Word of the Day...

[Haunted]

feuilleton \FOI-i-tn\, noun:

1. a part of a European newspaper devoted to light literature, fiction, criticism, etc.
2. an item printed in the feuilleton.

The editor is impressed by my work and says he will consider my feuilleton, if I submit it this afternoon.
-- Selden Edwards, The Little Book

The novel in numbers is known with us, but the daily feuilleton has not yet been tried by our newspapers, the proprietors of some of which would, perhaps, do well to consider the matter.
-- William Makepeace Thackeray, Jerome Paturot

Feuilleton originally referred to the light fiction or serial articles that commonly appeared in French newspapers in the 1840s after the fall of Napoleon. It is a diminutive form of the French word feuille meaning "leaf."

[Haunted]

epexegesis \ep-ek-si-JEE-sis\, noun:

1. the addition of a word or words to explain a preceding word or sentence.
2. the word or words so added.

But you did establish personal contact? In epexegesis or on a point of order?
-- James Joyce, Finnegan's Wake

One of the most striking peculiarities of colloquial speech in Dutch, and of natural free talk in general, is what is called epexegesis.
-- Jan Gonda, Selected Studies

Epexegesis, a late Renaissance word, is derived from the Greek epexḗgēsis meaning explanation.

[Haunted]

lollapalooza \lol-uh-puh-LOO-zuh\, noun:

an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance.

In America, the German announcement prompts Mayor La Guardia to tell City Hall reporters, “Any American who can believe that lollapalooza of a Nazi lie has sunk to the lowest possible level.”
-- Philip Roth, The Plot Against America

It was a lollapalooza of a tour, all right—a "luxury hotel barge cruise” which began in the Champagne country and then went, via hot air balloon, to Burgundy for more barging, through Beaujolais, to the Riviera and Cannes and Monte Carlo...
-- Donna Tartt, The Secret History

Though the origins of this Americanism are uncertain, we can be sure that lollapalooza strutted onto the linguistic stage in the first decade of the 20th century.

[blunthead]

gobbet (gäb′it) noun, a fragment or bit, esp. of raw flesh; a lump; chunk; mass

The gobbet of leaves went back into the evidence bag and the evidence bag went back into a file cabinet in the corner.

[Haunted]

mazuma \muh-ZOO-muh\, noun:

money.

...and I want mazuma, gelt, coin, rocks, or what have you!
-- Harry Stephen Keeler, The Riddle of the Yellow Zuri, 1930

The American's hostility to what is beautiful and charming — a hostility as deeply rooted in him as his belief in the omnipotence of mazuma and God — finds its best illustration in a reconnaissance of all those originally placid and lovely spots of his own country which, with what would seem to be a flagellant's glee, he has debased and made hideous.
-- George Jean Nathan, "Clinical Notes," American Mercury Magazine, 1927

Mazuma is a Yiddish word that comes to English from the Mishnaic Hebrew term mezumman. This term literally translates to "designated," "fixed," or "appointed," though it was used figuratively to refer to "cash" in Medieval Hebrew.

[Haunted]

indite \in-DAHYT\, verb:

1. to compose or write, as a poem.
2. to treat in a literary composition.
3. Obsolete. to dictate.
4. Obsolete. to prescribe.

"Will it be any harm," he said to his friends, "in a piece you want to be written so low, if we should teach them how they should think and act in common cases, as well as indite?"
-- Samuel Richardson, A Quiet Corner in a Library, 1915
And then she called her father Sir Barnard and her brother Sir Tirry, and heartily she prayed her father that her brother might write a letter like as she did indite; and so her father granted her.
-- Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte D'arthur, 1470
Appearing in English in the mid-1300s, this wordy word comes from the Latin root dictare meaning "to declare, dictate, or compose in words." Combined with the prefix in-, indite literally means "to put down in writing."

[Walter Oobleck]

id·i·o·cy

noun, usually offensive \ˈid-ē-ə-sē\

1. Subnormal intellectual development or ability characterized by intelligence in the lowest measurable range.
2. Extreme folly or stupidity

Idiot as a word derived from the Greek, idiotes ("person lacking professional skill", "a private citizen", "individual"), idios ("private", "one's own"). In Latin the word idiota ("ordinary person, layman") preceded the Late Latin meaning "uneducated or ignorant person."


"everyone makes fun of the [yeehaws] until the zombie apocalypse." (w/appreciation & apology to fljoe, who posted a pic in a social group)


Usage: Laura Warholic or, The Sexual Intellectual, Alexander Theroux, 2007, Fantagraphic Books, page 159, "The Controversial Essay":
Women in the extreme tend to fix on the private and the personal, whereas men tend to focus on the spare, the wonderful, and the strange, even the figmental. "Idiocy ['private person', Greek] is the female defect: intent on their private lives, women follow their fate through a darkness deep as that cast by malformed cells in the brain," Rebecca West astutely observed in Black Lamb & Grey Falcon. "It is no worse than the male defect, which is lunacy..."

Show Spoiler

I thought the private-angle interesting.

[Haunted]

hypothecate \hahy-POTH-i-keyt, hi-\, verb:

1. to pledge to a creditor as security without delivering over; mortgage.
2. to put in pledge by delivery, as stocks given as security for a loan.

Then you hypothecate your stock in company number one, and you had your dummy directors lend you more money, and you buy another trust company.
-- Upton Sinclair, The Moneychangers, 1920

He could buy certificates of city loan for the sinking-fund up to any reasonable amount, hypothecate them where he pleased, and draw his pay from the city without presenting a voucher.
-- Theodor Dreiser, The Financier, 1912

Hypothecate first entered English in the late 1600s, originally from the Greek roots hypo- and tithenai meaning "to put down."

[Haunted]

primaveral \prahy-muh-VEER-uhl\, adjective:

of, in, or pertaining to the early springtime: primaveral longings to sail around the world.

Yet could it ever be truly recaptured, the former primaveral joy?
-- Anthony Burgess, Nothing Like the Sun, 1996

Yesterday I saw a horseman chase through a countryside exploding with primaveral verdure, and if I'd brought a lute along, on my Sunday walk that led me past an imposing chateau I'd once, so and so many years ago, "patrolled" as a recruit, I would have joyously sung out across the treetops, to the solitary, beautiful cinquecento edifice, some such words as "Behind which casement seekest thou, angel, thy repose?"
-- Robert Walser, Speaking to the Rose, 1932

Primaveral hails from the Latin prima vera, literally meaning "springtime." This word shares its root with the Italian noodle dish, pasta primavera: pasta served with fresh vegetables.

[Walter Oobleck]

telegony [tɪˈlɛgənɪ]n
telegony
the supposed transmission of hereditary characteristics from one sire to offspring subsequently born to other sires by the same female.

Genetics the supposed influence of a previous sire on offspring borne by a female to other sires[from tele- + -gony. Compare Greek tēlegonos ``born far from one's homeland'']

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegony

This is a word at play in Laura Warholic, Alexander Theroux...I'm halfway into this 3# 12.4 oz read...878 pages. Seems like he is using the word, after a fashion, to suggest other things...or...perhaps there is another word for what he is doing w/this...idea. As in, "Human beings who live closely or together, Eyestones realized, frequently do become a joint product." (444) And it all seems related to that word above, idiocy...we work and play...we come and go. Eyestones writes a column...and in the story, he uses the word: It is the subject of telegony that addresses the carrying over of the influence of the sire on the offspring of subsequent matings of the female with other males, and of course, speaking of long-term relationships, the volume of that influence cannot be insignificant..." (3) Too, he relates the word to government...there are sections that read like essays...and I think that is the intent...