BetterMost Community Blogs > Ifyoucantfixit's Blog
WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
ifyoucantfixit:
cacology \ka-KOL-uh-jee\, noun:
Defectively produced speech; socially unacceptable diction.
As to prose, I don't know Addison's from Johnson's; but I will try to mend my cacology.
-- Lord Byron, The Works and Letters of Lord Byron
Such cacology drives some people to distraction.
-- Linton Weeks, "R Grammar Gaffes Ruining the Language? Maybe Not", NPR
Cacology comes from the root caco- meaning "bad." This prefix occurs in loanwords from Greek. Similarly the suffix -logy is a combining form used in the names of sciences and bodies of knowledge.
ifyoucantfixit:
piceous \PIS-ee-uhs\, adjective:
1. Inflammable; combustible.
2. Of, pertaining to, or resembling pitch.
3. Zoology. Black or nearly black as pitch.
In the silent and piceous hour just before dawn, they advanced at a slow trot, fanning out through the slave quarters and into the yard that divided the gin house, the mill, and the buildings where Canning and I slept unaware.
-- Geraldine Brooks, March
Dark pink for the brick buildings, dark green for the doorjambs and the benches, dark iron for the hinges, dark stone for Nathaniel's Tomb; darkness in the piceous roots of trees that broke through the earth like bones through skin.
-- Roger Rosenblatt, Beet
Piceous stems from the Latin word piceus meaning "made of pitch
ifyoucantfixit:
rollick \ROL-ik\, verb:
To move or act in a carefree, frolicsome manner; behave in a free, hearty, gay, or jovial way.
Also in old, jolly fishwives, squatted under arches, obscene old women, how deeply they laugh and shake and rollick, when they walk, from side to side, hum, ha!
-- Virginia Woolf, "The String Quartet," Monday or Tuesday: Eight Stories
A deeper ripple of mirth this time and Bronzini was sad for the boy, skinny Alfonse, but did not rebuke them, kept talking, talked over the momentary rollick—skinny sorry Alfonse, grape-stained with tragic acne.
-- Don DeLillo, Underworld
Rollick is a portmanteau of "frolic" and "romp." It arose in the 1820s.
* If you had a set of pets,, you could probably call them Rollick, and Frolic respectively... Same action, diff name...?
ifyoucantfixit:
manifold \MAN-uh-fohld\, adjective:
1. Of many kinds; numerous and varied: manifold duties.
2. Having numerous different parts, elements, features, forms, etc.: a manifold program for social reform.
noun:
1. Something having many different parts or features.
2. A copy or facsimile, as of something written, such as is made by manifolding
verb:
1. To make copies of, as with carbon paper.
The possible moves being not only manifold, but involute, the chances of such oversights are multiplied; and in nine cases out of ten, it is the more concentrative rather than the more acute player who conquers.
-- Edgar Allen Poe, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
Whatever his arrangements are, however, they are always a pattern of neatness; and every one of the manifold articles connected with his manifold occupations is to be found in its own particular place.
-- Charles Dickens, Master Humphrey's Clock
Manifold comes from the Old English word monigfald meaning "varied in appearance." The English suffix -fold originally meant "of
ifyoucantfixit:
spleenful \SPLEEN-fuhl\, adjective:
1. Ill-humored; irritable or peevish; spiteful; splenetic.
2. Full of or displaying spleen.
For a blink, Ratcliffe himself, who hated almost beyond telling this spleenful fellowman now well handcuffed and clamped at the ankles with cold stout bilboes, did believe in his intentions, and would have resigned all proceedings if he could; but once the doctor prescribes a purge, how can he countermand himself?
-- William T. Vollmann, Argall
Their attention was focused on Guy Fowler, a surly, spleenful man, but one of few old-salts of white blood.
-- Virginia Van Druten, Bound to Sea
The spleen was regarded as the seat of morose feelings and bad tempers in Medieval physiology. The adjective spleenful arose from this association in the late 1500s.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version