Two words for me today...
Phookin' elated!
OLEAGINOUS adjective (oh-lee-aj-uh-nuh s)
adjective
1. having the nature or qualities of oil.
2. containing oil.
3. producing oil.
4. unctuous; fawning; smarmy.
Quotes
He filled the wheelbarrow with provisions and two five-gallon cans that had once held olive oil and now contained water--albeit an oleaginous and tinny-tasting variant of what he knew water to be. --*T. Coraghessan Boyle,*"The Underground Gardens," The New Yorker, May 25, 1998 Nearly 50 years later, the oleaginous excess and two-handed indulgence that once made the Big Mac such a culinary icon is now associated with its undoing. --*Adam Chandler,*"The Genius Behind the Big Mac," The Atlantic, December 7, 2016
Origin
Oleaginous has always meant “oily, fatty, greasy” to describe plants, fruits, vegetables, fish, and stones. Oleaginous acquired its uncomplimentary sense “smarmy, unctuous” in the 19th century. Oleaginous entered English in the 17th century.
Last edited by Altobelli; 07-05-2017 at 06:37 PM.
Two words for me today...
Phookin' elated!
HYPOSTATIZE verb (hypostatize)
verb
1. to treat or regard (a concept, idea, etc.) as a distinct substance or reality.
Quotes
Long ago the philosophers warned us against hypostatizing verbal categories, such as the category of "government" or "the State." When you hypostatize you endow a concept with a life that it does not actually possess. --*John Chamberlain,*"Some First Principles," New York Times, August 4, 1946 Like any orthodox moralist Golding insists that Man is a fallen creature, but he refuses to hypostatize Evil and locate it in a dimension of its own. --*John Peter,*"The Fables of William Golding," Kenyon Review, Autumn 1957
Origin
The verb hypostatize is the later form, first recorded in 1829, of hypostasize, which was first used in 1809 by the English poet and literary critic, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834). Both forms of the verb derive from the Greek noun hypóstasis “sediment (in urine), substance, nature, existence, reality.” The Greek elements hypo- and stásis translate literally into Latin as sub- and -stantia “substance,” which caused endless confusion and controversy among Christian theologians of the 4th and 5th centuries.
Last edited by Altobelli; 08-05-2017 at 02:38 PM.
HOLUS-BOLUS adverb (hoh-luh-s-boh-luh s)
adverb
1. all at once; altogether.
Quotes
I'll take it on my shoulders, holus bolus, blame and shame, my boy; but stay here, I cannot let you. --*Robert Louis Stevenson,*Treasure Island, 1883 Such men abandon academically sound courses and admissions standards at the drop of a student sensitivity, sometimes propose that running the university be turned over holus-bolus to students--and, on the whole, probably do more to alienate the young from adult values than professors who ignore students entirely. --*"Campus reform: the faculty role," Life, May 23, 1969
Origin
Holus-bolus, like the much earlier hocus-pocus, is a mock-Latin phrase meaning “whole lump, whole bolus (a round mass of medicine).” An etymology of sorts has holus-bolus as a Latinization of Greek hólos bôlos “whole lump, clod of earth, nugget.” The term entered English in the 19th century.
SOPHISTRY noun (sof-uh-stree)
noun
1. a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning.
2. a false argument; sophism.
Quotes
He intensifies the discords upon a subject which many seem bent upon befogging and distracting by all the arts of ingenious sophistry. He professes to be friendly to copyright, and then reasons his way to the destruction of all copyright by denying that there is any right or wrong in the matter. --*"Matthew Arnold on Copyright," The Popular Science Monthly, May to October, 1880 It is a justification that does not for a moment convince him. It is sophistry, that is all, contemptible sophistry. --*J. M. Coetzee,*Scenes from Provincial Life: Boyhood, Youth, Summertime, 2011
Origin
The Greek adjective sophós (with its derivatives) forms part of many words that are ambiguous, such as sophisticated and sophistication, or have unfavorable meanings, such as sophistry or sophister. Positive meanings for sophós include the noun philosophía “philosophy” and the proper name Sophocles “famous for wisdom.” The ambiguity is basic in Greek and lies at some of the basic meanings of sophós. Its fundamental meaning is "skilled in a craft or handicraft (such as pottery or stone carving) or art (such as poetry or writing speeches)"; then "clever in an art or craft, clever in practical affairs (such as teaching for a profit), cunning, shrewd"; and finally, "learned in the sciences, abstruse." Sophistry entered English in the 14th century.
Bloody Primitive again!
SAUDADE noun (soh-dah-duh)
noun
1. (in Portuguese folk culture) a deep emotional state of melancholic longing for a person or thing that is absent: the theme of saudade in literature and music.
Quotes
... “The Girl From Ipanema” was a potent distillation of the concept of saudade, a feeling of melancholic nostalgia that characterizes so much Brazilian music. ... Longing for the unattainable, and an acute sense of the moment’s slipping away: That’s saudade. --*Stephen Holden,*"Brazilian Yearning and Imminent Loss," New York Times, March 21, 2014 Its name comes from the word saudade, which describes the melancholic nostalgia one feels for people, things, pleasures and times now lost. --*Antonio Tabucchi,*Requiem: A Hallucination, translated by Margaret Jull Costa, 1994
Origin
Portuguese saudade ultimately derives from Latin sōlitāt-, the stem of sōlitās “loneliness, solitude.” (Latin -l- between vowels is lost in Portuguese; Latin -t- between vowels becomes -d- in Portuguese and Spanish.) The original Old Portuguese form soidade was altered to saudade under the influence of the verb saudar “to salute, greet” (from Latin salūtāre “to keep safe, pay one's respects”). Saudade entered English in the 20th century.
IMPRIMATUR noun (I'm-pri-mah-ter)
noun
1. sanction or approval; support: Our plan has the company president's imprimatur.
2. an official license to print or publish a book, pamphlet, etc., especially a license issued by a censor of the Roman Catholic Church.
Quotes
All but one would have to support the new resolution for a war to have the U.N.’s imprimatur. --*Philip Gourevitch,*"Waging Peace," The New Yorker, March 10, 2003 The club imprimatur on a book almost inevitably guaranteed higher sales and a greater level of pulicity and book talk. --*Janice A. Radway,*A Feeling for Books, 1997
Origin
The English noun imprimatur is a verb in Latin meaning “let it be stamped, marked” and in New Latin “let it be printed.” The word was originally used by the official licenser of a printing press to ratify the printing of a book. The use of imprimatur nowadays is restricted to books approved by the Roman Catholic Church.
I wish you would imprint across your forehead the need to actually include the word of the day in the explanation of it!