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WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
ifyoucantfixit:
hirtellous \hur-TEL-uhs\, verb:
Minutely hirsute.
Any noticeable hirsute or even hirtellous shadings visible upon the represented, unclothed, female form, anywhere below the eyebrows, say, is, in the judgment of this Department…
-- Frank Yerby, Tobias and the Angel
A small annual herb commonly 20 to 40 cm. tall, sparingly branched above, hirtellous on the stems with small downwardly curled hairs…
-- Carnegie Institution of Washington, Botany of the Maya Area
Hirtellous comes from the Latin word hirt meaning "hairy." The suffix -ellus is a diminutive adjective suffix.
ifyoucantfixit:
tardigrade \TAHR-di-greyd\, adjective:
1. Slow in pace or movement.
2. Belonging or pertaining to the phylum Tardigrada.
noun:
1. Also called bear animalcule, water bear. Any microscopic, chiefly herbivorous invertebrate of the phylum Tardigrada, living in water, on mosses, lichens, etc.
The days were long and boring as we walked a continuous almost tardigrade pace around several large buildings, again with empty carbines.
-- Stafford O. Chenevert, Amber Waves of Grain
…the soldiers were struggling and fighting their way after them, in such tardigrade fashion as their hoof-shaped shoes would allow—impeded, but not very resolutely attacked, by the people.
-- George Eliot, Romola
He rolls tardigrade, to a stop on a shoulder, stooped in sand, in its pretense as it doesn't exist and there's only desert…
-- Joshua Cohen, Witz
Related to the common word tardy, tardigrade comes from the Latin word tardigradus meaning "slow-paced."
ifyoucantfixit:
apophasis \uh-POF-uh-sis\, noun:
Denial of one's intention to speak of a subject that is at the same time named or insinuated, as “I shall not mention Caesar's avarice, nor his cunning, nor his morality.”
But I think that anything that is deep isn't love, it's deliberate calculation or schizophrenia. I myself wouldn't even attempt to say what love is - probably both love and God can only be defined by apophasis, through those things that they are not.
-- Viktor Pelevin, The Sacred Book of the Werewolf
"…Now, I have no desire to be a backseat driver—” Apophasis, Chris thought; saying you're not going to say something in order to say it. Nixon's favorite device, and Newt Gingrich's, and Karl Rove's—fine old Republican tradition.
-- John Barnes, Directive 51
Apophasis stems from the Greek word apópha meaning "to say no, deny." The suffix -sis appears in Greek loanwords, where it forms an abstract noun from a verb, as in thesis
ifyoucantfixit:
catachresis \kat-uh-KREE-sis\, noun:
Misuse or strained use of words, as in a mixed metaphor, occurring either in error or for rhetorical effect.
This monstrous metaphor should more aptly be called a catachresis, an extravagant, unexpected figure, and we might be tempted to dismiss it as abusive misstatement. But neither the catachresis nor the monster can simply be dismissed…
-- Richard L. Regosin, Montaigne's Unruly Brood
Analepsis, catachresis, no: the word she was after was “floundering." She could already write the review of her unwritten book: “lwlarina Thwaite flounders about in her subject. with little direction and still less progress.“
-- Claire Messud, The Emperor's Children
Catachresis is derived from the Greek root chrêsis which meant "to use." The prefix cata- means "down, back, against." The word katachrêsthai meant "to misuse" in Greek.
ifyoucantfixit:
anacoluthon \an-uh-kuh-LOO-thon\, noun:
1. A construction involving a break in grammatical sequence, as It makes me so—I just get angry.
2. An instance of anacoluthia.
She employed, not from any refinement of style, but in order to correct her imprudences, abrupt breaches of syntax not unlike that figure which the grammarians call anacoluthon or some such name.
-- Marcel Proust, The Remembrance of Things Past
Sometimes there is no main verb at all, or the sentence is an anacoluthon, beginning in one way and ending in another.
-- Anthony Hope, The Prisoner of Zenda
Anacoluthon has a very literal meaning in Greek. The root kolouth- meant "march." However this root has two prefixes. First, the prefix a- means "together." The
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