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WORD OF THE DAY..........courtesy of Dictionary.com
ifyoucantfixit:
fard \fahrd\, verb:
1. To apply cosmetics.
noun:
1. Facial cosmetics.
She's farded inch-thick with affectation. She's perfumed to suffocation with the musk of pretence. The colour on her cheek is part paint, part mock-modesty.
-- Mary Cowden Clarke, The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines
Holding a candle dramatically high, wrapped in a very shabby old housegown, with some kind of fard on her cheeks and her grey hair screwed up in short plaits above her ears, she had a rather ridiculous air...
-- Phyllis Bentley, Love and Money
Fard comes from the Old Low Franconian word farwiđon meaning "to dye or color." In the Old French it became farder meaning "to apply makeup."
ifyoucantfixit:
barnburner \BAHRN-bur-ner\, noun:
1. Something that is highly exciting or impressive.
2. Chiefly Pennsylvania. A wooden friction match.
3. (Initial capital letter) A member of the progressive faction in the Democratic party in New York State 1845–52.
“So, ready for the elder's meeting tonight?” Olan said, pouring himself some coffee. “Should be a barnburner from what I hear.”
-- Jonathan Weyer, The Faithful
"A real barnburner — look, you got me sweating buckets." Jason's sitting on the curb with his teammates.
-- Craig Davidson, Rust and Bone
Barnburner is an Americanism that was first observed in the 1830s. It referred to the practice of burning down a barn to get rid of rats.
Mandy21:
--- Quote from: ifyoucantfixit on April 25, 2012, 07:21:54 am ---Barnburner is an Americanism that was first observed in the 1830s. It referred to the practice of burning down a barn to get rid of rats.
--- End quote ---
Seems more than a bit extreme, considering the monumental effort required in those days just to build a barn. Besides, what would keep the rats from burrowing underneath the walls to make their escape? Hmm... Perhaps panic and resignation set in before their teeny-tiny brains could think of this.
ifyoucantfixit:
adenoidal \ad-n-OID-l\, adjective:
1. Being characteristically pinched and nasal in tone quality.
2. Of or pertaining to the adenoids; adenoid.
3. Having the adenoids enlarged, especially to a degree that interferes with normal breathing.
"Quite the good, old-fashioned type of servant," as Miss Marple explained afterward, and with the proper, inaudible, respectful voice, so different from the loud but adenoidal accents of Gladys.
-- Agatha Christie, Three Blind Mice
Then just as suddenly the sensation was gone and I heard a shrill, adenoidal voice that swallowed most of its soft consonants…
-- Charles Johnson, Middle Passage
Adenoidal only entered English in the 1910s, referring to the glands near the nasal passage.
I had mine removed, when i was 5, along side my tonsils. Because i was having so much trouble breathing at night. My parents said
i wheezed, like I had very bad asthma.
ifyoucantfixit:
littoral \LIT-er-uhl\, adjective:
1. Pertaining to the shore of a lake, sea, or ocean.
2. (On ocean shores) of or pertaining to the biogeographic region between the sublittoral zone and the high-water line and sometimes including the supralittoral zone above the high-water line.
3. Of or pertaining to the region of freshwater lake beds from the sublittoral zone up to and including damp areas on shore.
noun:
1. A littoral region.
The extensive artificialization of lake shorelines reduces the native littoral vegetation in quantity and quality.
-- Alex Córdoba-Aguilar, Dragonflies and Damselflies
There was an exuberant fierceness in the littoral here, a vital competition for existence.
-- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
Littoral stems from the Latin word lītus which meant "shore." It was replaced by the Old English word shore but is still used by scientists.
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