Word Of The Day

[Altobelli]

VOLUBLE adjective (vol-yuh-buhl)

adjective
1. characterized by a ready and continuous flow of words; fluent; glib; talkative: a voluble spokesman for the cause.


Quotes

But Wolf Larsen seemed voluble, prone to speech as I had never seen him before.
--*Jack London,*The Sea-Wolf, 1904


And he aged into a voluble and distinctive public character, a roguish charmer in a kufi, operating out of a packed storefront studio, tooling around Memphis in a plush old sedan.
--*Christopher Bonanos,*"The Civil Rights Movement Photographer Who Was Also an F.B.I. Informant," New York Times,*January 18, 2019



Origin

Voluble ultimately comes from the Latin adjective volūbilis “rolling, rotating, spinning (on an axis); (of speech or speakers) fluent.” Volūbilis is a derivative of the verb volvere “to roll, roll over, roll around, grovel; to bring around (seasons, events).” Compounds of volvere are common in Latin and English: ēvolvere “to unroll, open” (English evolve), dēvolvere “to roll down, roll off, sink back” (English devolve), involvere “to roll up, roll in” (English involve), and revolvere “to roll back (something to its source), unroll (a scroll for reading” (English revolve). Other Latin derivatives from the same root include volūmen “roll, papyrus roll” (English volume), volūta “scroll (on a column) (English volute),” vulva, volva “womb, vulva” (English vulva). Voluble entered English in the 16th century.

[Altobelli]

NICE-NELLYISM noun (nahys-nel-ee-iz-uhm)

noun
1. a euphemism: an evasive style of writing, full of circumlocutions and nice-nellyisms.



Quotes

This denial was at least partly a nice-Nellyism from the past, I think.
--*Kurt Vonnegut,*Slapstick; or, Lonesome No More!, 1976


... it had been one of the running jokes of the campus, an exercise in innuendo, misinformation and Victorian nice-nellyism.
--*T. C. Boyle,**The Inner Circle, 2004



Origin

Nice-nellyism is an Americanism dating from the early 1930s. It is a contemptuous derivative of the contemptuous noun and adjective nice nelly (also nice Nelly) “prudish; prudish person,” which dates from the nearly 1920s.

[Altobelli]

HEILIGENSCHEIN noun (hahy-li-guhn-shahyn)

noun
1. a ring of light around the shadow cast by a person's head, especially on a dewy, sunlit lawn, caused by reflection and diffraction of light rays; halo.


Quotes

The dark figure outlined on the mountain mist may have had a glory around its head, or at least a Heiligenschein, and seemed like ghost to the mountaineer who saw it.
--*Elizabeth A. Wood,**Science from Your Airplane Window, 1968


You may sometimes have noticed a faint sheen, or increased brightness, around the shadow of your head when this falls on a grass lawn, particularly when the Sun is low, and you cast a long shadow. This sheen is known as a heiligenschein, a German word meaning 'holy glow.'
--*John Naylor,**Out of the Blue: A 24-hour Skywatcher's Guide, 2002



Origin

Heiligenschein in German means “halo (around a saint’s head), nimbus, aureole,” literally, “saint's shining, saint’s light.” The optical effect is also called Cellini’s halo, after the Italian artist and writer Benevenuto Cellini (1500-71) who first described the phenomenon. Heiligenschein entered English in the 20th century.

[Altobelli]

REGINA noun (ri-jahy-nuh)

noun
1. queen.


Quotes

He represented the rule of law, and in Miromara the law bowed to no one, not even the regina herself.
--*Jennifer Donnelly,**Sea Spell, 2016


"Mother of heaven, regina of the clouds ... ."
--*Wallace Stevens,*"Le Monocle de Mon Oncle,"* Others, 1918



Origin

The Latin noun rēgīna “queen” is obviously related to the Latin noun rēx (inflectional stem rēg-) “king,” but how rēgīna is derived from rēx is tricky. There is also a deceptive resemblance between rēx and rēgīna and Sanskrit rā́jan- “rajah, king” and rā́jñī- “queen, ranee” (rēgīna and rā́jñī- are not directly related). There is a definite connection, however, between Latin rēx (rēg-), rēgīna and the Celtic words for king, e.g., Old Irish rí (from rīks), and its stem ríg (from rīg-os). Rígain, the Old Irish word for queen, is cognate with rēgīna. Regina dates from Old English times.

[Altobelli]

EYEWINKER noun (ahy-wing-ker)

noun
1. an eyelash.


Quotes

"Last night—at dinner"—Mrs. Appel eyed him accusingly—"I found—an eyewinker—in the hard sauce."
--*Caroline Lockhart,**The Dude Wrangler, 1921

#Not even an eyewinker was left to her.
--*Stewart Edward White,*Gold, 1913



Origin

Eyewinker is a very rare noun, originally Scottish and now mostly an American regionalism. Eye needs no explanation; winker has several meanings: "eyelash, eyelid, eye, something that gets in the eye and makes one blink." Eyewinker entered English in the early 19th century.

[Altobelli]

TEMPORIZE verb (tem-puh-rahyz)

verb
1. to be indecisive or evasive to gain time or delay acting.


Quotes

I'll temporise till we are all dead and buried.
--*Charles Reade,*A Perilous Secret, 1884


He is as likely as any man I know to temporize—to calculate what will be likely to promote his own reputation and advantage ...
--*Alexander Hamilton to James A. Bayard, January 16, 1801,*in Letters of Alexander Hamilton, Volume 25, 1977



Origin

The current, somewhat negative, meaning of temporize, “to be indecisive or evasive to gain time or delay acting,” is a relatively modern development of Middle French temporiser “to pass the time, await one’s time,” from Medieval Latin temporizāre “to delay,” equivalent to Medieval Latin temporāre “to delay, put off the time.” All of the medieval words are derivatives of Latin tempor-, the inflectional stem of tempus “time,” which has no certain etymology. Temporize entered English in the 16th century.

[Altobelli]

MYOPIC adjective (mahy-op-ik)

adjective
1. unable or unwilling to act prudently; shortsighted.


Quotes

The belief that simply running a data set will solve for every challenge and every bias is problematic and myopic.
--*Yael Eisenstat,*"The Real Reason Tech Struggles With Algorithmic Bias," Wired, February 12, 2019


Science provides us with a new perspective on our place in the cosmos and a better understanding of ourselves as human beings. It helps us overcome our otherwise myopic preconceptions about how the world works.
--*Lawrence M. Krauss,*"What Is Science Good For?" The New Yorker, April 21, 2017



Origin

Myopic ultimately comes from the Greek noun myōpía “nearsightedness,” which in Greek has no extended or metaphorical meaning. (The suffix -ic is English, not Greek, i.e., there is no Greek adjective myōpikós.) Myōpía is a compound formed of the verb mýein “to close the eyes or mouth,” which is close kin to the Latin mūtus “inarticulate, dumb, silent” (English mute). The same mýein appears in the noun mystḗrion “secret, secret rite” (English mystery) and its adjective mystikós “connected with the mysteries” (English mystic). The second element of myopia, -ōpía, is a combining form of ṓps (stem ōp-) “eye, face, countenance." Myopic in its original sense entered English at the end of the 18th century; the sense “unable or unwilling to act prudently” developed in English at the end of the 19th century.

[Altobelli]

FACETIAE plural noun (fuh-see-shee-ee)

plural noun
1. amusing or witty remarks or writings.


Quotes

Even the facetiae of the gallant expressman who knew everybody's Christian name along the route, who rained letters, newspapers, and bundles from the top of the stage ... failed to interest me.
--*Bret Harte,*"A Night at Wingdam," The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales, 1871


... you had better beware how you excite that comic vein to its fullest current of facetiae.
--*Thomas Peckett Prest,*The Brigand; or, The Mountain Chief, 1851



Origin

Facētiae is a Latin plural noun meaning “skillfulness, cleverness, wittiness.” It is a derivative of the adjective facētus “clever, good-humored, whimsical,” which has no reliable etymology. In the olden days, in less enlightened and progressive times than our own—say about 1850—facetiae was used in book catalogs as a euphemism for ****ography (now also called erotica). Facetiae entered English in the 16th century.

[Altobelli]

DIFFIDENCE noun (dif-i-duhns)

noun
1. the quality or state of lacking confidence in one's ability, worth or fitness; timidity.


Quotes

For an artist, insofar as modesty implies diffidence, an unwillingness to exhibit oneself or one's work, it's a virtue so dubious as to be a handicap.
--*Ursula K. Le Guin,*"The Conversation of the Modest," The Wild Girls, 2011


I write with great diffidence, but it seems to me that there is no unfairness in punishing people for their misfortunes, or rewarding them for their sheer good luck ...
--*Samuel Butler,*Erewhon, 1872



Origin

Diffidence is a straightforward borrowing from the Latin noun diffīdentia “distrust, mistrust, lack of confidence.” In the Vulgate, the Latin version of the Bible prepared chiefly by Saint Jerome at the end of the 4th century a.d., diffīdentia also meant “lack of faith, disobedience (to God).” The original sense of diffīdentia, “distrust of other people,” is obsolete; the current sense “distrust of one’s own ability or worth,” shading off to “modesty, retiring nature,” dates from the mid-16th century. Diffidence entered English in the 15th century.

[Altobelli]

UPPER CRUST noun (uhp-er-kruhst)

noun
1. the highest social class.


Quotes

... the 1922 edition of*Etiquette*promised its readers that they could learn to fit in among intimidating elites, or just emulate the American upper crust within their own circles.
--*Laura Miller,*"To the Manners Born," Slate, April 19, 2017


From his perspective, graffiti forced the upper crust to reckon with the names and the fugitive dreams of a forgotten underclass ...
--*Hua Hsu,*"The Spectacular Personal Mythology of Rammellzee," The New Yorker, May 28, 2018



Origin

The noun phrase upper crust is perfectly plain, self-explanatory: it is the top crust on a loaf of bread or a pie, a meaning the phrase has always had. Other meanings have come and gone, e.g., "exterior layer or surface of the earth" (from the mid-16th through the mid-18th centuries), "a person’s head; a hat" (from about 1825 to 1850). The most common meaning of upper crust, "the highest social class," was originally an Americanism dating from the 19th century. Upper crust entered English in the 15th century.