Author Topic: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com  (Read 137568 times)

Offline ifyoucantfixit

  • Moderator
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 8,049
Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #40 on: April 23, 2012, 12:52:19 am »


obtuse \uhb-TOOS\, adjective:

1. Not quick or alert in perception, feeling, or intellect.
2. Not sharp, acute, or pointed; blunt in form.
3. (Of a leaf, petal, etc.) rounded at the extremity.
4. Indistinctly felt or perceived, as pain or sound.

"Excuse me?" Rose says, giving me the look I deserve, given the obtuse nature of my invitation.
-- David Sosnowski, Vamped

That was always your failing. Too obtuse. Never able quite to get to the point. Or to make people realise when you have got there.

-- Paul House, Dust Before the Wind
He tried to collect his newspaper from under her while asking, “Then why did you ask me that obtuse question?”

-- Shelly Hancock, Entertaining Jonathan

Obtuse comes from the Latin word tundere which meant "to beat" and the prefix ob- meaning "against" because it referred to the process of beating metal until it was dull.




     Beautiful mind

Offline Mandy21

  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,238
Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #41 on: April 23, 2012, 09:25:36 am »
That word 'obtuse' always reminds me of "The Shawshank Redemption", Janice.  From the scene where the prisoner Andy DuFrain (played by Tim Robbins) has found out he might know who actually killed his wife, and framed him for the crime, and the warden, whose prison bookkeeping was being creatively managed by Andy, is not willing to lose him / set him free.  Dufrain asks him, "How can you be so obtuse?" and the warden, livid, replies, "What did you just call me?" and sends him to solitary for months to think about what he's said.  When the warden comes down to the hole to alert him to recent evil goings-on on the yard, and senses he is still reluctant to play the warden's game, threatens all manner of things which will occur if DuFrain refuses, and ends with, "Am I making myself clear? Or am I being obtuse?".  The sinister look on the warden's face chills me to the bone every time.
Dawn is coming,
Open your eyes...

Offline ifyoucantfixit

  • Moderator
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 8,049
Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #42 on: April 23, 2012, 01:38:37 pm »
 
   It always make me think of the same thing.  Coincidentally?  I am not sure there is such a thing as a
coincidence...  That is one of my three favorite movies.. I think I have a list of movies here, that says so even..

   I am glad to know that at least some of us are reading this thread..I know a couple of others are.  But I have
no idea really.  I even wondered sometimes if I was the only one that read it.  I enjoy it a lot.  What with my facination
for words.  I am always glad to find one that I am unfamiliar with.  I try not to put ones here, that are too familiar.  That way people can possibly learn from them..



     Beautiful mind

Offline Mandy21

  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,238
Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #43 on: April 23, 2012, 06:37:38 pm »
I read this thread every day, Janice, and apply it wherever possible.

For some reason, though, I haven't been successful at putting all of the words, such as 'macaronic', into a sentence that people understand.

They look at me like this => :-\ and then move slowly away.

But I *do* read and learn them, if only for my own edification.  Thanks for posting.
Dawn is coming,
Open your eyes...

Offline ifyoucantfixit

  • Moderator
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 8,049
Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #44 on: April 24, 2012, 04:52:48 am »


   I have used a lot of them myself.  But i too had a bit of a problem with macaronic..Its not something that
comes up every day...              :)

   I really am glad to know that someone else is enjoing too..thanks



     Beautiful mind

Offline ifyoucantfixit

  • Moderator
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 8,049
Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #45 on: April 24, 2012, 06:29:19 am »

fard \fahrd\, verb:

1. To apply cosmetics.

noun:
1. Facial cosmetics.

She's farded inch-thick with affectation. She's perfumed to suffocation with the musk of pretence. The colour on her cheek is part paint, part mock-modesty.
-- Mary Cowden Clarke, The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines

Holding a candle dramatically high, wrapped in a very shabby old housegown, with some kind of fard on her cheeks and her grey hair screwed up in short plaits above her ears, she had a rather ridiculous air...
-- Phyllis Bentley, Love and Money

Fard comes from the Old Low Franconian word farwiđon meaning "to dye or color." In the Old French it became farder meaning "to apply makeup."




     Beautiful mind

Offline ifyoucantfixit

  • Moderator
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 8,049
Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #46 on: April 25, 2012, 07:21:54 am »
barnburner \BAHRN-bur-ner\, noun:

1. Something that is highly exciting or impressive.
2. Chiefly Pennsylvania. A wooden friction match.
3. (Initial capital letter) A member of the progressive faction in the Democratic party in New York State 1845–52.


“So, ready for the elder's meeting tonight?” Olan said, pouring himself some coffee. “Should be a barnburner from what I hear.”
-- Jonathan Weyer, The Faithful

"A real barnburner — look, you got me sweating buckets." Jason's sitting on the curb with his teammates.
-- Craig Davidson, Rust and Bone

Barnburner is an Americanism that was first observed in the 1830s. It referred to the practice of burning down a barn to get rid of rats.




     Beautiful mind

Offline Mandy21

  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,238
Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #47 on: April 25, 2012, 08:58:19 am »
Barnburner is an Americanism that was first observed in the 1830s. It referred to the practice of burning down a barn to get rid of rats.

Seems more than a bit extreme, considering the monumental effort required in those days just to build a barn.  Besides, what would keep the rats from burrowing underneath the walls to make their escape?  Hmm...  Perhaps panic and resignation set in before their teeny-tiny brains could think of this.
Dawn is coming,
Open your eyes...

Offline ifyoucantfixit

  • Moderator
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 8,049
Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #48 on: April 26, 2012, 12:32:29 pm »

 
 
 
adenoidal \ad-n-OID-l\, adjective:

1. Being characteristically pinched and nasal in tone quality.
2. Of or pertaining to the adenoids; adenoid.
3. Having the adenoids enlarged, especially to a degree that interferes with normal breathing.

"Quite the good, old-fashioned type of servant," as Miss Marple explained afterward, and with the proper, inaudible, respectful voice, so different from the loud but adenoidal accents of Gladys.
-- Agatha Christie, Three Blind Mice

Then just as suddenly the sensation was gone and I heard a shrill, adenoidal voice that swallowed most of its soft consonants…
-- Charles Johnson, Middle Passage

Adenoidal only entered English in the 1910s, referring to the glands near the nasal passage.

     I had mine removed, when i was 5, along side my tonsils.  Because i was having so much trouble breathing at night.  My parents said
i wheezed, like I had very bad asthma. 

 



     Beautiful mind

Offline ifyoucantfixit

  • Moderator
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 8,049
Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #49 on: April 28, 2012, 08:16:50 pm »

littoral \LIT-er-uhl\, adjective:

1. Pertaining to the shore of a lake, sea, or ocean.
2. (On ocean shores) of or pertaining to the biogeographic region between the sublittoral zone and the high-water line and sometimes including the supralittoral zone above the high-water line.
3. Of or pertaining to the region of freshwater lake beds from the sublittoral zone up to and including damp areas on shore.

noun:
1. A littoral region.

The extensive artificialization of lake shorelines reduces the native littoral vegetation in quantity and quality.
-- Alex Córdoba-Aguilar, Dragonflies and Damselflies

There was an exuberant fierceness in the littoral here, a vital competition for existence.
-- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

Littoral stems from the Latin word lītus which meant "shore." It was replaced by the Old English word shore but is still used by scientists.




     Beautiful mind