Author Topic: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com  (Read 137569 times)

Offline ifyoucantfixit

  • Moderator
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 8,049
Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #50 on: April 30, 2012, 12:05:26 pm »


aphotic \ey-FOH-tik\, adjective:

Lightless; dark.

I sat curled up on the sofa, trapped in the dream from which I had begun to awaken, but still lost in the reminiscence of our aphotic rendezvous.
-- Žakalin Nežić, Goodbye Serbia

The stars and moon outside the windows on the twenty- first floor of Fordum Towers shined in the distance, the sky otherwise ebony and aphotic.
-- Steven Gillis, Water Falls

Coined in the early 1900s, aphotic comes from the Greek word photic meaning "light," as in the word photo, and the prefix a- meaning "not."

   This word is very apprapro to the OS.  Ennis woke in the morning, with his dream of Jack Twist..



     Beautiful mind

Offline ifyoucantfixit

  • Moderator
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 8,049
Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #51 on: May 01, 2012, 08:13:40 am »


     ort \awrt\, noun:

A scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.

She continued and enjoyed every tender morsel. There wasn't even an ort left on the plate.
-- Jack Collins, The Polyandrist Murders: Book 1 Of 2

They fed her on the orts and ends, a little better than the dog, and a little worse than the cat.
-- Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Charles's programs didn't turn up anything?” “Not an ort.” “ Wow. You think they might be dead?
-- Walter Mosley, All I Did Was Shoot My Man

Ort is related to the Old English word eten meaning "to eat."




     Beautiful mind

Offline ifyoucantfixit

  • Moderator
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 8,049
Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #52 on: May 02, 2012, 09:00:08 am »

 
kowtow /Cow tow

1. To act in an obsequious manner; show servile deference.
2. To touch the forehead to the ground while kneeling, as an act of worship, reverence, apology, etc., especially in former Chinese custom.

noun:
1. The act of kowtowing.

Mei-hua was sitting nearby, and though she could not understand the English words she understood what was happening. She murmured that her daughter should kowtow.
-- Beverly Swerling, City of God

It's a new one for Morrison to meet a girl who doesn't kowtow. He's a very great personage in his line, and he can't help knowing it.
-- Dorothy Canfield, The Bent Twig

Kowtow comes from the Chinese practice of touching the ground with your forehead to show respect, called k'o t'ou. It literally means "to knock the head
 



     Beautiful mind

Offline Mandy21

  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,238
Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #53 on: May 02, 2012, 12:16:56 pm »
Kowtow comes from the Chinese practice of touching the ground with your forehead to show respect, called k'o t'ou. It literally means "to knock the head

"To knock the head," huh?  I had a marriage like that once -- one giant kowtow, day after day after day...
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 #54 on: May 02, 2012, 03:24:22 pm »


   I am terribly sorry Mandy.  I too know what that can be like.  Not in my marriage.  My father was like that.  He was
one of those people that sounded exactly like Mel Gibson, when on a rant.

   I told my husband before we married.  If you evet get a notion for such behavior, I have this to say.  "you have to
sleep sometime."  I don't advise you sleep very soundly in case you ever do that..  He doesn't do it, nor would
I have ever tolerated such..



     Beautiful mind

Offline Mandy21

  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,238
Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #55 on: May 02, 2012, 09:56:47 pm »

   I am terribly sorry Mandy.  I too know what that can be like.  Not in my marriage.  My father was like that.  He was
one of those people that sounded exactly like Mel Gibson, when on a rant.

   I told my husband before we married.  If you evet get a notion for such behavior, I have this to say.  "you have to
sleep sometime."  I don't advise you sleep very soundly in case you ever do that..  He doesn't do it, nor would
I have ever tolerated such..

Oh dear me, sorry, Janice, I didn't mean that at all.  I would never, ever stand for violence in a relationship.  What I meant was that *I* spent every day knocking my own head against a wall, fighting my frustrations at trying to help someone I loved who didn't want to be helped.  In the end, his actions killed him.  I'm terribly sorry if you had to go through violent times with your own father.  That would be utterly devastating.
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 #56 on: May 03, 2012, 04:18:38 am »


    Don't worry about me.  I am fine.  The hurt was most effective on my two brothers.  I had a constitution that allowed me to
overcome most every obstacle that life has ever placed in front of me.  I wish they had been as stubborn headed as me. 
   



     Beautiful mind

Offline ifyoucantfixit

  • Moderator
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 8,049
Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #57 on: May 03, 2012, 03:26:11 pm »



numen \NOO-min\, noun:

Divine power, especially one who inhabits a particular object.

This “liquid” flowing up his arm and out of the other was numen, the divine substance, the sacred spirit that lives in a certain place in the body and sustains us all.
-- Jonathan Carroll, White Apples

He was now fairly confident that a shrine, unlike a temple, would contain no resident numen.
-- Dave Duncan, Present Tense (Round Two of the Great Game)

Numen is derived from the Latin word nūmen meaning "a nod, command, or divine will or power."



     Beautiful mind

Offline ifyoucantfixit

  • Moderator
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 8,049
Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #58 on: May 04, 2012, 07:22:21 am »

 
 
 
 
 

fulcrum \FOOL-kruhm\, noun:

1. The support, or point of rest, on which a lever turns.
2. Any prop or support.
3. Zoology. Any of various structures in an animal serving as a hinge or support.

verb:
1. To fit with a fulcrum; put a fulcrum on.

An equal partnership is like a see-saw that sits on a fulcrum. There is a balance of power when one partner gives in and then the other does likewise.
-- Shirley Gunstream Poland, Hearing the Silent Cries

A storm of plans, each one trying to make me into a fulcrum.
-- Steven Erikson, Memories of Ice

Fulcrum originally referred to a bed post from the Latin word fulcire meaning "to prop up."

 



     Beautiful mind

Offline ifyoucantfixit

  • Moderator
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 8,049
Re: WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
« Reply #59 on: May 05, 2012, 09:34:59 am »
besot \bih-SOT\, verb:

1. To infatuate; obsess.
2. To intoxicate or stupefy with drink.
3. To make stupid or foolish: a mind besotted with fear and superstition.

We mustn't besot ourselves with big words like independence and sovereignty. We must begin with small concrete tasks.
-- Piotr Rawicz and Peter Wiles, Blood from the Sky

He tried to appear as besot with her as he was with her father's power and money.
-- Judith Pella and Tracie Peterson, A Hope Beyond

The prefix be was used in Middle English to denote verbs, as in the contemporary words become and befriend. The word sot referred to an alcoholic.

 * This is the perfect word for how I am about Adam...Besotted... I admit it.  No shame to me..
« Last Edit: May 08, 2012, 06:47:39 am by ifyoucantfixit »



     Beautiful mind