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WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
ifyoucantfixit:
phthisis \THAHY-sis\, noun:
1. A wasting away.
2. Pulmonary tuberculosis; consumption.
At last Sister Hyacinthe began to speak of the immediate and complete cures of phthisis, and this was the triumph, the healing of that terrible disease which ravages humanity…
-- Robert Hugh Benson, Lourdes
Apoplexy is no longer to be feared, but phthisis is there. Social phthisis is called misery.
-- Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
Phthisis comes from the Greek root phthí which meant "to decay."
ifyoucantfixit:
nomothetic \nom-uh-THET-ik\, adjective:
1. Giving or establishing laws; legislative.
2. Founded upon or derived from law.
3. Psychology. Pertaining to or involving the study or formulation of general or universal laws (opposed to idiographic).
Historical studies have been called 'idiographic' as describing dates and place particulars, as do many phases in geology or astronomy, in contrast to 'nomothetic' studies such as physics and chemistry, which are supposed to lay down rules to hold regardless of date.
-- Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam
The data are usually presented statistically, demographically, or epidemiologically. The nineteenth-century Germany philosopher Wilhelm Windelband called this view the nomothetic approach to knowledge.
-- Edwin S. Shneidman, Autopsy of a Suicidal Mind
Nomothetic stems from Greek roots nomo- meaning "law, custom" and thet meaning "place, set."
ifyoucantfixit:
lodestar \LOHD-stahr\, noun:
1. Something that serves as a guide or on which the attention is fixed.
2. A star that shows the way.
3. Polaris.
Hilola Bigtree was the lodestar that pulled our visored, sweaty visitors across the water.
-- Karen Russell, Swamplandia
It boasts a transportation system second to none amongst the great cities of the world, and it is, most significantly, the lodestar of Japanese culture in modern times.
-- Lawrence William Rogers, Tokyo Stories
Lodestar comes from the Old English word lode which meant "way, course." The word has been used in navigation since the 1400s.
ifyoucantfixit:
simper \SIM-per\, verb:
1. To smile in a silly, self-conscious way.
2. To say with a simper.
noun:
1. A silly, self-conscious smile.
It was more a simper than a smile; a pleased, self-satisfied simper.
-- John L'Heureux, A Woman Run Mad
The women Sam usually dates simper and flutter and hang on his every word.
-- Kristine Rolofson, Pillow Talk
Simper is derived from the Danish word sippe, which referred to a woman who sipped her drink in an affected manner
ifyoucantfixit:
velleity \vuh-LEE-i-tee\, noun:
1. Volition in its weakest form.
2. A mere wish, unaccompanied by an effort to obtain it.
Fortunately it did no more than stress, the better to mock if you like, an innate velleity.
-- Samuel Beckett, Molloy
My guess is that instead of being men of decision we are in reality men of velleity.
-- Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
Have you come across the word velleity? A nice Thomistic ring to it. Volition at its lowest ebb. A small thing, a wish, a tendency. If you're low-willed, you see, you end up living in the shallowest turns and bends of your own preoccupations.
-- Don DeLillo, Underworld
Velleity stems from the Latin word velle which meant "to be willing." The suffix -ity is used for abstract nouns
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