Author Topic: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com  (Read 137577 times)

Offline Mandy21

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Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #110 on: June 06, 2012, 06:22:24 pm »
Didn't make myself clear.  I already knew what apoplexy meant.  I was saying that I don't understand why the folks who pick the words would pick adjectives, rather than nouns, especially when the majority of people wouldn't know what the noun meant in the first place.

Okay, I'll shut up now...
Dawn is coming,
Open your eyes...

Offline ifyoucantfixit

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Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #111 on: June 08, 2012, 03:45:44 pm »

divulse \dahy-VUHLS\, verb:

To tear away or apart.

A perforation having been so made, it is safer to divulse the opening rather than to enlarge it by cutting in order to avoid the possibility of opening a blood vessel in an inaccessible region.
-- Eugene Fuller, M.D., The Journal of the American Medical Association

Even if you are the kooper of the winkel over measure never lost a license. Nor a duckindonche divulse from bath and breakfast.
-- James Joyce, Finnegans Wake

Divulse comes from the Latin root vellere meaning "plucked". The prefix di- is a variation of dis- before the letter v meaning "apart" or "away", as in disown.




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Offline ifyoucantfixit

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Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #112 on: June 09, 2012, 11:29:26 am »

pochismo \poh-CHEEZ-moh\, noun:

1. An English word or expression borrowed into Spanish.
2. A form of speech employing many such words.
3. An adopted U.S. custom, attitude, etc.

Along the Texas border, in the towns on both sides of the Rio Grande, they call a similar blending of languages pochismo.
-- Robert Wilder, Plough the Sea

The assimilation of English with Spanish speech and of Hispanic with Anglo traits in the mixed culture termed pochismo has brought contrasting values and characteristics into play within families and even within individuals.
-- Milo Kearney and Manuel Medrano, Medieval Culture and the Mexican American Borderlands

Pochismo entered English in the 1940s. It is a variation of the word pocho which refers to a person of Mexican heritage who has adopted American customs. The suffix -ismo is usually the Spanish equivalent of the English suffix -ism.




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Offline ifyoucantfixit

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Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #113 on: June 10, 2012, 04:44:08 pm »
mignon \min-YON\, adjective

Small and pretty; delicately pretty.

And here Jasmin caressed his own arm, and made as if it were a baby's, smiling and speaking in a mignon voice, wagging his head roguishly.
-- William Chambers and Robert Chambers, Chambers's Edinburgh Journal

As the village princeling and household cosset, the toast of the family, the mignon of the minions, the darling of the staff, my feelings about the proposed adoption would not be hard to divine.
-- Martin Amis, Success


Mignon stems from the French word of the same spelling which means "delicate" or "charming". It is also related to the word "minion" through the sense of "small".

Being the Adam geek that I am.  Sauli is his little mignon of beauty and grace.  lol



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Offline ifyoucantfixit

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Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #114 on: June 11, 2012, 04:41:39 pm »


ravelment \RAV-uhl-muhnt\, noun:

Entanglement; confusion.

Hampered as I was by my well-known connection with the Gillespie poisoning case, I could not personally make a move towards the ravelment of its mystery without subjecting myself to the curiosity of the people among whom my attention of the District Attorney's office and the suspicion of the men whose business I was in a measure attempting to usurp.
-- Anna Katharine Green, One of My Sons

What I could see clearly, though, was the lower course of the burn: this bisected the small valley and appeared to loop around the far side of the dwelling, partly enfolding it before it broadened out and spread thence through arable to a ravelment of stone and incoming sea.
-- Clifford Geddes, Edge of the Glen

Ravelment derives from the word ravel which means "to become tangled". It entered English in the early 1800s.




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Offline ifyoucantfixit

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Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #115 on: June 12, 2012, 06:40:54 pm »

fantast \FAN-tast\, noun:

A visionary or dreamer.

I wouldn't allow the unwashed fantast in my house, but, I have to remind myself, it isn't my house he is being admitted to.
-- Wallace Earle Stegner, All the Little Live Things

The floor of the shop had been sprinkled with water; it had probably been sprinkled by a great fantast and freethinker, because it was all covered with patterns and cabbalistic signs.
-- Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, The Steppe

Fantast entered English from German, though it is based on the Greek word phantastḗs which meant "boaster". It is related to the other English word fantastic.




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Offline ifyoucantfixit

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Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #116 on: June 14, 2012, 06:05:14 pm »

 
 
 
 

imponderable \im-PON-der-uh-buhl\, noun:

1. A thing that cannot be precisely determined or measured.

adjective:
1. Not ponderable; that cannot be precisely determined, measured, or evaluated.

Of course he had always been a huge imponderable, if not to say the biggest challenge of her admittedly young life.
-- Lindsay Armstrong, The Constantin Marriage

Of course there's always the imponderable, the unpredictable which can't be foreseen...
-- Leonardo Sciascia, Peter Robb and Sacha Rabinovitch, The Moro Affair

Imponderable comes directly from the Medieval Latin word imponderābilis which had the same meaning.

 



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Offline ifyoucantfixit

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Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #117 on: June 15, 2012, 05:12:52 pm »


cunctation \kuhngk-TEY-shuhn\, noun:

Delay; tardiness.

Lord Eldon however was personally answerable for unnecessary and culpable cunctation, as he called it in protracting the arguments of counsel, and in deferring judgment from day to day, from term to term, and from year to year after the arguments had closed and he had irrevocably decided in his own mind what the judgment should be.
-- Baron John Campbell, Lives of Lord Lyndhurst and Lord Brougham

"What it's about," Goldman said, with tantalizing cunctation, "is a whole lot of things, as a matter of fact."
-- Philip Kerr, The Shot

Cunctation stems from the Latin word cunctātiōn- meaning "delay" or "hesitation".

I am not sure exactly the prounciation of this word.  I don't think their diagram is easy to say in English.  I am giving an alternate one to see if it is easier to wrap your mouth around.  I am not sure that the phonetics they give are helpful.  I think the way they want you to pronounce it is more like Welsh or northern European, not English. 
 
here is my alternative... with the silent "g
kunk/tation ?



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Offline ifyoucantfixit

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Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #118 on: June 16, 2012, 03:48:07 pm »


Sardanapalian \sahr-dn-uh-PEYL-yuhn\, adjective:

Excessively luxurious.

Rich papers with gold borders, bronze chandeliers, mahogany engravings in the dining-room, and blue cashmere furniture in the salon, … all details of a chilling and perfectly unmeaning character, but which to the eyes of Ville-aux- Fayes seemed the last efforts of Sardanapalian luxury.
-- Honoré de Balzac, Sons of Soil

Here, in this half-destroyed Tartar town, surrounded by steppes, he indulged himself in a Sardanapalian effulgence that beggared even his jassy Court.
-- Simon Sebag Montefiore, Potemkin

First used in English in the 1860s, Sardanapalian is an eponym that comes from the legendary Assyrian king Sardanapal who was famous for his decadence.




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Offline ifyoucantfixit

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Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #119 on: June 17, 2012, 05:57:03 pm »


agnate \ag-neyt\, noun:

1. A relative whose connection is traceable exclusively through males.
2. Any male relation on the father's side.

adjective:
1. Related or akin through males or on the father's side.
2. Allied or akin.

It was considered abomination; no agnate gives up its infant kin in Igboland, no matter the crime.
-- M. O. Ené, Blighted Blues

His uncle in the third segment was the only other agnate who shared patriotic sentiments with Yat-Kuan.
-- Saikaku Ihara, Tales of Japanese Justice

Agnate is derived from the Latin word agnātus which referred to paternal kinsmen



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