be awash in slop afore ye know it!'

[Augustine2004]

yawl

noun,nautical:
Like the ketch (q.v.), except the rear mast is smaller and stepped abaft the rudder post.


The lookout shouted down, "It's a yawl! In the lead!"

Since the only yawl entered in the race was the Lazy Agnostic, yowls of delight burst from the crowd lining the wharf and surrounding seashore.

{Readers, if you find yourself yawling, I mean, yawning, or my puns have you yowling in pain, then let me know.

Do you want to suggest a theme, with or without a list of words attached? Go ahead. My next planned theme is words used in Shakespeare's plays that could be used today, but if I like your theme . . .

I hope to continue with Shakespearian words until mid-December by which time I suggest Lazy Agnostic simply resume posting.}

[Augustine2004]

cutter

noun, nautical:
1. An one-mast ship like the sloop (q.v.), but with a running bowsprit and two or more head sails. Illustration: http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/descriptions/cutter.htm
2. A ship's boat, usually used for transporting stores or passengers.
3. In the U.S.A. Coast Guard, a small, lightly armed motorboat.


Seeing the cutter Dee Dee Warren, Mornby suddenly lost the desire to make cutting remarks. He became lost in admiration of the graceful lines of the noble ship.

{Note to those who are inclined to jump to conclusions: I have never seen Dee Dee's face. For all I know, she is uglier than her TWeb pet, Jaltus; or cuter than her present avatar, Xena.}

[Augustine2004]

Theme: Shakespeare's words

arm-gaunt
armipotent

adj.
first word -- lean from bearing arms
second word -- mighty in arms.

Antony and Cleopatra Act I Scene V:
Alex. ‘Good friend,’ quoth he, 52
‘Say, the firm Roman to great Egypt sends
This treasure of an oyster; at whose foot,
To mend the petty present, I will piece
Her opulent throne with kingdoms; all the east, 56
Say thou, shall call her mistress.’ So he nodded,
And soberly did mount an arm-gaunt steed,
Who neigh’d so high that what I would have spoke
Was beastly dumb’d by him. 60


All’s Well that Ends Well Act IV. Scene III:
First Lord. This is your devoted friend, sir; the manifold linguist and the armipotent soldier. 104


Possible modern use: The arm-gaunt boys in Bastogne welcomed Third Army Commander Patton's armipotent boys.

[Augustine2004]

Theme: Shakespeare's words

aroint thee

command.
Be off with you.


King Lear Act III. Scene IV:
Edg. This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock; he gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the harelip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth.
Swithold footed thrice the old;
He met the night-mare, and her nine-fold;
Bid her alight,
And her troth plight,
And aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!




Possible modern use: {This seems a classy & useful phrase for TWeb moderators.}

I forgot to credit http://www.bartleby.com/70/4334.html for my Shakespeare quotes. Sorry!

[Augustine2004]

Theme: Shakespeare's words

bell-wether

substantive.
a sheep at the head of a flock that bears a bell.

The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act III. Scene V.
Falstaff. <snip> But mark the sequel, Master Brook: I suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first, an intolerable fright, to be detected with a jealous rotten bell-wether; next, to be compassed, like a good bilbo, in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and then, to be stopped in, like a strong distillation, with stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease: think of that, a man of my kidney, think of that, that am as subject to heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw: it was a miracle to ’scape suffocation.<snip>

Modern use:
Bell-wether is often applied to a leader, a standard, or a representative.

{Some of you who read Falstaff's complaint above (that fat guy comic who's so good at talking his way out of verbal traps) may think of Bilbo Baggins in the Lord of Rings trilogy. Shakespeare meant "bilbo," a sword with a flexible blade. I suppose Falstaff compared his "compression" to the flexing of a bilbo to fit into a small space.}

[Lazy Agnostic]

Augie,
Thanks so much for filling-in while we're away. Right now I'm typing on a french keyboard and brother what a chore. I'm glad I don't have to catch up today. Thanks, again.

[Augustine2004]

Augie,
Thanks so much for filling-in while we're away. Right now I'm typing on a french keyboard and brother what a chore. I'm glad I don't have to catch up today. Thanks, again.No problem. What do the French say in situations like this one?
_______________________________


Theme: Shakespeare's words

bemadding


adjective.
causing madness.


King Lear. Act III. Scene I.
Kent. <snip> Now to you:
If on my credit you dare build so far
To make your speed to Dover, you shall find 40
Some that will thank you, making just report
Of how unnatural and bemadding sorrow
The king hath cause to plain. <snip>
{The last word is 'to complain of.'}

Modern use:
Dee Dee was ready to spit bullets. She felt that especially Archgerbil's criticism was bemadding. {Not a knock on Mad Gerbil, whose posts are on the contrary besaning.}

[Augustine2004]

Theme: Shakespeare's words

break cross


verb.
(Of a knight's lance) break unfortunately.


Much Ado About Nothing. Act V. Scene I.
Claudius Nay then, give him another staff: this last was broke cross.


Possible Modern use:
The last try broke cross, again, leaving Sad Sack to wonder why his luck had been so ruinously bad all week.

{I selected some words from a glossary in a complete "works of Shakespeare" anthology while watching the Dallas Cowboys break the heart (cross?) of Seattle Seahawks in a Monday Night game, so it really didn't take extra time at all. In fact writing up the Shakespeare "Word of the Day" selections is taking more time than gleaning them in the first place. I found a passel of words with meanings different in Shakespeare's time from today. Here's an annotated list:

One would think that buck-washing would have something to do with getting a male mammal of a certain genus to come clean. Nay, it can mean, washing linen. Buck is, linen in the wash. Buckram is not a male animal that tries to butt you in your, well, butt, but tough, stiff linen. Budget may mean, a tinker's bag. Bulk may not mean excessive waist fat, but the display stall in the front of a shop. The most surprising meaning is that for bully: A fine man; friend. What can I say, but "Bully for bully!" Cheapen may mean, bargain for. Competitor may not be your foe but partner, at least in Shakespeare's time.}

[Augustine2004]

Theme: Shakespeare's words

blench


verb, intransitive.
to recoil or start as from shock.
other meanings not listed.

substantive (in Shakespeare's time.)
sidelong glance.

King Lear. Act III. Scene I.
Duke. <snip> The provost knows our purpose and our plot. 4
The matter being afoot, keep your instruction,
And hold you ever to our special drift,
Though sometimes you do blench from this to that,
As cause doth minister.


Modern use:
Fearfully peering into the bird's room, Dee Dee saw something that made her blench.
{"That moment is more than equal to any in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds."
_______ --- Lazy Agnostic, Chicago Talltales}

{Yet another fine mess in English that makes little girls blench: A word of the same spelling is often used in the sense of to turn white (usually spelled blanch). A related word is bleach. It comes from the French word for white, blanc.}

[Augustine2004]

Theme: Shakespeare's words
{correction to last word entry ('blench'): Measure for Measure. Act IV. Scene V. Had you consequently clenched your fists in fury, my apologies.}

bootless


adj.
useless, pointless.


King Henry the Sixth, 3rd Part. Act II. Scene VI
Clifford.{wounded} <snip>
Bootless are plaints, and cureless are my wounds;
No way to fly, nor strength to hold out flight:
The foe is merciless, and will not pity;
For at their hands I have deserv’d no pity.
<snip>


Modern use:
Microsoft's long and bootless attempts to turn the Fists of Fury game into a international bestseller made Bill Gates wonder if he'd lost his Midas touch. To blame, however, are such things as Old Navy commercials, . . .

[Augustine2004]

Theme: Shakespeare's words


candle-waster


substantive.
bookworm.


Much Ado About Nothing. Act V. Scene I.{Unfortunately, this passage is difficult. Shakespeare's plays are better heard than read anyway. Hie thee to a stage production of Much Ado About Nothing!}
Leonato. <snip>
Bid sorrow wag, cry ‘hem’ when he should groan,
Patch grief with proverbs; make misfortune drunk 20
With candle-wasters; bring him yet to me,
And I of him will gather patience.
<snip>


Possible Modern use:
{That's a phrase to remember ('candle-waster') should you be called that in a TWeb post. (joke) I will look for a comeback to that. (joke)}

[Augustine2004]

Theme: Shakespeare's words

clerestory
clerestories


substantive.
The upper part of a large building like a church with windows; the windows themselves.


Twelfth-Night; or, What You Will. Act IV. Scene II.
Clown. Why, it hath bay-windows transparent as barricadoes, and the clerestories toward the south-north are as lustrous as ebony; and yet complainest thou of obstruction?


Modern use:
The clerestory windows in the gym might use a good cleaning. It did seem dim inside despite a bright day outside.

[Augustine2004]

Theme: Shakespeare's words

cockatrice


substantive.
a mythical serpent supposedly having a fatal glance and hatched from a cock's egg.
Click here for a picture if you don't mind being killed. (http://www.eaudrey.com/myth/cockatrice.htm)


Romeo and Juliet. Act III. Scene II.
Juliet.
What devil art thou that dost torment me thus?
This torture should be roar’d in dismal hell.
Hath Romeo slain himself? say thou but ‘I,’
And that bare vowel, ‘I,’ shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice:
I am not I, if there be such an ‘I;’
Or those eyes shut that make thee answer ‘I.’
If he be slain, say ‘I;’ or if not ‘no:’
Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.


Modern use:
Hercules was fortunate to be behind Xena when she was glaring at the male centaur, so cockatrice was her face.

[Augustine2004]

Theme: Shakespeare's words

Corinthian


substantive.
a citizen from Corinth, a city in south Greece that was noted for licentiousness.

King Henry the Fourth, First Part. Act II. Scene IV.
Prince Hal, the future Henry IV. {Here he is telling a friend about his riotous time.}
<snip> They take it already upon their salvation, that though I be but Prince of Wales, yet I am the king of courtesy; and tell me flatly I am no proud Jack, like Falstaff, but a Corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy <snip>.


Modern use:
Like Prince Hal, before he became King Henry IV, "no proud Jack, like Falstaff, but a Corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy," the scion of the von Haupsnitskioff family embarked on a wastrel life.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Back from France. Charming visit; hope to retire there. Thanks to St Augustine for filling-in. Please feel free to continue your contributions.


Word of the Day for Wednesday December 15, 2004

hoi polloi

\hoi-puh-LOI\, noun:
The common people generally; the masses.

Lizzie insisted that her children distinguish themselves from the hoi polloi by scrupulous honesty.
--Kate Buford, Burt Lancaster: An American Life

The exchange of roles in "The Prince and the Pauper" suggests that a man of the people can be a benevolent ruler because of his humble roots, that a prince can become a better ruler through exposure to hoi polloi.
--Michiko Kakutani "In Classic Children's Books, Is a Witch Ever Just a Witch?" New York Times, December 22, 1992

America's cereal queen [Marjorie Merriweather Post, heir to the Post Cereal fortune] had the same problems that the hoi polloi have -- philandering husbands, messy divorces, soggy Grape-Nuts.
--Maureen Dowd, "Rich Little Rich Girl," New York Times, February 12, 1995


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Hoi polloi is Greek for "the many."

Usage: Some argue that the definite article ("the") should not be used in front of "hoi polloi," as hoi means "the" in Greek. However, "the hoi polloi" has been used since the earliest recorded instances of the term in English and is considered correct by most authorities.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday December 16, 2004

recherche

\ruh-sher-SHAY\, adjective:
1. Uncommon; exotic; rare.
2. Exquisite; choice.
3. Excessively refined; affected.
4. Pretentious; overblown.

. . . recherche topics interesting only to university specialists.
--Katharine Washburn and John F. Thornton, Dumbing Down

She was mocking the pretensions of the cookery writer who insists on recherche ingredients not because of their qualities but their snob value.
--Angela Carter, Shaking a Leg

In recent years, Garber's appetite for the rigors of theory seems to have diminished. The books have kept coming, but the italics-heavy meditations and the recherche terminology have receded.
--Zoë Heller, "House Arrest," The New Republic, July 3, 2000


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Recherche comes from French, from rechercher, "to seek out," from re- + chercher, "to look for, to seek."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday December 17, 2004

permeate

\PUR-mee-ayt\, transitive verb:
1. To spread or diffuse through.
2. To pass through the pores or openings of.

intransitive verb:
To spread through or penetrate something.

A darkly sweet aroma permeated the air; white orchid blossoms erupted from snakelike vines.
--Chu Tien-Wen, Notes of a Desolate Man

Passers-by could see into buildings through display windows, while the warm glow and sweet smells emanating from the shops and cafes permeated the partly enclosed pedestrian ways.
--Larry R. Ford, The Spaces Between Buildings

The travelers, with their pinched, ferocious expressions and their too brightly glittering eyes, projected an aura of paranoia mixed with anxiety that permeated the bus.
--Tama Janowitz, A Certain Age

The fear of crime permeates their lives. They worry about being mugged . . . in a parking lot or while walking home from work.
--David J. Krajicek, Scooped!


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Permeate is from Latin permeare, "to go through, to pass through," from per-, "through" + meare, "to go, to pass."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday December 18, 2004

[B]germane[B]

\juhr-MAYN\, adjective:
Appropriate or fitting; relevant.

The issue is not germane to the present discussion.
--Richard Wollheim, On the Emotions

As long as the argument remains germane, he listens attentively, putting on and removing heavy tortoise-shell glasses and leaning across the bench.
--Philip Hamburger, Matters of State

[I]n times of catastrophe we allow public officials to declare "states of emergency" that replace some normal rules . . . with a more germane set.
--Seth Shulman, "Owning the Future: In Africa, Patents Kill," Technology Review, April 2001

I have many secrets, most of which are not at all germane to the topic . . . and would probably be completely inappropriate to tell.
--David Gewirtz, "I Have a Secret," PalmPower Magazine, August 2000


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Germane comes from Middle English germain, literally, "having the same parents," ultimately deriving from Latin germanus, from germen, "a bud, a shoot."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday December 19, 2004

disconsolate

\dis-KON-suh-lut\, adjective:
1. Being beyond consolation; deeply dejected and dispirited; hopelessly sad; filled with grief; as, "a bereaved and disconsolate parent."
2. Inspiring dejection; saddening; cheerless; as, "the disconsolate darkness of the winter nights."

Midway through the course he came to the table with the disconsolate expression of a basketball coach whose team had just been trounced.
--Bryan Miller, "Odd Couples Can Make Magic," New York Times, March 2, 1994

An eighteenth-century Fairfax, Thomas, lost the last of the land in the South Sea Bubble and the Fairfaxes were all but forgotten -- except for Lady Mary who was occasionally sighted, dressed all in green, disconsolate and gloomy, and occasionally with her head under her arm for good effect.
--Kate Atkinson, Human Croquet

. . . King Midas, whose lips turn all they touch to cold, unnourishing riches, and who perishes alone and disconsolate, cut off by his wealth from the simplest necessities of life -- for bread, water, as well as his wife, his child and his little dog, all turn as he stretches towards them into the gold he thought he desired more than anything else.
--Jane Shilling, "A golden ambivalence," Times (London), June 2, 2000


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Disconsolate comes from Medieval Latin disconsolatus, from Latin dis- + consolatus, past participle of consolari, "to console," from com-, intensive prefix + solari, "to comfort, to soothe, to relieve."

Synonyms: downcast, forlorn, melancholy, sorrowful, woeful.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday December 20, 2004

languid

\LANG-gwid\, adjective:
1. Drooping or flagging from or as if from exhaustion; weak; weary; heavy.
2. Promoting or indicating weakness or heaviness.
3. Slow; lacking vigor or force.

Deliberately languid, slow to rise to a dignified height, his handsomely graying wavy hair perfectly combed, Floyd sits most of the day with his long legs sprawled under his table.
--William S. McFeely, Proximity to Death

. . . in the languid heat of Rome, late summer, late afternoon.
--Matthew Stadler, Allan Stein

With their strength, grace, and endurance, [they] move about naturally, freely, at a tempo determined by climate and tradition, somewhat languid, unhurried, knowing one can never achieve everything in life anyway, and besides, if one did, what would be left over for others?
--Ryszard Kapuscinski, The Shadow of the Sun (translated by Klara Glowczewska)


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Languid comes from Latin languere, "to become faint or weak; to droop; to be inactive."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Tuesday December 21, 2004

etiolate

\EE-tee-uh-layt\, transitive verb:
1. (Botany) To bleach and alter the natural development of (a green plant) by excluding sunlight.
2. To make pale or sickly.
3. To make weak by stunting the growth or development of.

intransitive verb:
(Botany) To become bleached or whitened, as when grown without sunlight.

Under that etiolated sky all life seemed wrung out.
--Colin Thubron, The Lost Heart of Asia

[They] had feverish eyes, pale faces and gaunt, etiolated bodies from spending all the hours of daylight shut up in cramped and often humid spaces.
--Hilary Spurling, The Unknown Matisse


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Etiolate comes from French étioler, perhaps for s'éteuler, "to become like straw," from Old French esteule, "stubble or straw," from Latin stipula, "a stalk, straw."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Wednesday December 22, 2004

moil

\MOYL\, intransitive verb:
1. To work with painful effort; to labor; to toil; to drudge.
2. To churn or swirl about continuously.

noun:
1. Toil; hard work; drudgery.
2. Confusion; turmoil.

Why should he toil and moil, and be at so much trouble to pick himself up out the mud, when, in a little while hence, the strong arm of his Uncle will raise and support him?
--Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

[H]e saw himself in the sleepless moil of early parenthood, and felt a plunging anxiety.
--Alan Hollinghurst, The Spell


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Moil comes from Middle English moillen, "to soak, to wet," hence "to soil, to soil one's hands, to work very hard," from Old French moillier, "to soften, especially by making wet," ultimately from Latin mollis, "soft."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Thursday December 23, 2004

exegesis

\ek-suh-JEE-sis\, noun;
plural exegeses \-seez\:
Exposition; explanation; especially, a critical explanation of a text.

It is a fiercely argued exegesis of Shakespeare's plays in the tradition of Samuel Johnson, Hazlitt and A. C. Bradley, a study that is as passionate as it is erudite.
--Michiko Kakutani, "Vast Shakespearean Drama With All People as Players," New York Times, October 27, 1998

These are tightly argued, crisp exercises in literary and cultural exegesis which make perfectly clear the brilliant patterns of language and oftentimes strained analogic thinking of the poets.
--Review of Made in America, by Lisa M. Steinman, in the Journal of Modern Literature

No variety of love is too trivial for exegesis. No aspect of love is so ridiculous that it hasn't been exhaustively reviewed by the great thinkers, the great artists, and the great hosts of daytime talk shows.
--P. J. O'Rourke, Eat the Rich

Their works are the subject of innumerable analyses, exegeses, seminars, and doctoral theses.
--Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont, Fashionable Nonsense


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Exegesis comes from Greek, from exegeisthai, "to explain, to interpret," from ex-, "out of" + hegeisthai, "to lead, to guide." Thus an exegesis is, at root, "a leading or guiding out of" a complexity.

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Friday December 24, 2004

cornucopia

\kor-nuh-KOH-pee-uh; -nyuh-\, noun:
1. The horn of plenty, from which fruits and flowers are represented as issuing. It is an emblem of abundance.
2. An overflowing supply; an abundance.

The fruit-trade float was a huge colorful cornucopia spilling forth a bountiful harvest.
--David Traxel, 1898: The Birth of the American Century

Ship chandlers' shelves and floors were crammed to overflowing with a cornucopia of stores and equipment, the buildings pungent with the aroma of tarred hemp rope.
--Alan Gurney, The Race to the White Continent

Eventually bioengineers may slice out soy genes that make tumor-blocking chemicals and splice them into wheat, corn, and other grains to create a cornucopia of anticancer foods.
--David Stipp, "Engineering the Future of Food," Fortune, September 28, 1998


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Cornucopia is from Latin cornu copiae, "horn of plenty."

Trivia: The Horn of Plenty has its origin in Greek mythology. Amalthea, a nymph, owned the goat on whose milk the infant Zeus, principal god of the Greek pantheon, was fed. Zeus, in gratitude, broke off one of the goat's horns and gave it to her, promising that the possessor should always have an abundance of everything desired

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Saturday December 25, 2004

benison

\BEN-uh-suhn; -zuhn\, noun:
Blessing; benediction.

In the beginning, Gibran's small estate was worth some $50,000, benison enough for a village of ten thousand souls.
--Stefan Kanfer, "But is it not strange that elephants will yield -- and that The Prophet is still popular?" New York Times, June 25, 1972

Yet to be with him was a benison, a curiously exhilarating and anarchic experience, as the lightning celerity of his thought processes took you on a kind of helter-skelter ride of surreal non-sequiturs, sudden accesses of emotion and ribald asides, made all the more bizarre for being uttered in those honeyed tones by the impeccably elegant gent before you.
--Simon Callow, "A life full of frolics," The Guardian, May 19, 2001


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Benison comes from Old French beneison, from Latin benedictio, from benedicere, "to bless," from bene, "well" + dicere, "to say."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Sunday December 26, 2004

punctilious

\puhnk-TIL-ee-uhs\, adjective:
Strictly attentive to the details of form in action or conduct; precise; exact in the smallest particulars.

The convert who is more punctilious in his new faith than the lifelong communicant is a familiar figure in Catholic lore.
--Patrick Allit, Catholic Converts

Nicholas showed us his butterfly collection. He had done a splendid job of spreading them (better than I ever have, let alone at his age). I tried to impress upon him the need for punctilious labeling, a tedious business that raises a butterfly from a mere curio to a specimen of scientific value.
--Robert Michael Pyle, Chasing Monarchs

Cooper had always been very punctilious about observing the rules laid down in the . . . brochure.
--Josef Skvorecky, Two Murders in My Double Life


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Punctilious derives from Late Latin punctillum, "a little point," from Latin punctum, "a point," from pungere, "to prick."

[Lazy Agnostic]

Word of the Day for Monday December 27, 2004

brackish

\BRAK-ish\, adjective:
1. Somewhat salty.
2. Distasteful; unpalatable.

Just a few villages dot the dangerous beaches where the Sepik [River] meets the sea, a brackish zone where sharks and saltwater crocodiles lurk.
--Dennis Lewon, "Learning to Receive," Islands

I gagged, and tasted something metallic and brackish in the back of my throat.
--Lance Armstrong and Sally Jenkins, It's Not About the Bike

And yet his decision still leaves that brackish aftertaste.
--Tom Block, review of The Sorrow and the Pity (1971), Culturevulture.net

Holding's brackish brand of apologetics makes one wonder about the profile of his contributors.
--Me, on line


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Brackish derives from Dutch brak, "salty." It is especially used to describe a mixture of seawater and fresh water.