Word Of The Day

[Altobelli]

FRENEMY noun (fren-uh-mee)

noun
1. Informal. a person or group that is friendly toward another because the relationship brings benefits, but harbors feelings of resentment or rivalry: Clearly, turning the competition into frenemies is good for your business.

Quotes

By 20 he's a lieutenant colonel, friend to the Marquis de Lafayette, frenemy to Aaron Burr, and George Washington's right-hand man in the fight against the British.
--*Jeff MacGregor,*"Meet Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Genius Behind 'Hamilton,' Broadway's Newest Hit," Smithsonian Magazine, November 12, 2015

And, of course, there never was a "group," just an odd dozen passionately independent "frenemies" ...
--*Thomas B. Hess,*"Water Babes," New York, October 27, 1975


Origin

Frenemy is a portmanteau of friend and enemy. It entered English in the mid-1900s.

[SERVERNOTRESPONDING]

Nithing (ˈnaɪðɪŋ)
noun
1.
a villain or coward who breaks a code of honour
2. Norse mythology
a malicious creature of Norse mythology
3.
a person who is miserly or stingy
adjective
4.
miserly or stingy

[RedBasie]

Piqsiq - Snow lift by wind, blizzard.

One of fifty words used by the Inuit to describe different types of snow.

[Altobelli]

OSTENSIBLE adjective (o-sten-suh-buh l)

adjective
1. outwardly appearing as such; professed; pretended: an ostensible cheerfulness concealing sadness.
2. apparent, evident, or conspicuous: the ostensible truth of their theories.

Quotes

The ostensible reason for these tours by which I came to know the world was that I should thank the people of the Empire, in my father's name, for their services in Britain's cause during the war. But inside this idea was another: that in addition to making myself known to the different imperial factions over which I should one day rule I should also learn about other countries important to British life.
--*Edward, Duke of Windsor,*"A Prince at War," Life, December 22, 1947

She had called early, on purpose to give her views, with the ostensible excuse of an inquiry about her sister-in-law's health.
--*Elinor Glyn,*The Reason Why, 1911


Origin

Ostensible ultimately derives from the Latin verb ostendere “to spread out, expose, show.” The Latin verb is a compound of the preposition and combining form ob (older obs) “in the face, toward, to” and tendere “to stretch, stretch out.” The rare, long since obsolete verb obtend “to put forward, offer, proffer” is formed from the same Latin elements, but is recorded only from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Ostensible entered English in the 18th century.

[Altobelli]

MENSCH noun (mench)

noun
1. Informal. a decent, upright, mature, and responsible person.

Quotes

I understand that people make mistakes but a real man, a mensch, shoulders his responsibilities and faces people and at least explains.
--*Francesca Segal,*The Innocents, 2012

As the authors see it, practical wisdom roughly amounts to being a mensch—that is, having honor and integrity, but also rising above workaday ephemera to recognize and enact wise decisions for the greater good.
--*Bryan Burrough,*"The Spirit of the Mensch," New York Times, January 15, 2011


Origin

Mensch in German means simply “human being, person, individual”; mensch in Yiddish means “admirable human being, honest, honorable person,” rather like the difference in English between human and humane. The German and Yiddish nouns come from Middle High German mensche, from Old High German mennisco, and are akin to Old Frisian männska “person, human being,” Middle Dutch mensche, Old Saxon mennisco. All of these nouns derive from an adjective represented by Old English mennisc “human,” Old Norse mennskr, and Gothic mannisks. These nouns and adjectives all derive from prehistoric Germanic noun stems mannu-, mannon- “human being man,” which are related to Sanskrit mánu- “human being, man,” and Slavic (Polish) mąż “husband” (Czech) muž “man, husband.” Mensch entered English in the 20th century.

[Altobelli]

RAMPIKE noun (ram-pahyk)

noun
1. Chiefly Canadian. a dead tree, especially the bleached skeleton or splintered trunk of a tree killed by fire, lightning, or wind.

Quotes

Along the crest of the ridge, among the rampikes, silhouetted dark and large against the sunrise, moved a great herd of caribou, feeding as they went.
--*Charles G. D. Roberts,*"The Vagrants of the Barren," The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, May to October 1908

For miles and miles, we see nothing against the clear blue sky but the spiry tops of evergreens; or perhaps a gigantic skeleton, 'a rampike,' pine or hemlock, scathed and spectral, stretches its gaunt outline above its fellows.
--*Frederic S. Cozzens,*"A Month with the Blue Noses," The Knickerbocker; or, New-York Monthly Magazine, Volume XLIX, 1857


Origin

Rampike entered English in the late 1500s. Its origin is uncertain.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

I know I'm going to ram an iron bar up the pikey's arse that has nicked our garden bench!

[SERVERNOTRESPONDING]

Quantophrenia
NOUN

Undue reliance on or use of facts that can be quantified or analysed using mathematical or statistical methods; inappropriate application of such methods, especially in the fields of sociology and anthropology.
Origin
1950s; earliest use found in Pitirim Sorokin (1889–1968). From quant- + -o + -phrenia.

[Altobelli]

REBARBATIVE adjective (ree-bahr-buh-tiv)

adjective
1. causing annoyance, irritation, or aversion; repellent.

Quotes
All too many judges feel that the majesty of the law needs to be protected with the barbed wire of rebarbative prose, prickly with forbidding jargon and headache-inducing abstraction.
--*Jeet Heer,*"Antonin Scalia Is the Supreme Court's Greatest Writer," The New Republic, June 26, 2015

There was nothing to stop him from finding somewhere else, but the idea was rebarbative, and in truth another place would pose the same problems.
--*Anita Brookner,*Strangers, 2009


Origin

Rebarbative is a Middle French adjective equivalent to “in your face!” The French adjective is a derivative of the verb rébarber “to stand up against, confront, go ‘beard to beard,’” so to speak, and is a derivative of barbe “beard.” Rebarbative entered English in the 19th century.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

How very rebarbative of you not to include the word...