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WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
ifyoucantfixit:
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."
ifyoucantfixit:
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.
ifyoucantfixit:
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
ifyoucantfixit:
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..
Mandy21:
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.
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