Word of the Day...

[blunthead]

whirligig (hwʉrl′i gig′, wʉrl′-) noun, something that continuously whirls.

One assessed the gold in her bangles, the tiger-rubies that ornamented her toe-rings, the diamond spangle that adorned her navel, and two highly individual whirligigs of silver filigree.

[Haunted]

pullulate \PUHL-yuh-leyt\, verb:

1. To exist abundantly; swarm; teem.
2. To send forth sprouts, buds, etc.
3. To increase rapidly; multiply.

Swept along by events, we have not had time to sketch in the comic race of courtiers who pullulate at the court of Parma and passed droll comments on the events we have been recounting.
-- Stendhal, John Sturrock, The Charterhouse of Parma

I do not want to describe it; a chaos of heterogeneous words, the body of a tiger or a bull in which teeth, organs and heads monstrously pullulate in mutual conjunction and hatred can (perhaps) be approximate images.
-- Jorge Luis Borges, Donald A. Yates, James East Irby, Labyrinths: selected stories & other writings

Pullulate derives from the Latin pullulatus, "to grow or sprout," and relates to the Latin noun pullus, "a young animal."

[MelissaConstantReader]

cach·in·nate

[kak-uh-neyt]
–verb (used without object), -nat·ed, -nat·ing. to laugh loudly or immoderately.

[blunthead]

priapic (prī-āˈpĭk, -ăpˈĭk) adjective, relating to or overly concerned with masculinity.

Since the dimension of the imagination is much more complex than those of time and space, which are very junior dimensions indeed, the effect of this was to instantly transform a stationary and priapic Hrun into a Hrun moving sideways at eighty miles an hour with no ill effects whatsoever, except for a few wasted mouthfuls of wine.

[Haunted]

arroyo \uh-ROI-oh\, noun:

A small steep-sided gulch with a nearly flat floor: usually dry except after heavy rains.

He glanced around for tracks, but at this point the floor of the arroyo was almost one sheet of solid rock.
-- Louis L'Amour, Borden Chantry

Billy's last words were like the warbling of a bird about to spring from a twig; just as the roar in an arroyo increases as the wall of water nears, so the confused murmur of the crew rose in the ears of the officers.
-- Herman Melville, Billy Budd

Arroyo is an Americanism, adopted from the Spanish term; akin to Latin arrūgia, "mine shaft."

[JohnDalglish]

arroyo \uh-ROI-oh\, noun:

A small steep-sided gulch with a nearly flat floor: usually dry except after heavy rains.

He glanced around for tracks, but at this point the floor of the arroyo was almost one sheet of solid rock.
-- Louis L'Amour, Borden Chantry

Billy's last words were like the warbling of a bird about to spring from a twig; just as the roar in an arroyo increases as the wall of water nears, so the confused murmur of the crew rose in the ears of the officers.
-- Herman Melville, Billy Budd

Arroyo is an Americanism, adopted from the Spanish term; akin to Latin arrūgia, "mine shaft."

Hi,

Does this make anyone else think of Wizard and Glass?

Or is it just me?

Long days and pleasant nights

[Patricia A]

Hi,

Does this make anyone else think of Wizard and Glass?

Or is it just me?


Long days and pleasant nights

Me too!

This one made me think of A Very Tight Place.

Immerd - [im-murd] a rare word meaning 'to cover something in dung or ordure'.
From a Latin word meaning 'dung'.

[blunthead]

Does this make anyone else think of Wizard and Glass? Yes. I mean it reminds me, too.

[blunthead]

sepulcher (sĕpˈəl-kər) noun, a burial vault; a receptacle for sacred relics, especially in an altar.

"Want to bet that she won't catch him?" said Greicha, in a voice of worms and sepulchers, right by his ear.

[Speedygi81]

Perdition (Per-dish-uh n) noun,

1. A state of final spiritual ruin; loss of the soul; damnation

2. the future state of the wicked.

3. Hell.

4. Utter destruction or ruin

5.Obsolete, loss.

[Haunted]

jujitsu \joo-JIT-soo\, noun:

1. The ability to accomplish a task with no apparent effort or resistance.
2. Method developed in Japan of defending oneself without the use of weapons by using the strength and weight of an adversary to disable him.

She stared at me as though I were some kind of bizarre math whiz, and she feared I was about to do some jujitsu calculus on her.
-- Stephen White, Blinded

Edmund has always had a way of turning things around on their head, practicing his own brand of moral jujitsu, Claire's holy zeal for humanity in the abstract!
-- Francine du Plessix Gray, World Without End

Jujitsu comes from the Japanese martial art of the same name, with the word being a combination of ju, "soft," and jitsu, "technique."

[blunthead]

eyot [aɪt] noun, a small island in a river or lake.

After a while a small speck on the rim of the world resolved into an eyot or crag, so perilously perched that the waters of the fall swirled around it at the start of their long drop.

[Sundrop]

i·o·ta (http://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/imacr.gif-http://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/omacr.gifhttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/prime.gifthttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/schwa.gif)n.1. The ninth letter of the Greek alphabet.

2. A very small amount; a bit: not an iota of truth to that tale.

My cousin and I had to look this one up when we were in our 20s. My aunt was giving us a raking because we stayed out all night, and she said "You two don't give one iota!" We looked at each other and at the same time asked "What's an iota?"

[blunthead]

baulk (bôk) noun, one of several parallel sloping beams that support a roof.

It contained one or two hulks and quite a large amount of floating wood in the form of planks, baulks and even whole natural tree trunks, some still supporting green leaves.

[Haunted]

torrefy \TAWR-uh-fahy\, verb:

1. To subject to fire or intense heat.
2. In pharmacology, to dry or parch drugs with heat.
3. To roast, as metallic ores.

A coffee-roaster answers for this purpose, taking care not to torrefy them too much, as the oil of the nut suffers thereby, and it becomes a dark brown or black, grows bitter, and spoils the colour of the chocolate
-- Ernest Spon, American library edition of workshop receipts, Volume 2, 1903

The eloquence of statesmen will not sear War's naked wounds, nor may one torrefy / The solemn lines of a gifted sonneteer.
-- Canadian Poetry Magazine, 1945

Torrefy stems from the two Latin roots torrēre "to dry up" and facere "to put, or make so."

[blunthead]

piquant (pē′kənt, -känt, -kwənt) adjective, agreeably pungent or stimulating to the taste; pleasantly sharp or biting.

"Ghlen Livid," he said. "The fermented vul nut drink they freeze-distill in my home country. A certain smoky quality... Piquant. From the werstern plantations in, ah, Rehigreed Province, yes? Next year's harvest, I fancy, from the color...".

[Haunted]

catawampus \kat-uh-WOM-puhs\, adjective:

1. Off-center; askew; awry.
2. Positioned diagonally; cater-cornered.

Very circuitous, I must say- most sidelong and backhanded, cockeyed and skew-jawed, catawampus and wonky.
-- Candace A. Croft, Annalia's Simply Splendid Flight: From Another Side of Day

The only traditional touches are the catawampus walls and whichaway entrances dictated by Feng Shui, the art of placing things so as to ensure luck and not disturb spirits.
-- P. J. O'Rourke, Eat the rich

Catawampus arose in the United States around 1840, during a particular vogue in elaborate coinages. Cata- stems from cater-, a now-archaic root meaning "diagonal," while the source of -wampus is subject to debate.

[blunthead]

plastron (plas′trən, -trän′) noun, the lower, ventral part of the shell of a turtle or tortoise.

It was midnight on the Disc and so, therefore, the sun was far, far below swinging slowly under Great A'Tuin's vast and frosty plastron.

[Haunted]

haw \HAW\,

verb:
1. To utter a sound representing a hesitation or pause in speech.
2. To turn or make a turn to the left.

noun:
1. A sound or pause of hesitation.
2. The fruit of the Old World hawthorn, Crataegus laevigata, or of other species of the same genus.

interjection:
1. Used as a word of command to a horse or other draft animal, usually directing it to turn to the left.)

I find that I cannot make poor Mr. Gresham hem and haw.
-- Anthony Trollope, Doctor Thorne: Volume 3

If you ask Frank Lockyear about his philosophy regarding trees, he will haw and dig about searching for the words.
-- Robert Gray, "He plants trees everywhere," Scouting, 1985.

Haw has many senses, but the origin of this sense is uncertain, possibly imitative of the sound.

[blunthead]

trireme (trī′rēm′) noun, an ancient Greek or Roman galley, usually a warship, with three banks of oars on each side.

dhow (do̵u) noun, a ship with a lateen sail or sails and a raised deck at the stern.

caravel (kar′ə vel′) noun, any of several kinds of fast, small sailing ships, esp. one with a narrow, high poop and lateen sails

Triremes, dhows and caravels protruded at strange angles from the general wooden chaos.

[JohnDalglish]

trireme (trī′rēm′) noun, an ancient Greek or Roman galley, usually a warship, with three banks of oars on each side.

dhow (do̵u) noun, a ship with a lateen sail or sails and a raised deck at the stern.

caravel (kar′ə vel′) noun, any of several kinds of fast, small sailing ships, esp. one with a narrow, high poop and lateen sails

Triremes, dhows and caravels protruded at strange angles from the general wooden chaos.

Hi,

Definitely annual Sail Day today, eh, Frank? LOL

No Junk?

Long days and pleasant nights

[blunthead]

Hi,

Definitely annual Sail Day today, eh, Frank? LOL

No Junk?

Long days and pleasant nights Aye, Pratchett is junkless. All those words are so fine and appearing in the same sample sentence means less work overall for Mod! :smile2:

barquentine, variant of barkentine (bärˈkən-tēnˌ) noun, a sailing ship with from three to five masts of which only the foremast is square-rigged, the others being fore-and-aft rigged.

carrack, also carack (kărˈək) noun, a large galleon used in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries.

Painted figureheads and Hublandish dragonprows reminded the citizens of Krull that their good fortune stemmed from the sea; barquentines and carracks lent a distinctive shape to the larger buildings.

[Haunted]

futilitarian \fyoo-til-i-TAIR-ee-uhn\, adjective:

Believing that human hopes are vain and unjustified.

In America the silence was more oppressive than the ignorance; but perhaps elsewhere the world might still hide some haunt of futilitarian silence where content reigned - although long search had not revealed it - and so the pilgramage began anew!
-- Henry Adams, The education of Henry Adams

There is another way of looking at the problem which I hope Feigl will not regard as wholly futilitarian in character, although I am not sure that it solves anything.
-- Paul Feyerabend, Herbert Feigl, Grover Maxwell, Mind, matter, and method

Futilitarian is a satirical coinage from the 1820s combining "futility" and "utilitarian."

[blunthead]

parapet (părˈə-pĭt, -pĕtˌ) noun, a low protective wall or railing along the edge of a raised structure such as a roof or balcony.

The parapet along the edgewise cliff was dotted with gantries projecting into nothingness.

[Haunted]

usufruct \YOO-zoo-fruhkt\, noun:

The right to use the property of another as long as it isn't damaged.

She shall have the usufruct of field and garden and all that her father gave her so long as she lives, but she cannot sell or assign it to others.
-- Charles Francis Horne, Rossiter Johnson, John Rudd, The Great Events by Famous Historians

Others might advise you to settle the capital on your wife's relatives, so that if you were to die it would not go to your own family, and meanwhile to enjoy the usufruct during your own lifetime.
-- Denis Diderot, Philip Nicholas Furbank, This is not a story and other stories

Usufruct is a legal term derived from two Latin roots, usu-, "use," and fruct, "fruit."

[PatInTheHat]

usufruct \YOO-zoo-fruhkt\, noun:

The right to use the property of another as long as it isn't damaged.

She shall have the usufruct of field and garden and all that her father gave her so long as she lives, but she cannot sell or assign it to others.
-- Charles Francis Horne, Rossiter Johnson, John Rudd, The Great Events by Famous Historians

Others might advise you to settle the capital on your wife's relatives, so that if you were to die it would not go to your own family, and meanwhile to enjoy the usufruct during your own lifetime.
-- Denis Diderot, Philip Nicholas Furbank, This is not a story and other stories

Usufruct is a legal term derived from two Latin roots, usu-, "use," and fruct, "fruit."

I'd almost swear I made up that word once:oo:...hmm, nah that ain't it, but it's reeealy close:rolleyes:.
:biggrin2:

[blunthead]

I'd almost swear I made up that word once...hmm, nah that ain't it, but it's reeealy close. (Me too, to the cops at that bar.)

canard (kə närd′) noun, A false, esp. malicious, report that has been fabricated with the intention of doing harm.

"What's a canard?" said Twoflower.

[JohnDalglish]

"What's a canard?" said Twoflower.

Hi,

My uncle worked for Cunard, the shipping company, but he didn't like to reply that he worked 'For Cunard' in mixed company for fear of offense LOL

Long days and pleasant nights

[blunthead]

balefire (bāl′fīr′) noun, 1. an outdoor fire; bonfire; 2. a beacon fire; 3. obsolete a funeral pyre.

A brief octarine flicker of balefire around it suggested it had now been sealed beyond the skills of any earthly locksmith.

[Haunted]

trig \TRIG\, adjective:

1. Neat, trim, smart.

verb:
1. To make neat or trim.

noun:
1. A wedge or block used to prevent a wheel, cask, or the like, from rolling.

adjective:
1. In good physical condition; sound; well.

Where the Melville was trig and polished, scoured and caulked, this newcomer was in disrepair and foul shape.
-- Paul Di Filippo, The emperor of Gondwanaland: and other stories

Prince looked trig in a silk scarf, a tweed peacoat, a billed cap of matching material.
-- John Jakes, The Gods of Newport

Trig relates to the Middle English trigg, "true," which is also the root of "trust."

[blunthead]

kraken (krä′kən) noun, a legendary sea monster of northern seas.

Terton, lengthman of the 45th Length, hadn't heard such a clashing since the night a giant kraken had been swept into the Fence five years ago.

[JohnDalglish]

kraken (krä′kən) noun, a legendary sea monster of northern seas.

Terton, lengthman of the 45th Length, hadn't heard such a clashing since the night a giant kraken had been swept into the Fence five years ago.

Hi,

John Wyndham wrote a great horror story, probably his best, a few years ago called, I think 'The Kraken Wakes'.

John Wyndham

Long days and pleasant nights

[blunthead]

Hi,

John Wyndham wrote a great horror story, probably his best, a few years ago called, I think 'The Kraken Wakes'.

John Wyndham

Long days and pleasant nights

Yes, indeed. I read it, I read a bunch of Wyndham after Danse Macabre. He's excellent!

canapé [kæ-nê-'pey] noun, an appetizer made of small squares of toast or crackers overlaid with a tasty relish of cheese, meat, or the like.

"Here we are, going to be sacrificed to some god or other in the morning, and you just sit there eating barnacle canapés."

[Haunted]

handsel \HAN-suhl\, noun:

1. First encounter with or use of something taken as a token of what will follow.
2. A gift or token for good luck or as an expression of good wishes.
3. A first installment of payment.

Breakfast done, the seekers made little delay, so eager as they were to behold the King, and to have handsel of their new sweet life.
-- William Morris, The Story of the Glittering Plain: Or the Land of Living Men

Or (if what they say is true and the ability cum willingness to speak the unspeakable proves the unspeakable's on the way out at last) does it on the contrary provoke a handsel, a prosperous new era, one long overdue, for all concerned?
-- Michael Brodsky, Limit point

Handsel is a venerable English word, literally consisting of "hand" and an early word for "gift."

[blunthead]

plinth (plĭnth) noun, a block or slab on which a pedestal, column, or statue is placed.

They managed to turn without really moving, like a couple of statues revolving on plinths.

[sprinco12]

I learned a new word in a chemistry independent study last year. My teacher loved that word because he thought it was so cool to say. Wierd.
Deliquescent 1:tending to melt or dissolve; especially : tending to undergo gradual dissolution and liquefaction by the attraction and absorption of moisture from the air it basically means to suck the water out of the air to form a solution 2: having repeated division into branches <elms are deliquescent trees>

[Atik]

Currently I´m readıng Bram Stoker Dracula and I came across thıs word.
Chagrın-A great dıssapoıntment or humılıatıon.
I thought ıt was pretty cool word.

[omm poppa mow mow]

<elms are deliquescent trees>

we have an elm up here, north of you, called a piss elm. the darn things grow like weeds, smell like....pee...when you burn them. We burn a lot of wood up here. As burning wood tends to dehydrate the air...especially over the winter, and too much humidity in the house over the winter, really any time...is never good news. good word...deliquescent.

[omm poppa mow mow]

rubbage

I believe this is a word from Twain...Adventures of Huckleberry Finn....and possibly others. There's some stuff on-line about it....stiff about tires, truck tires. But I like the word. rubbage.

I think this is the stuff that ends up in the burn barrel and gets burned on weekends and stinks up the town. rubbage. ha ha ha ha! Pascoe's Store, otherwise known as Big Boy Market....sheesh, we called it "the store" had these burn barrels out int he alleyway behind it...

Course, others used burn barrels. Like, Whitey's old man. We'd put potatoes in them, the barrels. wrap them up in tinfoil and go about our stuff. Come back later, or forget, one. But they were good. Spuds. Not rubbage. Man, what I wouldn't give for a potato right now...or a couple hours three from now, just when it is getting dark and a big yellow moon is coming up over Torch Lake. Man, that'd be great, unwrapping a potato, breaking the skin, and taking a bite. MMMMMMM. mmmmmm! Good! Man! You haven't lived until you've eaten potatoes from the burn barrel in the alley, just before dark, mosquitoes buzzing around, and maybe Whitey's old Dalmatian in the doghouse, giving us the eye. That dog was hyper.

[blunthead]

penury (pen′yo̵̅o̅ rē, -yə-) noun, lack of money, property, or necessities; extreme poverty; destitution.

A few of the more daring members of the Gambler's Guild had once experimented with a form of worship, in the deepest cellars of Guild headquarters, and had all died of penury, murder or just Death within the week.

[Haunted]

aureate \AWR-ee-it\, adjective:

1. Characterized by an ornate style of writing or speaking.
2. Golden or gilded.
3. Brilliant; splendid.

"Nothing in the aureate language of the English poets can match the splendid virtuosity of Ane Ballat of Our Lady."
-- Whitney French Bolton, The Middle Ages

"Scholasms, by the way, may be divided into two classes: aureate terms and inkhorn terms."
-- Charles Harrington Elster, There's a Word for It!: A Grandiloquent Guide to Life

Aureate originally comes from the Latin aureus, "golden."

[blunthead]

chelys galactica (che'lis galak'tika) noun, Great A'Tuin is the Giant Star Turtle (of the fictional species: Chelys galactica) who travels through the Discworld universe's space, carrying four giant elephants (named Berilia, Tubul, Great T'Phon, and Jerakeen) who

in turn carry the Discworld. The narration has described A'Tuin as "the only turtle ever to feature on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram."

One day Great A'Tuin may encounter another member of the species chelys galactica, somewhere in the vast night in which they move.

[Haunted]

ambsace \EYMZ-eys\, noun:

1. The smallest amount or distance.
2. The lowest throw at dice, the double ace (two ones.)
3. Bad luck; misfortune.

"Sleeping is thick arras or ambsace, like an alcatraz across water."
-- Brian Teare, Sight Map: Poems

"We're within ambsace of being done."
-- Jo Ann Ferguson, A Phantom Affair

Ambsace stems from the Old French ambes as, "both aces."

[blunthead]

zephyr (zef′ər, zĕfˈər) noun, the west wind. A gentle breeze.

It was already so sharp that any passing breeze that blew across it was sliced smoothly into two puzzled zephyrs, although brezzes were rare indeed in Death's silent garden.

[aliphil]

i have been trying to get my 3year old boy to stop using bad words that his older brothers have taught him so we are in the middle of teaching him new words to replace them with before he goes to nursery in 2 weeks time..so here is some of them and sorry for the language lol
finlay says bugger mummy says no hot dog
finlay says **** mummy says no sugar
finlay says **** sake mummy says no my word
well i am trying but i dont know if its getting through exept the hot dog one cos he thinks its funny as anything...cant wait for his first day at nursery and mrs thom coming out and saying i dont know why finlay says hot dog all the time and laughs lol

[omm poppa mow mow]

estimate or bid

as in, these nefarious contractors get the call to provide you, the customer, with a bid/estimate to replace that ****** old roof on your house...you know, that old double roof that last saw tension 50-some years ago, back when men were men and women weren't?

a square of roofing (a theoretical 10 x 10 foot area) is about a hundred bucks, material cost...this is up from oh say around $33 three years ago....which brings to mind a math problem. If a train leaves the station and doesn't arrive...


so...Yeah, I call so and so contracting....sheesh. An old customer of mine (windows) walks over today where I'm working, windows, red shake siding, prime/paint, etc...to lament the costs of their roof. There's like a 10-grand difference between the high and low end. Me, I had the neighbor tell me once upon a time, "you'll never work in this town again...." and by-golly prove good on that word. Christ, that one day I'd see the unwavering support of my community. What a ****ing joke.

Anyway....to bid....to estimate....or, the split-infinitive form: to greedily bid.....to gloriously estimate....the job above, way above...oh, so that's how so and so can afford a brand new freakin truck and I pray I don't hear the rotors squeak.

Onward and upward.....and like, at times, the board is no different. Heigh ho. I love you no ****...buy me a Kindle.

[blunthead]

noisome (noiˈsəm) adjective, 1. offensive to the point of arousing disgust; foul; 2. harmful or dangerous.

He stood up and leveled the scythe at the fat and noisome candle that burned on the edge of the bench and then, with two deft sweeps, cut the flame into three bright slivers.

[Haunted]

entelechy \en-TEL-uh-kee\, noun:

1. A realization or actuality as opposed to a potentiality.
2. In vitalist philosophy, a vital agent or force directing growth and life.

It must gratify a man to evolve so perfectly concomitantly with his years, to write patriarchally when he is old, to be so complete an entelechy .
-- Kenneth Burke, Here & Elsewhere: The Collected Fiction of Kenneth Burke

The vast realm of natural entelechy is virtually unknowable, but we already have on the books more information than any poet can use.
-- Herbert A. Leibowitz, Parnassus: Twenty Years of Poetry In Review

Entelechy is built from the Greek roots telos "goal" andech "to have."

[blunthead]

interterrapene (in′tər-tera-peen') adjective, literally between, among a turtle; in the midst of, within a turtle; mutual or shared with a turtle; adverb, mutually or having the same relationship toward a turtle.

"...After that Krull will have revolved away from great A'Tuin's tail and the Potent Voyager will be doomed to spin away into the interterrapene gulf."

[omm poppa mow mow]

he ain't heavy...he's my brother...adios!

[Haunted]

gazump \guh-ZUHMP\, verb:

To cheat (a house buyer) by raising the price, at the time a contract is to be signed, over the amount originally agreed upon.
"I promise not to gazump you this time," he said, sitting down next to her on the sofa and reaching out to stroke the back of her head."
-- John Trenhaile, Tiger of Desire

"It is yet another thing for me to be paranoid about, but I can't see them letting anyone else gazump you us."
-- Diana Appleyard, Homing Instinct

Gazump evolves from the earlier gazoomph, "to swindle," which is an argot (jargon among thieves) word of uncertain origin.

[blunthead]

bladderwrack (ˈblædəˌræk) noun, any of several seaweeds of the genera Fucus and Ascophyllum , esp F. vesiculosus , that grow in the intertidal regions of rocky shores and have branched brown fronds with air bladders.

There was a large charred circle on the flagstones, however, in which a few clumps of kelp and bladderwhack still smoldered.

[Haunted]

overslaugh \OH-ver-slaw\, verb:

To pass over or disregard (a person) by giving a promotion, position, etc., to another instead.

I have asked his attention to the fact that he himself was one of the most active instruments at one time in breaking down the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois, because it had made a decision distasteful to him-a struggle ending in the remarkable circumstance of his sitting down as one of the new Judges who were to overslaugh that decision-getting his title of Judge in that very way.
-- Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln-Douglas Debates

He will overslaugh Taft, who should be first, and everybody else. This would be unfortunate, of course, but I think above all that Clemens's feeling should be respected.
-- William Dean Howells, George Arms, Selected letters: Volume 5; Volumes 1902-1911

Overslaugh derives from the Dutch overslaan, with slaan meaning "to strike."

[blunthead]

thaumaturgist (thaw-muh-turj-ist) or thaumaturge, noun, a worker of wonders or miracles; magician.

That was the signal for every magician, enchanter and thaumaturgist in Krull to leap up eagerly and, under the terrified eyes of their master, unleash the first spell that came to each desperate mind.

[PatInTheHat]

thaumaturgist (thaw-muh-turj-ist) or thaumaturge, noun, a worker of wonders or miracles; magician.

That was the signal for every magician, enchanter and thaumaturgist in Krull to leap up eagerly and, under the terrified eyes of their master, unleash the first spell that came to each desperate mind.

And it all starts with a right proper hat, the prestidigitator's brim if you will :blues:.....

The Thaumaturgist Moose, ex lg. rodent model #1959...
13142


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRW7pITY5Cg&amp;feature=related

[Haunted]

chaptalize \SHAP-tuh-lahyz\, verb:

To increase the alcohol in a wine by adding sugar.

A proprietor who chaptalizes juice or ameliorates juice or wine, or both, shall maintain a record of the operation and the transaction date.
-- U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, Title 27, Alcohol, Tobacco Products

They chaptalize, they blend, fudge their appellations, water down with lesser stuff.
-- Peter Lewis, Dead in the Dregs: A Babe Stern Mystery

Chaptalize comes from the French chaptaliser, which is in turn named for the French chemist J. A. Chaptal.

[blunthead]

mana (mä′nä) noun, in some indigenous beliefs, as in Polynesia, a dynamic supernatural power or influence dwelling in and flowing from certain individuals, spirits, or things and capable of producing great good or evil.

hydrophobe (hī′drə fō′b) noun, anything or anyone possessing an abnormal fear of water.

Throughout the island of Krull every magical activity failed as all the available mana in the area was sucked into the cloud, which already was a quarter of a mile high and streaming out into mind-curdling shapes; hydrophobes on their sea-skimming lenses crashed screaming into the waves, magic potions turned to mere impure water in their phials, magic swords melted and dripped from their scabbards.

[Haunted]

willowwacks \WIL-oh-waks\, noun:

A wooded, uninhabited area.

There aren't many airports in Eastern Canada; you look at one like Upper Blackville, out there in the spruce-and-fir willowwacks, and wonder what it's doing there.
-- The AOPA pilot: Voice of General Aviation, Volume 37

Sure there were difficult moments, like an awkward fall below Texas Pass that twisted my previously broken ankle the wrong way, or 30 minutes lost on a wrong turn due to trail that disappeared in a stream, or a willowwacks that just wouldn't end; but overall today was a great day.
-- Mike DiLorenzo, "Yellowstone, 2005." D-Low.com

Willowwacks is of uncertain origin.

[Anni M]

Circumlocution...to speak in circles in an attempt to make a statement or point.
I do this alot... :biggrin2:

[blunthead]

quarrel (kwôr′əl, kwär′-) noun, a bolt or arrow with a quadrangular head, shot from a crossbow.

Rincewind picked up a crossbow and a handful of quarrels.

[Anni M]

Thank you for the thank you's...it's the only big word I know.
:)

[blunthead]

bogey (bō′gē; bo̵og′ē) noun, one of two sets of wheels under a train car.

He panicked blindly, just as the ship's bogeys hit the little upgrade and flung it, sparkling like a salmon, into the sky and over the Edge.

[PatInTheHat]

bogey (bō′gē; bo̵og′ē) noun, one of two sets of wheels under a train car.

He panicked blindly, just as the ship's bogeys hit the little upgrade and flung it, sparkling like a salmon, into the sky and over the Edge.

Not to mention one of the absolute coolest sumbitches to ever grace the silver screen, schweetheart:cool2:!
13162

[Haunted]

conglobate \KON-gloh-beyt\, verb:

To form into a ball.

He knew not where to begin; his ideas rolled round upon each other like the radii of a wheel; the words he desired to utter, instead of issuing, as it were, in a right line from his lips, seemed to conglobate themselves into a sphere.
-- Thomas Love Peacock, Maid Marian

Heav'n's gifts, which do, like falling stars, appear Scatter'd in others; all, as in their sphere, Were fix'd and conglobate in 's soul' and thence Shone thro' his body, with sweet influence
-- John Dryden, Upon the Death of Lord Hastings

Conglobate originates with the Latin conglobare, made from the roots con-, "together," and glob, "round," and -ate, "possessing the nature of."

[Haunted]

hobson jobson \HOB-suhn-JOB-suhn\, noun:

The alteration of a word borrowed from a foreign language to accord more closely with the linguistic patterns of the borrowing language.

They did the Englishman's dirty work, spoke his language in their own ugly hobson-jobson, full of vulgar abuse, but had none of his cricketing spirit.
-- Khushwant Singh, I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale

She had learned enough hobson-jobson to get along with the other servants, but she was only really fluent in Burushaski.
-- Raymond A. Sokolov, Native Intelligence

Hobson-jobson is an example of its own definition: British soldiers' mangled Anglicization of the Arabic cry they heard at Muharram processions in India, Ya Hasan! Ya Husayn! ("O Hassan! O Husain!".)

[Haunted]

es•top•pel-[e-stop-uh l] noun Law

a bar or impediment preventing a party from asserting a fact or a claim inconsistent with a position that party previously took, either by conduct or words, especially where a representation has been relied or acted upon by others.

Origin: 1575–85; Middle French estoupail stopper

[JohnDalglish]

Thank you for the thank you's...it's the only big word I know.
:)

Hi,

But certainly not the only good one, Anni.

'Plotz' has made its way into my vocabulary, and for that I say thankya.

Long days and pleasant nights

[blunthead]

kitschy (kichee) adjective, of, being, or characterized by kitsch (kich), sentimentality or vulgar, often pretentious bad taste, especially in the arts.

It was illuminated by bright kitschy signs for the Green Door Massage Parlor and Tunnel Top Bar.

[Haunted]

homologate \huh-MOL-uh-geyt\, verb:

1. To approve; confirm or ratify.
2. To register (a specific make of automobile in general production) so as to make it eligible for international racing competition.
Now, my lord, as a true Scottish man, and educated at the Mareschal College of Aberdeen, I was bound to uphold the mass to be an act of blinded papistry and utter idolatry, whilk I was altogether unwilling to homologate by my presence.
-- Sir Walter Scott, A legend of Montrose

But Albany had made no secret of the fact that the main reason for this parliament was to homologate his plans for the invasion of England on France's behalf, and this the assembly quite definitely refused to agree to.
-- Nigel G. Tranter, The Riven Realm

Homologate is based on the Greek homologos, "of the same word."

[blunthead]

mea culpa (me-ah kool-pah; Eng. mey-uh kuhl-puh, mee-uh) noun, through my fault; my fault

Mea culpa. I've been very, very bad. More.

[Haunted]

mea culpa (me-ah kool-pah; Eng. mey-uh kuhl-puh, mee-uh) noun, through my fault; my fault

Mea culpa. I've been very, very bad. More.

Been a long time since I've said this at mass! " Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa"

[blunthead]

Been a long time since I've said this at mass! " Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa"(So, either you've been very good for a long time or you're skipping mass. Can we get a vote here, folks? :grinning:).

in situ (in sahy-too, -tyoo, see-; Lat. in sit-oo) noun, 1. situated in the original, natural, or existing place or position; 2.
Medicine/Medical a. in place or position; undisturbed, b. in a localized state or condition

Two dead in the BMW. Two in the minivan. Bodies in situ.

[Haunted]

(So, either you've been very good for a long time or you're skipping mass. Can we get a vote here, folks? :grinning:).

in situ (in sahy-too, -tyoo, see-; Lat. in sit-oo) noun, 1. situated in the original, natural, or existing place or position; 2.
Medicine/Medical a. in place or position; undisturbed, b. in a localized state or condition

Two dead in the BMW. Two in the minivan. Bodies in situ.


Me being very good--never happen!! :laugh: The mass said in Latin is very hard to find nowadays.

[Haunted]

metaphrastic \met-uh-FRAST-ik\, adjective:

Having the quality of a literary work that has been translated or changed from one form to another, as prose into verse.

In a word, the whole place was involved in the maze of a metaphrastic mystery; it enchanted our wanderers, and tempted them into fields of speculation.
-- Arthur Edward Waite, Belle and the Dragon

By this maneuver, the mind is protected from clutter - mind and body, separated out, are actually coerced into a negatively metaphrastic liaison.
-- Lesley Stern, The Smoking Book

Metaphrastic comes into English from the medieval Greek metaphrastes, "one who translates."

[Becks19]

I love words....Now, does that surprise any of you? There is a website that I play math and vocabulary games on. ( I really try to encourage my kids to play it) It's called www.Freerice.com and for every word you get right they supposedly donate to the world food organization.(For each answer you get right, we donate 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.) It's fun, educational and for a good cause.

[blunthead]

...There is a website that I play math and vocabulary games on...www.Freerice.com and for every word you get right they supposedly donate to the world food organization...(I'm gonna check it out, thanx, Mookie!)

foreshortened (fawr-shawr-tnd, fohr-) abridged, reduced, or contracted; made shorter.

The woman's thigh was shattered so badly that it looked foreshortened.

[Haunted]

parergon \pa-RUR-gon\, noun:

1. Work undertaken in addition to one's principal work.
2. Something that is an accessory to a main work or subject; embellishment.

This labor resulted in a side adventure or parergon
: On his way to the chase, Heracles was entertained by the centaur Pholus, who set before him a jar of wine that belonged to all the centaurs in common.
-- P. O. Morford, Robert J. Lenardon, Classical mythology

"It is a singular thing that you at the outset of your career - even as I thirty years ago at the same point of mine - should take up such a parergon and alight upon the same discovery."
-- Stanley John Weyman, Chippinge

Parergon consists of a combination of Greek roots, para- meaning "beyond, and ergo meaning "work, labor."

[blunthead]

acetabular [as-i-tab-yuh-lar] adjective, of or related to the the socket in the hipbone that receives the head of the thighbone.

The femur had been driven backward in to the pelvis by the impact, causing an acetabular fracture typical of car crashes.

[Haunted]

braird \BRAIRD\,

verb:
1. To sprout; appear above the ground.
noun:
1. The first sprouts or shoots of grass, corn, or other crops; new growth.

Oats require about a fortnight to braird in ordinary weather.
-- Henry Stephens, The book of the farm

And yet, in puny, distorted, phantasmal shapes albeit,/It will braird again; it will force its way up/Through unexpectable fissures.
-- Hugh MacDiarmid, On a Raised Beach

Braird derives from the Old English brerd, "edge, top."

[Haunted]

nebulize \NEB-yuh-lahyz\, verb:

1. To become vague, or indistinct.
2. To reduce to a fine spray.

There is, however, not one of the seven that is truly effective as a novel; not one that has balance and sustained force; not one that doesn't break apart into episodes or nebulize into a vague emotion.
-- Walter Bates Rideout, Sherwood Anderson: a collection of critical essays

To argue that class is at heart a temporal category of change and movement can work to nebulize the issue of poverty, dissolving it into categorical indistinctness and impermanence.
-- Gavin Jones, American Hungers: The Problem of Poverty in U.S. Literature, 1840-1945

Nebulize takes the ancient Proto-Indo-European root nebh- "mist," and adds the Greek suffix -lize, "to make." The word first appears in the 1800s.

[blunthead]

rucked (ruhkd) verb, caused to crease or wrinkle.

With the woman's skirt rucked up to her hips, the curve of her thigh was visible all the way to her buttocks.

[Haunted]

inculcate \in-KUHL-kayt; IN-kuhl-kayt\, transitive verb:

To teach and impress by frequent repetition or instruction.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to inculcate in those who do not want to know, the curiosity to know; I think it is also impossible to kill this need in those who really want to know.
-- T. V. Rajan, "The Aha! Factor", The Scientist, March 21, 2002

A tragic indication that even the most noble attempts to inculcate children with the basic principles of universal humanism -- that, whatever our differences, we are more alike than unalike -- will founder against the rocks of deeply held prejudices of their parents.
-- Gary Younge, "Sesame sans frontieres", The Guardian, October 14, 2002

But Havelock would insist that the epics constitute the accumulated wisdom of the culture, beyond which the audience (thoroughly inculcated with the teachings of the epics) cannot go.
-- Michael E. Hobart and Zachary S. Schiffman, Information Ages

Inculcate is from Latin inculcare, "to tread upon, to force upon," from in-, "in, on" + calcare, "to trample," from calx, calc-, "heel."

[Haunted]

chichi \SHEE-shee\, adjective:

Affectedly trendy.

"Going in gangs to those chichi clubs at Maidenhead."
-- E. Taylor, Game of Hide-&-Seek

"Whether the chichi gender theorists like it or not, sexual duality is a law of nature among all highly evolved life forms."
-- Camille Paglia

"The sort of real delicious Italian country cooking that is a revelation after so much chichi Italian food dished up in London."
-- Daily Telegraph, January 22, 1969

"[Judith] Hope -- who lives in East Hampton, where the Clintons have a lot of chichi friends -- has been getting ink by the barrelful with her regular interviews quoting conversations with the first lady, on subjects ranging from Senate ambitions to summer and post-White House living arrangements."
-- Washington Post, June 4, 1999

From the French word that literally means "curl of false hair"; used figuratively in the phrases faire des chichis, "to have affected manners, to make a fuss"; and gens à chichis, "affected, snobbish people." Sometimes spelled "chi-chi."

[blunthead]

lividity (li vid′i tē) noun, the condition of having a discolored, bluish appearance caused by a bruise, congestion of blood vessels, strangulation, etc., as the face, flesh, hands, or nails.

Though harsh light and shadow distorted the optics, Jo could see lividity starting.

[blunthead]

equivocal (ih-kwiv-uh-kuhl) adjective, of doubtful nature or character; questionable; dubious; suspicious.

You're not sure this is murder-suicide...These deaths are equivocal.

[omm poppa mow mow]

Chippewa

this word, I have been told, is a French mispronunciation of the name of the Ojibway....who are also called....best look it up, but it is spelled something like Ashinabe.... heh, my spellcheck suggests "fashionable".

"gourd ahead"

something Martin used to say.

[blunthead]

coital (koh-i-tuhl) adjective, united.

The fire crew was now digging into the coital vehicular mess with a skill saw.

[Haunted]

postprandial \post-PRAN-dee-uhl\, adjective:

Happening or done after a meal.

A gourmand who zealously avoids all exercise as "seriously damaging to one's health," he had caviar for breakfast and was now having oysters for lunch, whetted with wine, as he fueled himself for a postprandial reading at the Montauk Club in Brooklyn.
-- Mel Gussow, "The Man Who Put Horace Rumpole on the Case", New York Times, April 12, 1995

When I wake up in the morning, I can have my usual breakfast -- a slightly bizarre concoction of three kinds of cold cereal topped with grapes and a cup of decaf -- and then stagger back to bed for a postprandial snooze.
-- Sylvan Fox, "It's Less Hectic Staying Put In One Place", Newsday, April 3, 1994

Postprandial is from post- + prandial, from Latin prandium, "a late breakfast or lunch."

[blunthead]

pungee stick, or punji, (pun-gee) noun, a sharpened and often poisoned bamboo stake set in a hole as a trap for animals or enemies.

His voice was smooth and pointed, like a pungee stick.

[blunthead]

reduplicative (ri-doopli-kayt-of, -dyoo-) adjective, characterizing a doubled (initial syllable or all of a root word) producing an inflectional or derivational form.

The riddle probably exploited, for misdirection, the fact that "humpty dumpty" was also eighteenth-century reduplicative slang for a short and clumsy person.

[Haunted]

rapine \RAP-in\, noun:

The act of plundering; the seizing and carrying away of another's property by force.

He who has once begun to live by rapine always finds reasons for taking what is not his.
-- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince (translated by N.H. Thomson)

Extortion and rapine are poor providers.
-- Olaudah Equiano, Unchained Voices: an anthology of Black authors in the English-Speaking World of the 18th Century

The war, proclaimed William Lloyd Garrison, was one "of aggression, of invasion, of conquest, and rapine - marked by ruffianism, perfidy, and every other feature of national depravity."
-- Robert W. Johannsen, "America's Forgotten War (Mexican War, 1846-1848)", The Wilson Quarterly, Spring 1996

Rapine derives from Latin rapina, from rapere, "to seize and carry off, to snatch or hurry away," which also gives us rapid.

[blunthead]

lowing (loh-ing) verb, uttering the deep, low sound characteristic of cattle; bellowing.

The foghorn woke Jo, lowing its warning across the bay.

[omm poppa mow mow]

"bunkers" :rofl: what are they? perhaps old guys who sit in their recliner/rockers and yell at the teevee? heh heh! naw, just old fire pants. reading Michael Perry's, Population: 485 "We know we're rubes, we just don't want to be taken for rubes."

"stooked"

as in The Witch of Hebron~James Howard Kunstler..."Fields of neatly stooked cornstalks rolled out on the land beyond the house."
I'm using Firefox, and I get a squiggly line under the word. Regional...I have this OED on the shelf behind me....gaaa. Need a magnifying glass to read the entries...it is the two-volume compact edition. My bro bought a multi-volume set somewhere, rummage sale at a school or something, but I don't have room for that...he passed...ummmm. origin sounds uncertain

heh...several meanings...sleeve...bundle of straw...pillar of coal (in a mine)

and from the same story....pronking......"caught sight of the big cat pronking for mice in a blueberry flat behind an abandoned farm below Todd Hill."

not in the OED...there's other....additions that have come out since I acquired my two-volumes....

[Haunted]

tchotchke \CHOCH-kuh\, noun:

A trinket; a knickknack.

The rare tchotchke aside, our antiquing journeys mainly amounted to wishful foraging, in the spirit of a more roomy and prosperous someday we somehow never really articulated.
-- Jacquelyn Mitchard, The Most Wanted

Of course, you also have arcades, like Funland, and your typical tchotchke vendors, like Ryan's Gems and Junk.
-- Jamie Peck, "Rehoboth Beach", Newsday, May 18, 2001

I'm going nuts with my mother's accumulation of tchotchkes -- it's bad enough she never parted with one she got as a gift -- but why did she have to buy more?
-- "Artifacts of Life", Newsday, December 9, 1996

Tchotchke is from Yiddish tshatshke, "trinket," ultimately of Slavic origin. It is also spelled tsatske.

[Gelata]

Hi,

My word for tomorrow is 'procrastinate' LOL.

Long days and pleasant nights

This is a word I have found many times. I always look it up in the dictionary, but I'm unable to retain it in my memory. The same happens with bigotry.

I think this thread is a great idea because I'm a word lover. I'll try to pay a visit now and then.

[blunthead]

capricious (kuh-prish-uhs, -pree-shuhs) adjective, subject to, led by, or indicative of a sudden, unpredictable change, or whim; erratic.

Big windows captured each ounce of sunlight the capricious weather offered.

[omm poppa mow mow]

afflatus from The Farmer's Daughter~ Jim Harrison:

"She planned without afflatus on shooting him one day but only when she could get away with it." (50, pb)

I dunno how to do those things where the letters are backwards...but one meaning, looks like the only meaning, is inspiration, from the Latin...a noun....and too, this is a key-sentence to this yarn from Harrison...The Farmer's Daughter one of three novellas in the collection by the same name.

[blunthead]

flak (flak) noun, the fire of antiaircraft guns.

Maybe I'll take a flak jacket.

[blunthead]

wimple (wim-puhl) noun, a woman's head covering of medieval times, consisting of a cloth arranged about the head, cheeks, chin, and neck, leaving only the face exposed: now worn only by certain orders of nuns.

The carpet, white as a nun's wimple, was immaculate.

[Haunted]

woolgathering \WOOL-gath-(uh)-ring\, noun:

Indulgence in idle daydreaming.

Similarly, in the meadow, if you laze too late into the fall, woolgathering, snow could fill your mouth.
-- Edward Hoagland, "Earth's eye", Sierra, May 1999

It would be easy to slip off into woolgathering and miss a deadline.
-- Jeraldine Saunders, Washington Post, March 4, 2004

Plagued by guilt, they took refuge in wine, women, and woolgathering.
-- Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust

he soprano roused Fergus from his woolgathering.
-- Sandra Brown, Where There's Smoke

Woolgathering derives from the literal sense, "gathering fragments of wool."

[blunthead]

abstemious (ab-stee-mee-uhs) adjective, 1. sparing or moderate in eating and drinking; temperate in diet; 2. characterized by abstinence.

She just had a Puritan work ethic. She was abstemious and judgmental. A perfect prosecutor.

[DeathStalker]

abstemious (ab-stee-mee-uhs) adjective, 1. sparing or moderate in eating and drinking; temperate in diet; 2. characterized by abstinence.

She just had a Puritan work ethic. She was abstemious and judgmental. A perfect prosecutor.
This word, this abstemious, I don't see it in my dictionary. Hhhmmm, therefore I don't believe it really exists and I can ignore it. :laugh:

[Haunted]

This word, this abstemious, I don't see it in my dictionary. Hhhmmm, therefore I don't believe it really exists and I can ignore it. :laugh:

"one need to be abstemious in order to achieve physical fitness"
:biggrin2:

[blunthead]

outré [oo-trey] adjective, passing the bounds of what is usual or considered proper; unconventional; bizarre.

There were animal-print garter belts and fishnet stockings. Still, that wasn't outré. No sex toys, no whips or bridles.

[omm poppa mow mow]

escalpated

Not in my OED. Context: If Hatchery and I had not excalpated you when we did, they would've had your wallet and gold teeth in another ten minutes, sir." (Inspector Field is speaking, Drood, Dan Simmons, p246 my usa pb copy)

[blunthead]

probative (proh-buh-tiv, prob-uh-) adjective, 1. serving or designed for testing or trial, 2. affording proof or evidence.

That wasn't probative. Most suicides don't leave a note.

[Haunted]

druthers \DRUHTH-erz\, noun:

One's own way, choice, or preference.

"You mean if I had my druthers? Why, if I had my druthers I'd druther eat speckledly gravy," Dove assured him.
-- Nelson Algren, A Walk on the Wild Side

"Like I say, I think George would go right on living in the house if he had his druthers," Judy Diment said.
-- Stephen King, Everything's Eventual

Druthers comes from a jocular American English formation of the phrase "I'd ruther" meaning "I'd rather."

[blunthead]

joy (joi) noun, success; satisfaction.

They tried to raise it via radio. Got no joy, so they alerted the authorities.

[omm poppa mow mow]

meeching

from James Agee~ A Death in the Family


He tried still to be careful, more out of courtesy, she felt, than meeching, but it was clear to her that his heart was set on a thunderous fleecy check in jade green, canary yellow, black and white, which stuck out inches to either side above his ears and had a great scoop of visor beneath which his face was all but lost.

This scene is hilarious, Rufus, w/his aunt getting a cap, what all boys want right a cap? Heh! No idea what "meeching" means...some sort of....ummm pandering? not quite or better or something...This is a good story.

[blunthead]

sortie (sawr-tee) noun, a rapid movement of troops from a besieged place to attack the besiegers.

But the coasties' birds were tied up with a rescue in the bay. We sortied at nineteen twenty. Single Pave Hawk with two PJs aboard, one of them being me.

[Stormseye]

I think it was in "IT" that this word made lots of appearances in this context and it threw me a tad.

depend (dɪˈpɛnd) vb.: rare ( foll by from ) to hang down; be suspended

[blunthead]

pugilistic (pyoo-juh-listic) adjective, pertaining to a person who fights with the fists, such as a boxer, usually a professional.

His body was half buried under debris, still smoking..."Pugilistic position?"..."Yes."... Burnt corpses often curl into a boxer's pose, with arms and fists tucked under the chin.

[Patricia A]

Jocoserious [joh-koh-sear-us]
Half jocular, half serious, partly silly and partly somber; blending jokes and serious matters. The noun, used only once, is jocoseriosity.

[blunthead]

Jocoserious [joh-koh-sear-us]
Half jocular, half serious, partly silly and partly somber; blending jokes and serious matters. The noun, used only once, is jocoseriosity....used only once? Well, we can't have that. Let's see...

[Patricia A]

Kakistocracy [kack-is-stah-kruh-see]
The government of a state by its worst citizens. The adjective is kakistrocratical.
A lovely piece of rhetoric is the 1876 citation in the OED:
Is ours a government of the people, by the people, for the people, or a Kakistrocracy rather, for the benefit of knaves at the cost of fools?

[Moderator]

Not a bad description for our present political clustermug. :glare:

[Sigmund]

Hi!

I posted this in another thread but, the word 'Asshat' has been posted and bandied about recently...



Asshat




One who has their head up their ass. Thus wearing their ass as a hat. Asshat




http://media.urbandictionary.com/image/large/asshat-22713.jpg

*giggle*

Peace.

[Patricia A]

Limbeck [lim-beck]
To wear yourself out in the effort to have a new idea. This word ultimately comes from an Arabic word meaning 'a still,' the analogy being that you distill ideas with your brain.

[Patricia A]

Hi!

I posted this in another thread but, the word 'Asshat' has been posted and bandied about recently...

Asshat

http://media.urbandictionary.com/image/large/asshat-22713.jpg

*giggle*

Peace.


Limbeck [lim-beck]
To wear yourself out in the effort to have a new idea. This word ultimately comes from an Arabic word meaning 'a still,' the analogy being that you distill ideas with your brain.

It's odd how these two words seem to have some sort of peculiar synergy hu?

[blunthead]

prize (praɪz-d; prahyz-d) verb, leveraged.

Watching a pathologist rooting around inside a body--with its chest prized open like Sigourney Weaver's worst nightmare--left her emotionally dumbfounded.

[blunthead]

spork (spawrk) noun, an eating utensil combining features of a spoon and a fork.

I'd rather stab myself in the eye with a fork... Luckily, all I have in my purse is a spork.

[Haunted]

anoesis \an-oh-EE-sis\, noun:

A state of mind consisting of pure sensation or emotion without cognitive content.

Normally, on my long-distance walks, anoesis descends within a few miles: the mental tape loop of infuriating resentments, or inane pop lyrics, or nonce phrases gives way to the greeny-beige noise of the outdoors.
-- Will Self, Psychogeography

Wiggy felt sudden release from all tension: exalted, drawn up in a freedom like dance. Then he was staring in stillness, for a moment in anoesis.
-- Richard Henderson, Chasing Charlie

Anoesis is derived from the Greek word noesis meaning reason or intellect and the prefix a- meaning not. Thus it means, no reason.

[J.T. Adams]

Jejune - lacking in substance or nourishment.

Immature.

[blunthead]

psychobabble (ˈsī-kō-ˌba-bəl) noun, psychological jargon; trite or simplistic language derived from psychotherapy.

The surgeons and occupational therapists and psychobabble Nazis had tried to twist him into accepting his new status as a circus freak.

[omm poppa mow mow]

cor·po·sant
noun \ˈkȯr-pə-ˌsant, -ˌzant\
Definition of CORPOSANT
: saint elmo's fire
Origin of CORPOSANT
Portuguese corpo-santo, literally, holy body
First Known Use: circa 1595

Context:
Skippy Dies~ Paul Murray
"...Perhaps there simply is no grain of goodness in the heart of man, waiting to be brought to the light, perhaps man is base to the core, any flicker of virtue merely a trick of the light, a--what is the word?--a corposant."

[EMARX]

Discombobulated- I like this word because I am frequently in that condition.:wow:

[Haunted]

animadvert \an-uh-mad-VURT\, verb:

1. To comment unfavorably or critically.
2. Obsolete. To take cognizance or notice of.

I have a proposition which I am desirous of making to Mr. Gilmore, as a magistrate acting in this part of the county. Of course, it is not for me to animadvert upon what the magistrates may do at the bench tomrorrow.
-- Anthony Trollope, The Vicar of Bullhamptom

It is not our business to animadvert upon these lines; we are not critics, but historians.
-- Andrew Lang, The Blue Fairy Book

Animadvert comes from the Latin animadvertere meaning to heed or censure.

[blunthead]

affect (ˈa-ˌfekt) noun, the conscious subjective aspect of an emotion considered apart from bodily changes; also, a set of observable manifestations of a subjectively experienced emotion.

He had smiled and got them to believe he understood. "Shallow affect", that's another term his medical chart had used to describe him.

[Garriga]

canoodle (v): kiss and cuddle: to kiss and cuddle somebody in a mildly romantic or sexual way (informal) couples canoodling in the dark

[blunthead]

credenza (kri-ˈden-zə) noun, a sideboard, buffet, or bookcase patterned after a Renaissance credence; especially, one without legs.

Files were neatly stacked on the credenza, running shoes tucked tidily in a corner.

[Haunted]

sepulchral \suh-PUHL-kruhl\, adjective:

1. Proper to or suggestive of a tomb; funereal or dismal.
2. Of or pertaining to burial.
3. Of, pertaining to, or serving as a tomb.
4. Hollow and deep: sepulchral tones.

I expect you are aware that my brother had an abiding interest in sepulchral art and tomb antiquities, sir.
-- Amanda Quick, Mischief

For, except in one or two doubtful instances, these mountainous sepulchral edifices have not availed to keep so much as the bare name of an individual or a family from oblivion.
-- Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Marble Faun

Sepulchural is derived from the Latin sepulcrum, from sepul- meaning to bury and -crum which was the suffix denoting place, so it literally meant “place to bury.”

[blunthead]

rubric (ˈrü-brik, -ˌbrik) noun, an authoritative rule; an established rule, tradition, or custom; a guide listing specific criteria for grading or scoring academic papers, projects, or tests.

She analyzed all information with what the psychiatric rubrics called a "high index of suspicion".

[J.T. Adams]

Trick - something done to fool or cheat.

Treat - thing giving pleasure

[Haunted]

nyctophobia \nik-tuh-FOH-bee-uh\, noun:

An abnormal fear of night or darkness.

Hardly right for him to do that if you're here by yourself, Miss Laetitia—all alone with your nyctophobia—but if Miss Templeton were here as well, you could all chaperone one another.
-- Barbara Cleverly, A Darker God

For as long as she could remember, Jerry Gates had been terrified of the dark. The cause of this nyctophobia was beyond the reach of recollection: some early trauma at the top of the stairs, perhaps.
-- Christopher Fowler, Seventy-Seven Clocks

Nyctophobia stems from the Greek nyktos- meaning night and phobia meaning fear.

[blunthead]

promontory (ˈprä-mən-ˌtȯr-ē) noun, a high point of land or rock projecting into a body of water; a prominent mass of land overlooking or projecting into a lowland.

The Golden Gate Bridge's visitors' center overlooked the bay from a promontory at the tip of the Presidio.

[blunthead]

leonine (ˈlē-ə-ˌnīn) adjective, of, relating to, suggestive of, or resembling a lion.

The woman tossed her leonine hair and lifted her chin.

[blunthead]

frisson (frē-ˈsōⁿ) noun, a brief moment of emotional excitement; shudder, thrill.

Fun, camaraderie, plenty of excitement... The frisson will be there.

[blunthead]

cachet (ka-ˈshā) noun, 1a: a seal used especially as a mark of official approval, 1b: an indication of approval carrying great prestige; 2a: a characteristic feature or quality conferring prestige, 2b: prestige (being rich … doesn't have the cachet it used to — Truman Capote).

The Dirty Secret's Club... It's some kind of virtual confessional. They want powerful and snotty people to give it a cachet.

[Haunted]

opuscule \oh-PUHS-kyool\, noun:

1. A small or minor work.
2. A literary or musical work of small size.

Little by little, with patience and luck and the progressive sharpening of my predatory eye, I found one or another opuscule of his in my used book stores in Oxford and London.
-- Javier Marías, Dark Back of Time

The guide, a mere opuscule of ten pages, is entitled 'The Great Sepulture of the Cappuccini', and is well worth the hundred lire one pays for it.
-- Jocelyn Brooke, The Dog at Clambercrown

Opuscule is from the Latin roots opus meaning “word” and cule which is a suffix that implies a diminutive version, as in molecule and fascicle.

[blunthead]

eked (eek'd) verb, gotten with great difficulty.

She eked her way to the shoulder of the highway and found to her dismay that it was too narrow.

[Haunted]

kef \keyf\, noun:

1. A state of drowsy contentment
2. Also, keef. a substance, especially a smoking preparation of hemp leaves, used to produce this state.

I need not add that my kef—my noon rest, did not pass without interruption.
-- Karl Friedrich May, Through the Desert

...I tied on my hat and lit it down and held up my umbrella for shade, and fell into kef, being incapable of sustained thought.
-- William Cory, Extracts from the Letters and Journals of William Cory

Kef comes from the Arabic word kaif meaning “well-being or pleasure.”

[Haunted]

panegyrize \PAN-i-juh-rahyz\, verb:

1. To eulogize; to deliver or write a panegyric about.
2. To indulge in panegyric; bestow praises.

I allowed then as how I had been moved to panegyrize Lieutenant Locke.
-- Louis Bayard, The Pale Blue Eye

Judge Story was a profound admirer of Chief Justice Marshall, and could rarely hear his name mentioned without digressing to panegyrize his learning and intellectual power.
-- William Matthews, Hours with Men and Books

From Greek, panegyrize originally meant “belonging to a public assembly” from pan meaning “all” and egyris, “gathering.”

[Haunted]

appetence \AP-i-tuhns\, noun:

1. Intense desire; strong natural craving; appetite.
2. Instinctive inclination or natural tendency.
3. Material or chemical attraction or affinity.

A sudden step and desire to reach back in time to change the circumstances, to re-write and re-route all those ferocious columns, an appetence to change what had been done and said.
-- Charles D. Ellison, Tantrum

How immense is their thirst for life! A youthful nation in its entirety, a new mankind, inspired with an eager appetence for knowledge and truth.
-- Stefan Zweig and Laurence Mintz, Balzac, Dickens, Dostoevsky: Master Builders of the Spirit

Appetence, from the same root as appetite, comes from the Latin appete meaning “to seek for or long for.”

[Haunted]

procrustean \proh-KRUHS-tee-uhn\, adjective:

1. Tending to produce conformity by violent or arbitrary means.
2. Pertaining to or suggestive of Procrustes.

Soon they were operating a sort of procrustean ferry where the fares were tailored to accommodate the purses of the travelers. Ultimately all pretense was dropped and the immigrants were robbed outright.
-- Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian

To force them into the machine would require a Procrustean mutilation of their basic humanity.
-- Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

Procrustean refers to the Greek myth of Procrustes, who was a robber who tortured his victims. According to mythology, he was killed by Theseus.

[blunthead]

sere (ˈsir) adjective, being dried and withered.

The Marin headlands were brown and sere ahead of her.

[JohnDalglish]

2. Also, keef. a substance, especially a smoking preparation of hemp leaves, used to produce this

Hi,

When Keith Richards, guitarist with the Stones, discovered this he was like a dog with two tails and immediately became the 'Keef''we know and love today.

Long days and pleasant nights

[Haunted]

serry \SER-ee\, verb:

To crowd closely together.

Serry means to crowd and is spelled serry.
-- Mildred Colvin, Missouri Brides

To keep unsettled the questions upon which these united with the Liberation Society, —accustom a powerful contingent to work together with “political Dissenters,”—to serry friends and foes into hostile phalanx, —to accept battle on a weak ground where it is only possible to rally half the forces...
-- S. Wellington, The Spectator, Vol. 6

Serry is from the Middle French serré which was the past participle of serrer meaning “to press tightly together.”

[larchi]

my favourite word is opopanax (a herb, mainly grows in the med)- i love the spelling so much!
unfortunately my word of the day would be endoplasmic reticulum..........horrible word :(

[blunthead]

chronosynclastic infundibulum (krono-sin-'kla-stik in-fun-'dib-u-lum) noun, 1a. time with a curvature at a given point and in a particular direction that is the same as the curvature at that point in perpendicular direction; 1b. time warped into a funnel-shaped passage or cavity; 2. a place, or a moment, where all the different kinds of truths fit together, and where there are many different ways to be absolutely right about everything.

You might think it would be nice to go to a chronosynclastic infundibulum and see all the different ways to be absolutely right, but it is a very dangerous thing to do.

[J.T. Adams]

chronosynclastic infundibulum (krono-sin-'kla-stik in-fun-'dib-u-lum) noun, 1a. time with a curvature at a given point and in a particular direction that is the same as the curvature at that point in perpendicular direction; 1b. time warped into a funnel-shaped passage or cavity; 2. a place, or a moment, where all the different kinds of truths fit together, and where there are many different ways to be absolutely right about everything.

You might think it would be nice to go to a chronosynclastic infundibulum and see all the different ways to be absolutely right, but it is a very dangerous thing to do.

LOL great, Frank. You could probably say that word at random in someone's presence and just about watch em drop over dumb.

[blunthead]

LOL great, Frank. You could probably say that word at random in someone's presence and just about watch em drop over dumb....because they know me and thought I used only one-syllable words.

[blunthead]

bouldering (bōlˈdər-ĭng) noun, Basic or intermediate climbing carried out on relatively small rocks that can be traversed without great risk of bodily harm in case of a fall.

She changed into workout clothes, grabbed her backpack, and headed to a little park down the hill to go bouldering.

[Haunted]

frondescence \fron-DES-uhns\, noun:

1. Leafage; foliage.
2. The process or period of putting forth leaves, as a tree, plant, or the like.

What we found were three hundred pristine, mostly level acres with a forty-five-acre pond, completely undeveloped, covered with exquisite wildflowers and frondescence.
-- Paul Newman, In Pursuit of the Common Good

I now become aware of the sound of rumbling water, emanating from somewhere inside the rain forest next to my tropical rest stop. I approach the wet and abundant frondescence of the forest.
-- Richard Wyatt, Fathers of Myth

Frondescence is from the Latin root frondēre meaning “to have leaves.” It is clearly related to frond meaning “leaves.”

[blunthead]

udon (o͞oˈdŏnˌ) noun, A thick Japanese noodle made with wheat flour, usually served in soup or broth.

Hot tea, a hot shower, a bowl of udon noddles--that's what she needed, and now.

[Haunted]

boscage \BOS-kij\, noun:

A mass of trees or shrubs.

In places the park and the site itself were edged right up to its rubble and boscage by the rear of buildings...
-- China Miéville, The City & the City

Plunging along a narrow path thick-set on each side with leafy boscage, Paul caught sight of the two retreating figures a few yards only in front of him.
-- John R. Carling, The Shadow of the Czar

Boscage comes from the Middle French word boscage, from the roots bosk meaning “a small wood or thicket” and -age, a suffix that denotes a general noun, like voyage and courage.

[blunthead]

sotto voce (ˌsä-tō-ˈvō-chē) adverb or adjective, Under the breath: in an undertone; also: in a private manner.

His voice was heavy with resignation. Jo's spirits slid a little deeper. Sotto voce she said to Gabe, "Thanks again."

[J.T. Adams]

Hildegarde - Hil-de-garde

- a female given name from Germanic words meaning "battle" and "protector"

[blunthead]

six (siks) noun, The lower part of the human body; support for our military members; fighter pilot slang - means, “I’ll

cover your Asinus; "I’ve got your back".

I've got your six, Gabe said.

(...and I was regular Army in 1967, and we all used the term all the time. I never got near a jet except for my ride to and back from RVN. I never personally ran into an ex-military person who didn’t know the phrase. So, I’m puzzled by so many who have never heard it.)

(6 is also unit c.o.s radio call sign.)

(for us we would ask the Iraqi’s if they had Victor Delta on their 6...they never got it but we thought it was funny:
Victor Delta on your 6=crotch.)

(12 was your head, 6 was the lower part of the body, 3 and 9 were your arms.)

[blunthead]

HALO (ˈhā-(ˌ)lō) noun, an acronym for High Altitude Low Opening, that describes a method of delivering personnel, equipment, and supplies from a transport aircraft at a high altitude via free-fall parachute insertion.

Herc (herk) noun, the Lockheed C-130 Hercules, a military transport aircraft.

carabiner (ˌker-ə-ˈbē-nər, ˌka-rə-) noun, an oblong metal ring with one spring-hinged side that is used especially in mountain climbing as a connector and to hold a freely running rope.

Better to drop in by parachute... Says the man who HALO jumps out the back of a Herc. No way. Ropes, belt, carabiners. Chalk bag and a good pair of climbing shoes. It would be awesome.

[blunthead]

ruched (ˈrüsh-d) noun, pleated, or gathered into pleated, fluted, or gathered, strips of fabric used for trimming.

Sun and the foghorn were tangling again, and she opened her eyes to see the white ceiling, the red comforter ruched around her, orange pillows heaped by her knees, the bed warm and piled with everything except her man.

[J.T. Adams]

Hegira (also he-ji-ra) noun - a journey or departure to flee an undesirable situation.

[blunthead]

plebeian (pli-ˈbē-ən) noun, a member of the Roman plebs, one of the common people; adjective, crude or coarse in manner or style.

Boring. Check out yourdarksecret.com. "I messed around with my sister." "I love Bobby and he'll never know." I pissed in the elevator." The word plebeian is the only adequate description.

[Haunted]

calvous \KAL-vuhs\, adjective:

Lacking all or most of the hair on the head; bald.

The wit's voluminous neckerchief unraveled and slipped to the mold, and the spangled silver wig fell from the telltale calvous head.
-- D. M. Cornish, Lamplighter

Admittedly most old, bloated, calvous Germans could double for me, and even if he hadn't been doppelganger material, with the beard I had started growing and the two black eyes, you'd need x-rays to spot the difference.
-- Tibor Fischer, The Thought Gang

Calvous is derived from the Latin word calvus which meant simply “bald.”

[blunthead]

wanker (ˈwaŋ-kər) noun, a jerk; a dolt.

We decided that night, if you spill your secret anonymously online, you're a wanker.

[dsurrett]

A word lately I've learned as of late is 'bazinga.' Anyone familiar with it? And no fair Googling it.

[dsurrett]

And if memory serves correctly, Peggy Bundy (from Married with Children) was from Wanker County.

wanker (ˈwaŋ-kər) noun, a jerk; a dolt.

We decided that night, if you spill your secret anonymously online, you're a wanker.

[cat in a bag]

A word lately I've learned as of late is 'bazinga.' Anyone familiar with it? And no fair Googling it.

Bazinga is what Sheldon says on The Big Bang Theory when he thinks he's gotten off a good one! :laugh:

[Spideyman]

Noel
n Noel, Nowell, Noël [nouˈel]
an old word for Christmas.

[J.T. Adams]

Yule

noun - Christmas

[blunthead]

And if memory serves correctly, Peggy Bundy (from Married with Children) was from Wanker County.Sounds about right. :biggrin2:

ethos (ˈē-ˌthäs) noun, the distinguishing character, sentiment, moral nature, or guiding beliefs of a person, group, or institution; ethic.

Ethos of the DSC [Dirty Secrets Club]. Secrets are valuable. Don't waste them.

[Haunted]

hiemal \HAHY-uh-muhl\, adjective:

Of or pertaining to winter; wintry.

Since snow and frost lasted from October well into April, no wonder the mean of my school memories is definitely hiemal.
-- Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory

We took hours to make camp and hours to break camp, and in between tottered like children across the immensity of that bleak and hiemal playground.
-- Beryl Bainbridge, The Birthday Boys

Hiemal is derived from the Sanskrit word hima meaning “cold, frost, snow.”

[J.T. Adams]

redox - oxidation-reduction

[blunthead]

banality (bə-ˈna-lə-tē, bā-, also ba-) noun, something banal (lacking originality, freshness, or novelty; trite); commonplace.

It was laid out with the banality of a frequent-flyer program.

[Haunted]

solatium \soh-LEY-shee-uhm\, noun:

1. Something given in compensation for inconvenience, loss or injury.
2. Law. Damages awarded to a plaintiff as compensation for personal suffering or grief arising from an injury.

Perhaps something could be done. And the following week it was. Arthur found himself awarded a solatium of £7, which had accumulated in some overlooked fund, and which the authorities graciously felt could be applied to his purpose.
-- Julian Barnes, Arthur & George

It is essential to emphasize that I was in no way “fired” that afternoon; rather, for the record, I merely committed my signature to a number of documents resigning tenure, accepting a none too liberal severance solatium, agreeing to vacate my offices within the week.
-- Tim O'Brien, Tomcat in Love

Solatium is a variation on the Medieval Latin word sōlācium, which shares the root with the word solace

[Haunted]

adventive \ad-VEN-tiv\, adjective:

1. Not native and usually not yet well established, as exotic plants or animals.

noun:
1. A not native and usually not yet well established plant or animal.

I'm sure it's hard to be adventive, temporarily naturalized, that is.
-- Gish Jen, World and Town

Carrion beetles usually avoid competition with blowflies by visiting the carcasses at a later, dried stage of decomposition. Next come the omnivores, such as wasps and ants, and finally there are the adventive insects, like spiders.
-- David Shobin, The Provider

Adventive, like adventure, is derived from the Latin word adventus meaning “an advance.” The suffix -ive denotes a noun that comes from an adjective, like detective or active.

[blunthead]

Stasi (ˈʃtaziː) noun, the Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation German: Staatssicherheit, literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany.

Orderly, ambitious Callie had gathered files on members of the club as if she were her own private Stasi.

[Srbo]

Word of the day:

PRAYER.

To ask for a miracle, to ask for the impossible. To believe with all your heart, no matter what.

Get well John, please get well.

[blunthead]

bona fides (ˌbō-nə-ˈfī-ˌdēz, ÷ˈbō-nə-ˌfīdz) noun, 1. good faith; sincerity; 2. the fact of being genuine; 3. evidence of one's good faith or genuineness; 4. evidence of one's qualifications or achievements.

She was staring at records of a dozen members of the Dirty Secrets Club. Their bona fides were here.

(Sorry you had to post this one twice, Mod. I messed up. :oops: )

[Moderator]

Phew, I thought it looked familiar and was hoping it wasn't CRSS kicking in again. :biggrin2:

And Meg Gardiner rocks!

[blunthead]

Phew, I thought it looked familiar and was hoping it wasn't CRSS kicking in again. :biggrin2:

And Meg Gardiner rocks!She came highly recommended from a trusted, indubitable, worthy source.

[Haunted]

PSEPHOLOGY:

the scientific study of elections

— pse·pho·log·i·cal \ˌsē-fə-ˈlä-ji-kəl\ adjective
— pse·phol·o·gist \sē-ˈfä-lə-jist\ noun

Origin of PSEPHOLOGY--Greek psēphos pebble, ballot, vote; from the use of pebbles by the ancient Greeks in voting

[blunthead]

sub–rosa (ˈsəb-ˈrō-zə-a) adj, secretive, private.

Was she planning to win the club's sub-rosa competitions by sabotaging the other members?

[Haunted]

anamnesis \an-am-NEE-sis\, noun:

1. The recollection or remembrance of the past.
2. Platonism. Recollection of the Ideas, which the soul had known in a previous existence, especially by means of reasoning.
3. The medical history of a patient.
4. Immunology. A prompt immune response to a previously encountered antigen, characterized by more rapid onset and greater effectiveness of antibody and T cell reaction than during the first encounter, as after a booster shot in a previously immunized person.
5. (Often initial capital letter) a prayer in a Eucharistic service, recalling the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ.

When I was writing a novel about a fourteen-year-old girl, I must remember what I was like at fourteen, but this anamnesis is not a looking back, from my present chronological age, at Madeleine, aged fourteen.
-- Madeleine L'Engle, The Irrational Season

The narrator of Dostoevsky's Dream of a Ridiculous Man visits in his sleep, in a state of anamnesis perhaps, a humanity living in the Golden Age before the loss of innocence and happiness.
-- Czesław Miłosz, To Begin Where I Am: Selected Essays

Anamnesis is derived from the Greek roots ana (meaning “re”) and mimnḗskein (meaning “to call to mind”).

[blunthead]

provenance [ˈpräv-nən(t)s, ˈprä-və-ˌnän(t)s] noun, origin, source; the history of ownership of a valued object or work of art or literature.

She felt stupid. Such a hot tip--counterfeit pharmaceuticals, imported from Asia and sold under faked labels to drugstore chains that didn't check their provenance--it was dream story.

[blunthead]

Daglish, Dalglish, Dalgleish or Dalgliesh is a name originating from Gaelic dail (field) + glaise (brook).

field: clearing, ground, lot, parcel, plat, plot, tract grass, green, greensward, lawn; glade, grassland, heath, heathland, lea (or ley), meadow, moor, pasture, pastureland.

brook: a small flow of water along a wooded path.

[king family fan]

Thank-you! very interesting.QUOTE=blunthead;493856]Daglish, Dalglish, Dalgleish or Dalgliesh is a name originating from Gaelic dail (field) + glaise (brook).

field: clearing, ground, lot, parcel, plat, plot, tract grass, green, greensward, lawn; glade, grassland, heath, heathland, lea (or ley), meadow, moor, pasture, pastureland.

brook: a small flow of water along a wooded path.[/QUOTE]

[Haunted]

Cimmerian \si-MEER-ee-uhn\, adjective:

1. Very dark; gloomy; deep.
2. Classical Mythology. Of, pertaining to, or suggestive of a western people believed to dwell in perpetual darkness.

I was ripe for death, and along a road full of dangers, weakness led me to the boundaries of the world and the Cimmerian land of darkness and whirlwinds.
-- Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell

Once beneath the over-arching trees all was again Cimmerian darkness, nor was the gloom relieved until the sun finally arose beyond the eastern cliffs, when she saw that they were following what appeared to be a broad and well-beaten game trail through a forest of great trees.
-- Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan the Untamed

Like gasconade, cimmerian was originally a toponym. It referred to the Cimmerii, an ancient nomadic people who live in Crimea, according to Herodotus.

[blunthead]

frisson (frē-ˈsōⁿ) noun, a brief moment of emotional excitement; shudder; thrill.

She pushed the Open Door button... She felt a frisson of excitement.

[Haunted]

heterotelic \het-er-uh-TEL-ik\, adjective:

Having the purpose of its existence or occurrence apart from itself.

You're of heteroteleic value, that means you were invoked for an extraneous purpose alone, the outcome of which won't even be known to me until I'm back with my physical body in the physical world…
-- William Cook, Love in the Time of Flowers

Therefore, what has been proposed above as a means of redirecting the development of postmodernity toward more livable, human dimensions is a heterotelic narrative transitivity—an active reimmersion of narrative in the social—which contrasts sharply with the autotelic concern for their own procedures and the hermetic intransitivity of modernist self-consciousness and late modernist self-reflexivity.
-- Joseph Francese, Narrating Postmodern Time and Space

Heterotelic is directly derived from the Greek roots héteros meaning "other", tele- meaning "distant", and the suffix -ic which denotes an adjective, as in metallic and athletic.

[J.T. Adams]

Freedom -


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xQ0y_R4asI&amp;feature=related

[blunthead]

keen (ˈkēn) verb, to utter with a loud wailing voice or wordless cry.

She had paused the video, but even frozen and silent, the image seemed to keen.

[Haunted]

desinence \DES-uh-nuhns\, noun:

1. A termination or ending, as the final line of a verse.
2. Grammar. A termination, ending, or suffix of a word.

The extreme facility with which the language lends itself to rhyming desinence has a most injurious effect upon versification. There are not verses only, but whole poems, in which each line terminates with the same desinence.
-- Wentworth Webster, Basque Legends

But it will end, a desinence will come, or the breath fail better still, I'll be silence, I'll know I'm silence, no, in the silence you can't know, I'll never know anything.
-- Samuel Beckett, "Texts for Nothing," The Complete Short Prose

Like descent, desinence is related to the Latin word dēsinere which meant "to put down or leave."

[blunthead]

ineradicable (ˌi-ni-ˈra-di-kə-bəl) adjective, incapable of being done away as completely as if by pulling up by the roots.

Jo smelled smoke, and the unique, ineradicable smell of burnt human flesh.

[Haunted]

shiv \shiv\, noun:

A knife, especially a switchblade.

Then this one cop, the guy, he pulls out a picture, shows me a photograph, see, of my shiv. Now, I gotta tell ya, this shiv of mine's no ordinary blade.
-- Ashok Mathur, Once Upon an Elephant

“Why would he wipe the shiv?” Decker said. “Supposedly it was his shiv, not hers. Of course it would have his prints on it. Seems to me he'd just stick it back in its sheath and leave.”
-- Faye Kellerman, Milk and Honey

First used in English in the early 1600s, shiv is of unknown origin, but it may be related to the Romany word for knife, chiv.

[blunthead]

egg (ˈeg, ˈāg) verb, to incite to action —usually used with on.

Zapata said the guy begged for his life, but they ignored. It was like that egged them on.

[Haunted]

remora \REM-er-uh\, noun:

1. An obstacle, hindrance, or obstruction.
2. Any of several fishes of the family Echeneididae, having on the top of the head a sucking disk by which they can attach themselves to sharks, turtles, ships, and other moving objects.

Notwithstanding the extreme unpopularity of the Duke of Kent as a soldier, there was no remora to his employment.
-- Robert Huish, The History of the Life and Reign of William the Fourth

They all coexist today in diachronic contradictions, and what coexists is the colonial remora of Bolivian history, the different articulations of colonizing forces and colonized victims.
-- Walter D. Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking

Remora is derived from the Latin word remorārī meaning "to delay."

[blunthead]

gripman (ˈgrip-mən, -ˌman) noun, a cable car operator.

Down at the corner a cable car clattered past. The gripman rang the bell, a jazz riff in clanging brass.

[blunthead]

cardiac tamponade (ˈkärd-ē-ˌak ˌtam-pə-ˈnād) noun, mechanical compression of the heart by large amounts of fluid or blood within the pericardial space that limits the normal range of motion and function of the heart.

He was desperately injured, but quick action could have saved him. He had internal bleeding, a collapsed lung, and cardiac tamponade.

[Haunted]

educe \ih-DOOS\, verb:

1. To draw forth or bring out, as something potential or latent.
2. To infer or deduce.

Forty or fifty minutes of vigorous and unslackened analytic thought bestowed upon one of them usually suffices to educe from it all there is to educe, its general solution…
-- Edited by Umberto Eco and Thomas A. Sebeok, The Sign of Three: Dupin, Holmes, Peirce

If, after this, you can possibly want any further aid towards knowing what Sir Lionel was, we can tell you, that in his soul "the scientific combinations of thought could educe no fuller harmonies of the good and the true, than lay in the primaeval pulses which floated as an atmosphere around it!"...
-- George Eliot, Middlemarch

Related to educate, educe is derived from the Latin roots ex- meaning "out" and ducere meaning "to lead." Shakespeare was the first writer to use it in the sense of "to provide schooling" in Loves Labours Lost.

[Haunted]

alate \EY-leyt\, adjective:

1. Having wings; winged.
2. Having membranous expansions like wings.
noun:

1. The winged form of an insect when both winged and wingless forms occur in the species.
Vainly a few diehard physicists pointed out that wings are of no propulsive help in airless void, that alate flight is possible only where there are wind currents to lift and carry.
-- Robert Silverberg, Earth is the Strangest Planet

There are no words branded into this gate, only the shape of a large bird with its wings stretched out over the width of the road like an alate protector.
-- Jenny Siler, Easy Money

Alate is comprised of the Latin roots āla meaning "wing" and the suffix -ate which was used in Latin to make a word an adjective (like separate) but in English came to be used to create a verb out of a noun (like agitate).

[blunthead]

glam rock (ˈglam ˈräk) noun, extravagantly showy rock and roll music; popular music usually played on electronically amplified instruments and characterized by a persistent heavily accented beat, repetition of simple phrases, and often country, folk, and blues elements.

swan (ˈswän) verb, to wander aimlessly or idly.

lamé (la-mey) noun, an ornamental fabric in which metallic threads, as of gold or silver, are woven with silk, wool, rayon, or cotton.

Two glam rockers swanned along the sidewalk on roller skates, covered in enough gold lamé to gild the dome of Saint Peter's.

[blunthead]

voir dire (ˈvwär-ˈdir, ˈwär-) noun, a preliminary examination to determine the competency of a witness or juror.

When Jo waved to him, he ran his palm over his thinning gray hair and shot a look back at his watch. "I have voir dire starting in ten minutes," he said.

[Haunted]

idoneous \ahy-DOH-nee-uhs\, adjective:

Appropriate; fit; suitable; apt.

As far as benefices are concerned no one could be more idoneous, fitting or suitable than Martin, since he is an Anglican clergyman.
-- Patrick O'Brian, The Truelove

It would hardly be possible to apply less idoneous adjectives to it than Watson's reiterated "wailing" and "haunting."
-- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone

Idoneous is derived from the Latin word idōneus which meant "suitable."

[blunthead]

opprobrium (o-pro-brē-əm) noun, something that brings disgrace; public disgrace or ill fame that follows from conduct considered grossly wrong or vicious; contempt, reproach

Do you need my moral opprobrium in order to complete your psychological autopsy?

[Haunted]

pied \pahyd\, adjective:

1. Having patches of two or more colors, as various birds and other animals.
2. Wearing pied clothing.

"Lashing his tail, he followed the pied mare reluctantly into the cave. Its upper walls and ceiling clustered with glowing lichens and fungi in rose, ghost blue, saffron, and plum."
-- Meredith Ann Pierce, Dark Moon

The fact of the pied birds being pursued and persecuted with much clamour by the other ravens of the island was the chief cause which led Brünnich to conclude that they were specifically distinct.
-- Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man

Pied, like the pastry pie, is related to the Latin word for magpie, pīca. Magpies have black and white

[Haunted]

Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc'-ra-cy)

a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

[blunthead]

trattoria (ˌträ-tə-ˈrē-ə) noun, a usually small Italian restaurant.

Outside a Mediterranean trattoria, a man in rags sat against the wall, holding a cardboard sign. "Will take verbal abuse for small change."

[Haunted]

vilipend \vil-UH-pend\, verb:

1. To regard or treat as of little value or account.
2. To vilify; depreciate.

She will seize her opportunity to vilipend me, and I shall be condemned by the kind of court-martial which hurries over the forms of a trial to sign the execution-warrant that makes it feel like justice.
-- George Meredith, The Tragic Comedian

This endeavoured to fit the same mould as Pragmaticus and Melancholicus, but was too pedantic and dull, despite Wharton's use of it to vilipend the parliamentarian astrologer William Lilly.
-- Joad Raymond, The Invention of the Newspaper

Vilipend is derived from the Old French roots vīli meaning vile and pendere meaning to consider, also the root of pensive.

[J.T. Adams]

Corrugate - To shape into folds or parrallel and alternating ridges and grooves.

[Haunted]

morceau \mawr-SOH\, noun:

1. Piece; morsel.
2. An excerpt or passage of poetry or music.

That is easily done; madame is hungry; oblige her with a morceau of that paté and a glass of champagne.
-- Louisa May Alcott, The Portable Louisa May Alcott

unless you are able to provide me with a little morceau of help.
-- Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies

Morceau comes directly from the same French word which is related to the Latin word morsum meaning something bitten off.

[Haunted]

ad rem \ad REM\, adverb:

1. Without digressing; in a straightforward manner.
adjective:

1. Relevant; pertinent.

I am sure these things are not ad rem. Some persons think, my lord, it is very hard these men should be forced against their consciences from the church.
-- Richard Baxter, The Practical Works of Richard Baxter

The letter seems free of formulae, which suggests it was composed specifically ad rem.
-- Roger Rees, Layers of Loyalty in Latin Panegyric

Ad rem is a useful Latin phrase that literally means "at thing" from the roots ad and rēs.

[blunthead]

lanyard (ˈlan-yərd) noun, a cord or strap to hold something (as a knife or a whistle) and usually worn around the neck.

Jo held up her lanyard with her hospital ID.

[Haunted]

flexuous \FLEK-shoo-uhs\, adjective:

Full of bends or curves; sinuous.

Her flexuous and stealthy figure became an integral part of the scene. At times her whimsical fancy would intensify natural processes around her till they seemed a part of her own story.
-- Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles

What is anomalous about Nietzsche in this context is scarcely the hold this plot has on him, but indeed the flexuous sweetness with which sometimes he uniquely invests it...
-- Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet

Flexuous is derived from the Latin word flexuōsus which meant full of turns or crooked. This is an interesting example where the suffix changes the implication of the word. Unlike the more common word flexible, which means "capable of being bent" because of the suffix -ible, flexuous has the suffix, -ous meaning "full of."

[Haunted]

adamantine \ad-uh-MAN-teen\, adjective:

1. Utterly unyielding or firm in attitude or opinion.
2. Too hard to cut, break, or pierce.
3. Like a diamond in luster.

That will shock some people at the Folger, but Shakespeare is adamantine.
-- Tad Friend, "Compleat Works," The New Yorker, Jan. 9, 2012

…and when she saw the state his clothes were in her resolution to turn his Saturday holiday into captivity at hard labor became adamantine in its firmness.
-- Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Related to adamant, adamantine comes from the Greek word adamántinos, a combination of the word adamant and the suffix -ine which means "of or pertaining to."

[blunthead]

polonium (pə-ˈlō-nē-əm) noun, a radioactive metallic element that is similar chemically to tellurium and bismuth, occurs especially in pitchblende and radium-lead residues, and emits an alpha particle to form an isotope of lead.

"He would never hurt me... He can't harm anybody." "Sure." And here's lump of polonium for your tea. It tastes just like sugar.

[blunthead]

poseur (pō-ˈzər, ˈpō-zər) noun, a person who pretends to be what he or she is not; an affected or insincere person.

As for the Dirty Secrets Club, they're a bunch of poseurs.

[blunthead]

kohl (ˈkōl) noun, a preparation used especially in Arabia and Egypt to darken the edges of the eyelids.

Behind the ghoul makeup and kohl, she knew her face was flushed.

[Haunted]

rutilant \ROOT-l-uhnt\, adjective:

Glowing or glittering with ruddy or golden light.

He had a round head as bare as a knee, a corpse's button nose, and very white, very limp, very damp hands adorned with rutilant gems.
-- Vladimir Nabokov, Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle

It was like the show-piece that is reserved for the conclusion of a fete, the huge bouquet of gold and crimson, as if Paris were burning like a forest of old oaks and soaring heavenward in a rutilant cloud of sparks and flame.
-- Émile Zola, The Downfall

Why flashed through space a sudden and extraordinary splendor, intenser than the rutilant fulgurations of the aurora borealis, lighting up the whole heavens instantaneously, and for a moment eclipsing every star of every magnitude?
-- Jules Verne, To The Sun?

Rutilant is from the Latin word rutilāns, meaning "having a reddish color or glow."

[Haunted]

furcate \FUR-keyt\,

verb:
1. To form a fork; branch.

adjective:
1. Forked; branching.

The root systems of an ancient tree seemed to furcate and furrow the surface of his thighs, and where his skin was not covered in dark hair, it was strangely rippled with wild webs of some kind of tissue just beneath the skin.
-- Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay: A Novel

focus your attention on the eyes and let your mind furcate as it will.
-- Patrick Moran, Tsunami Sundog

Furcate is from the Medieval Latin word furcātus which meant "cloven."

[blunthead]

anachronistic (ə-ˈna-krə-ˌni-stik) adjective, describing something that is not in the correct time period.

Candles flickered in windows, an anachronistic amber glow.

[Haunted]

appertain \ap-er-TEYN\, verb:

To belong as a part, right, possession or attribute.

Natural rights are those which appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness…
-- Thomas Paine, Common Sense and Other Writings

In all matters of discovery and invention, even of those that appertain to the imagination, we are continually reminded of the story of Columbus and his egg.
-- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

…and since Phillotson's success in obtaining at least her promise had become known to Jude, he had frankly recognized that he did not wish to see or hear of his senior any more, learn anything of his pursuits, or even imagine again what excellencies might appertain to his character.
-- Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure

Appertain stems from the Old French word apertenir which meant "to belong." The prefix ap- is a variation of the prefix ad- which means "toward."

[J.T. Adams]

Perfunctory - done superficially, only as a matter of routine.

There have been attempts, albeit farely perfunctory, to honor the dead in some way.

[blunthead]

keen (ˈkēn) transitive verb, to utter with a loud wailing voice or wordless cry.

In her bedroom Jo opened the window. The city seemed to keen at her. It was nervous sound, too scattered, abnormal.

[blunthead]

egregious (i-ˈgrē-jəs) adjective, conspicuously bad.

Behind her, the voice synthesizer screeched. It sounded like Mr. Peebles was contacting some egregious monkey mother ship.

[Haunted]

iniquitous \ih-NIK-wi-tuhs\, adjective:

Characterized by injustice or wickedness; wicked; sinful.

The commission was charged now with the task of discovering the iniquitous conspiracy against the Citizen-Saviour of his country.
-- Joseph Conrad, Nostromo

Anything else would be iniquitous - iniquitous is the only word. You know as well as I do that there is not the remotest chance of her ever being able to earn any money for herself out here.
-- Jean Rhys, Voyage in the Dark

Iniquitous literally meant "unfair" in Latin, as its clear roots betray.

[blunthead]

skel (skel) noun, skeleton (in the closet; slang for a criminal).

Why should I feel sorry for Dr. Yoshida? His son was a skel... David Jr. was a drug addict who didn't care if he lived or died.

[Haunted]

gasser \GAS-er\, noun:

1. Something that is extraordinarily pleasing or successful, especially a very funny joke.
2. A person or thing that gasses.

“You're gonna whiff like Reggie Jackson today, pal,” I said. By the third hole, Blind Bob led by seventeen shots. It was a laugher, a gasser. If it were a fight, Big Al would've been counted out, taken to the hospital, and killed by Clint Eastwood by now.
-- Rick Reilly, Shanks for Nothing

This was very funny indeed, the gasser of all time. When Max announced the name at the briss those thirty-seven years ago, perhaps all the guests, including Dave Raskin, had split a gut or two laughing.
-- Ed McBain, The Heckler

Gasser is an Americanism that arose in the late 1800s.

[blunthead]

crenellated (ˈkre-nə-ˌlā-təd) adjective, having crenellations.

crenellation (ˌkre-nə-ˈlā-shən) noun, any of the embrasures alternating with merlons in a battlement.

"It's about Mr. Peebles." His brow crenellated. "Can monkeys develop psychological problems? Neuroses? Unhealthy obsessions?".

[J.T. Adams]

Emancipate - To set free; especially from legal, social, or political restrictions.

[Haunted]

selcouth \SEL-kooth\, adjective:

Strange; uncommon.

Its English is not more quaint than that of De Brunne himself; it contains no names more selcouth than he himself is in the custom of introducing…
-- Sir Walter Scott, The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott

To whom there's hardly any selcouth thing, but seems a juggling trick, that would delude their fancies with an empty wondering; therefore against it they with thundering words do ring.
-- George Starkey, An Exposition Upon the Preface of Sir George Ripley

Selcouth has odd Old English roots. It is related to the word seldom and the Old English word couth meaning "to know."

[blunthead]

verdant (ˈvər-dənt) adjective, green in tint or color; green with growing plants.

Cypress tress and Monterey pines stood like sentinels all along the roadway at Lands End. The hills of Lincoln Park were verdant.

[Haunted]

macaronic \mak-uh-RON-ik\, adjective:

1. Composed of a mixture of languages.
2. Composed of or characterized by Latin words mixed with vernacular words or non-Latin words given Latin endings.
3. Mixed; jumbled.

noun:
1. Macaronics, macaronic language.
2. A macaronic verse or other piece of writing.

The tradition is even more significant in Folengo's Italian works and especially in his macaronic writings.
-- Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World

The macaronic mode swivels between different languages. I believe Beckett chose French against English for similar reasons to those of Jean Arp in selecting French against German.
-- W. D. Redfern, French Laughter: Literary Humour from Diderot to Tournier

The journalistic multiplicity of voices found in the Magazine corresponded with the poetic multi-vocality of Fergusson's macaronic compositions, texts that combined elements of neo-classical English and vernacular Scots diction.
-- Ian Brown, The Edinburgh History of Scottish Literature

Macaronic is related to the word macaroni. Specifically, the pasta is named after the Southern Italian dialect maccarone, which was also associated with a mixture of Latin and vernacular languages.

[blunthead]

fecundity (ˈfe-kənd-it-ē, ˈf-) noun, fruitfulness in offspring or vegetation.

groundling (ˈgrau̇n(d)-liŋ) noun, a person of unsophisticated taste.

Even Charles Dickens, the Shakespeare of the novel, has faced a constant critical attack as a result of his often sensational subject matter, his cheerful fecundity (when he wasn't creating novels, he and his wife were creating children), and, of course, his success with the book-reading groundlings of his time and ours.

[Patricia A]

Hobnob - To hang out with the swells.

Busted - To get caught doing something that you were trying with no aplomb to conceal. :tongue:

[J.T. Adams]

Hobnob - To hang out with the swells.


Hoooly crap that was genius:biggrin2:

[blunthead]

aplomb (ə-ˈpläm, -ˈpləm) noun, 1. complete and confident composure or self-assurance; poise; 2. alternate for hobnob in the ill-fated Play with Mod game.

hobnob (hob -ˌnäb) verb, to associate familiarly

Hey, let's play a game! On Tuesday when Marsha returns, let's post the word aplomb or, like, hobnob a lot! She won't know what's goin' on!

[Patricia A]

aplomb (ə-ˈpläm, -ˈpləm) noun, 1. complete and confident composure or self-assurance; poise; 2. alternate for hobnob in the ill-fated Play with Mod game.

hobnob (hob -ˌnäb) verb, to associate familiarly

Hey, let's play a game! On Tuesday when Marsha returns, let's post the word aplomb or, like, hobnob a lot! She won't know what's goin' on!

HAHAHAHA! - To laugh unabashedly.

Dooooh! - To be busted.

[blunthead]

Byzantine (ˈbi-zən-ˌtēn, ˈbī-, -ˌtīn; bə-ˈzan-ˌ, bī-ˈ) adjective, intricately involved; labyrinthine.

When I read Lovecraft, my prose became luxurious and Byzantine.

[blunthead]

ephemeral (i-ˈfem-rəl, -ˈfēm-; -ˈfe-mə-, -ˈfē-) adjective, lasting a very short time.

Once weaned from the ephemeral craving for TV, most people will find they enjoy the time they spend reading.

[blunthead]

vignette (vin-ˈyet, vēn-) noun, a short descriptive literary sketch; a brief incident or scene (as in a play or movie).

Whether it's a vignette of a single page or an epic trilogy like The Lord of the Rings, the work is always accomplished one word at a time.

[blunthead]

dystopia ((ˌ)dis-ˈtō-pē-ə) noun, an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives.

If you happen to be a science fiction fan, it's natural that you should want to write science fiction (and the more sf you've read, the less likely it is that you'll simply revisit the field's well-mined conventions, such as space opera and dystopian satire).