Author Topic: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com  (Read 137592 times)

Offline ifyoucantfixit

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Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #140 on: July 07, 2012, 06:37:56 pm »



aliquant \AL-i-kwuhnt\, adjective:

Contained in a number or quantity, but not dividing it evenly: An aliquant part of 16 is 5.

Cunning is the aliquant of talent; as hypocrisy is of religion; all the threes in the universe cannot make ten.
-- Thomas Hall, The Fortunes and Adventures of Raby Rattler and His Man Floss

...even though that number was an odd number and by a quarter the number of his confiteors, even though four was an aliquant part of two thousand to hundred and nineteen, nothing being changed with regard to the masses...
-- Raymond Queneau, The Blue Flowers

Aliquant stems from the Latin roots ali- meaning "differently" and quantus meaning "great."




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Offline ifyoucantfixit

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Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #141 on: July 08, 2012, 02:07:42 pm »

vamp \vamp\, verb:

1. To patch up; repair.
2. To give (something) a new appearance by adding a patch or piece.
3. To concoct or invent (often followed by up): He vamped up a few ugly rumors to discredit his enemies.
4. To furnish with a vamp, especially to repair (a shoe or boot) with a new vamp.

noun:
1. The portion of a shoe or boot upper that covers the instep and toes.
2. Something patched up or pieced together.

...plod and plow, vamp your old coats and hats, weave a shoestring; great affairs and the best wine by and by.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Illusions," Essays and Poems

To lay false claim to an invention or discovery which has an immediate market value; to vamp up a professedly new book of reference by stealing from the pages of one already produced at the cost of much labour and material…
-- George Eliot, Impressions of Theophrastus Such

Vamp is a shortening of the Middle French word avant-pie literally meaning "fore-foot." This sense of the word is embedded in the more common word revamp.




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Offline ifyoucantfixit

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Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #142 on: July 09, 2012, 07:21:44 pm »


scherzando \skert-SAHN-doh\, adjective:

Playful; sportive.

A short coda recalls the scherzando music, and the piece concludes with the jazzy harmony.
-- Howard Pollack, John Alden Carpenter

A recapitulation satisfies the sonata principle by partially transposing both of the episodes to the tonic, and to cap off the movement with a tour de force Weber combines the last statement of the refrain with the scherzando theme.
-- R. Larry Todd, Nineteenth-Century Piano Music

Scherzando comes from the Italian word scherzare meaning "to joke." 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 #143 on: July 10, 2012, 10:25:04 am »



ectopic \ek-TOP-ik\, adjective:

Occurring in an abnormal position or place; displaced.

It does not appear that any modern author, or any of our large numbers of "systems" of surgery, has taken up this important aspect of "ectopic tumors."
-- Dr. Thomas H. Manley, The Medical Times and Register, Vol. 33 - 34

Diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy was made and immediate operation decided upon.
-- Dr. J. Henry Barbat, Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 32

is from the invented Greek word ectopia meaning "out of place." It was coined in 1873.


   I had never thought of this word in these varied terms.  I suppose many and sundry things could be called ectopic, if the
main definition of it is to be out of place.
ie.  I often see people that  feel ectopic when going to strange places, with people they don't know..




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Offline Mandy21

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Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #144 on: July 11, 2012, 06:50:22 am »
I'm with you, Janice.  I never looked up the word because I only ever heard it used in connection to pregnancy, and presumed wrongly that it meant 'anywhere outside the uterus'.  I'm glad to know it can be used in many other ways.  Will have to throw it in at first opp.
Dawn is coming,
Open your eyes...

Offline ifyoucantfixit

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Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #145 on: July 11, 2012, 10:53:55 pm »


  hypethral \hi-PEE-thruhl\, adjective:

(Of a classical building) wholly or partly open to the sky.

Follow the gallery around for about a thousand paces until you come to the hypethral. With it dark out you might miss it, so keep an eye open for the plants.
-- Gene Wolfe, Shadow and Claw

The choice of top light for the main galleries is said to have been dictated by the belief that Greek temples were hypethral, that is, open to the sky; from which it was inferred that Greek taste demanded to see works of art under light from above.
-- Benjamin Ives Gilman, Museum Ideals of Purpose and Method

Hypethral stems from the Greek roots hyp- which means "under" and aîthros meaning "clear sky."

 



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Offline ifyoucantfixit

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Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #146 on: July 13, 2012, 01:48:39 pm »


tawpie \TAW-pee\, noun:

A foolish or thoughtless young person.

Do ye no hear me, tawpie? Do ye no hear what I'm tellin' ye?
-- Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Weir of Hermiston

You are just idle tawpies.
-- Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr, Profit and Loss

Tawpie comes from the Swedish word tåbe meaning "a simpleton."




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Offline ifyoucantfixit

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Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #147 on: July 13, 2012, 02:28:20 pm »


paronymous \puh-RON-uh-muhs\, adjective:

Containing the same root or stem, as the words wise and wisdom.

The sentence seems to reverberate with echoes of assonance—another distinctive trait of Haweke's writing often enriched with alliterative patterns or even rhymes—on both sides of the two central words: "pale petal," whose juxtaposition involves an anagramatical and paronymous variation.
-- Heide Ziegler, Facing Texts

This in itself is a significant achievement in a language so flowery and paronymous to the extent that exaggeration, especially at that time of its literary history, is widely considered to be one of its inherent characteristics.
-- Sabry Hafez, The Quest for Identities

Paronymous stems from the Greek roots para- meaning "beside" and onoma meaning "a name."




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Offline ifyoucantfixit

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Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #148 on: July 15, 2012, 12:01:41 am »

baccate \BAK-eyt\, adjective:

1. Berrylike.
2. Bearing berries.

Such fruits are collectively called baccate or berried.
-- John Hutton Balfour, Class Book of Botany

Its appearance suggests that it is a capsule becoming baccate.
-- H. N. Ridley, Natural Science

Entering English in the 1820s, baccate is derived from the Latin word bacca meaning "berry."




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Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #149 on: July 16, 2012, 02:11:24 am »



mote \moht\, noun:

1. A small particle or speck, especially of dust.
2. Moit.

A tiny mote of dust is truly a cosmos unto itself, that much we do now know. It contains molecules that are far too small for us to see without a microscope, but they are no less real than the dust itself or the piano on which the mote of dust has settled.
-- Roger A. Caras, Cat Is Watching

A white mote hovered in the air several feet away from her.
-- Sara Stern, Dragon's Song

Mote stems from the Norwegian word mutt meaning "a speck."




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