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WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
ifyoucantfixit:
cathect \kuh-THEKT\, verb:
To invest emotion or feeling in an idea, object, or another person.
Yet such sympathy becomes forceful through mass-cultural stereotypes, visceral and imaginative figures of woman as demon with which readers can easily cathect.
-- David Bruce Suchoff, Critical Theory and the Novel
We cathect something whenever we invest emotional energy in it, whether that something be another person, a rose garden, playing golf, or hating lessons.
-- Morgan Scott Peck, Golf and the Spirit
Cathect is a backformation that emerged in the 1930s. It comes from the idea of cathexis from Sigmund Freud's term for emotional investment.
ifyoucantfixit:
foible \FOI-buhl\, noun:
1. A minor weakness or failing of character; slight flaw or defect: an all-too-human foible.
2. The weaker part of a sword blade, between the middle and the point (opposed to forte).
Irascibility was his sole foible; for in fact the obstinacy of which men accused him was anything but his foible, since he justly considered it his forte.
-- Edgar Allan Poe, "X-ing a Paragrab", Poetry and Tales
I fear, on the contrary, if they came under your examination, there is not one in whom you would not discern some foible!
-- Fanny Burney, Camilla
Related to the word feeble, foible is derived from the Latin word flēbilis which meant "lamentable."
This is a word that I am pretty sure everyone is quite familiar with. However in order to not be trying to insult peoples intellect. I try to not
post the words that are so obviously familiar to all. This one has a section and definition, that I did not know. So I wanted to allow those that
were not so knowledgeable in that regard too... The part about the sword parts being considered as directlly defined by the word.
ifyoucantfixit:
billet-doux \BIL-ey-DOO\, noun;
plural billets-doux \bil-ay-DOO(Z)\:
A love letter.
The bouquet struck her full in the chest, and a little billet-doux fell out of it into her lap.
-- E. M. Forster, Where Angels Fear to Tread
Or you receive a billet doux in a careless scrawl you can't read. What sort of billet doux is that, I ask you?
-- William H. Gass, Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife
“A billet-doux means love letter, in French like.” “Then why didn't you just say love letter?” “Because French is the language of love, my boy. Something you should keep in mind, but will soon forget.”
-- William W. Johnstone and J. A. Johnstone, The Brother's O'Brien
Billet-doux literally means "sweet note" in French. It entered English in the 1660s.
ifyoucantfixit:
compeer \kuhm-PEER\, noun:
1. Close friend; comrade.
2. An equal in rank, ability, accomplishment, etc.; peer; colleague.
verb:
1. Archaic. To be the equal of; match.
Whoever eats them outlasts heaven and earth, and is the compeer of sun and moon.
-- Cheng'en Wu, Monkey
Aren't you pleased with him, and didn't he arrange things well, eh, my good compeer Lenet?
-- Alexandre Dumas, The Women's War
Compeer
ifyoucantfixit:
orectic \aw-REK-tik\, adjective:
Of or pertaining to desire; appetitive.
This, at any rate, would follow from the assumption that he believed us to be persons by reason of physical existence, of the soul's faculties, and of that blending of the reason with the orectic soul which we call will.
-- John Addington Symonds, The Aristotelian System
As well as alethic values, such as truth, there are orectic values, which are possessed by desires, hopes, fears, etc.
-- N. M. L. Nathan, Review of "The Good and the True," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 55, No. 2
They bandied confidences, were reckless with intimacies. They were erudite and sensual about the orectic, the synchronous.
-- Guy Davenport, Tatlin!
Orectic is derived from the Greek word orektikós meaning "appetitive."
Love this word. Now we have a word for that so very personal tendency...
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