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Thread: Word Of The Day

  1. #351
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    MOGGY noun (mog-ee)

    noun

    1. British Informal. a cat.

    Quotes

    It was possible that Goldilocks was on a road trip somewhere, but no cat owner ever leaves a moggy with no one to feed it.
--*Jasper Fforde,*The Fourth Bear, 2006

What's a moggy? I say, astonished. Moggy is cat. How can you possibly not know what moggy means?
--*Heather McGowan,*Duchess of Nothing, 2006


    Origin

    Moggy (also moggie) is used in Scottish and English dialects in senses that are colloquial or rare or obsolete, e.g., "a young girl or young woman"; "a scarecrow"; "a calf or cow." Perhaps its only common use is as a term for an ordinary house cat. Moggy may possibly be a derivative of Mog, a nickname for Margaret. Moggy in its sense "girl, young woman" entered English in the 17th century; in its sense "calf or cow," in the 19th century; in its sense "scarecrow," in the late 19th century; and in its sense "house cat," in the early 20th century.

  2. #352
    There is a certain moggy that keeps on insisting on doing its business in my garden that is very soon going to get a pellet up its arse!

  3. #353
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    Same here BT, It digs a hole but cannot be bothered to cover it over afterwards, I use my air rifle on Squirrels as they upset my bird feeders and dig the bulbs up, can shoot a Squirrel without regret, but a cat is too far for me, will carry on throwing stones at it, but I have to be careful as I've bust a window in the next door neighbours shed as it ricocheted off the garden fence

  4. #354
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    SLUMBEROUS adjective (sluhm-ber-uh s)

    adjective

    1. sleepy; heavy with drowsiness, as the eyelids.
    2. causing or inducing sleep.
    3. pertaining to, characterized by, or suggestive of slumber.
    4. inactive or sluggish; calm or quiet.

    Quotes

    He lay but opened a red eye unsleeping, deep and slowly breathing, slumberous but awake.
--*James Joyce,*Ulysses, 1922

There, beside the fireplace, the brave old General used to sit; while the Surveyor ... was fond of standing at a distance, and watching his quiet and almost slumberous countenance.
--*Nathaniel Hawthorne,*The Scarlet Letter, 1850


    Origin

    Slumbrous is the older spelling for today’s slumberous. Samuel Johnson (1709–84) entered the spelling slumberous in his Dictionary of the English Language (1755), and his spelling became the more common one during the 19th century. Slumbrous entered English in the 15th century.

  5. #355
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    ULTRACREPIDARIAN adjective (uhl-truh-krep-i-dair-ee-uh n)

    adjective

    1. noting or pertaining to a person who criticizes, judges, or gives advice outside the area of his or her expertise: The play provides a classic, simplistic portrayal of an ultracrepidarian mother-in-law.
    noun
    1. an ultracrepidarian person.

    Quotes

    He was the only person in New York who might be called, without intent to malign, an Ultracrepidarian critic. It was of the very nature of his job to find fault with small and insignificant details.
--*Ellery Queen,*The American Gun Mystery, 1933

It's a risky topic for the authors of Freakonomics, who could be accused of displaying ultracrepidarian tendencies themselves, after eschewing the strictly economic analyses of their earlier mega best-sellers to publish what is more or less a self-help tome.
--*Tim Walker,*"Freakonomics authors Stephen J Dubner and Steven D Levitt reveal some of the 'magic' of their problem-solving techniques in new book," Independent, May 22, 2014


    Origin

    Ultracrepidarian is nonexistent in Latin and very rare in English. The word was coined by the English essayist William Hazlitt (1778-1830) from the Latin phrase ultra crepidam “beyond the sandal” (there are several Latin versions) taken from the Natural History (book 35) of the Roman polymath Pliny the Elder (a.d. 23-79). Pliny was retelling a retort that Apelles (4th century b.c.), a famous ancient Greek painter, made to a cobbler. The cobbler the day before had criticized Apelles for inaccurately painting a sandal, and Apelles corrected his error. The next day the cobbler tried to criticize Apelles’ painting of the leg the sandal was on, at which the exasperated Apelles remarked that “a shoemaker should not judge above his sandal.” Ultracrepidarian entered English in the 19th century.
    Last edited by Altobelli; 22-05-2017 at 01:41 PM.

  6. #356
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    MEMORITER adverb (muh-mawr-i-ter)

    adverb

    1. by heart; by memory.
    adjective

    1. involving or requiring memorization: the memoriter aspects of a college course.

    Quotes

    ... Miss Rolleston found, one day, a paper on her table, containing advice as to the treatment of disordered lungs, expressed with apparent coldness, and backed by a string of medical authorities quoted memoriter.
--*Charles Reade and Dion Boucicault,*Foul Play, 1869

But Johnson cried, "No, no!" repeated the whole sonnet instantly, memoriter, and shewed it us in Newton's book.
--*Dr. John Sharpe,*"Letter, March 1, 1765," The London Magazine, January 1785


    Origin

    Memoriter is as rare in English as it is in Latin. In Latin memoriter is an adverb meaning “from memory, by personal recollection” and derives from the adjective memor “mindful, remembering” (also the source of the Latin noun memoria “memory”). All of the Latin words are (partially) reduplicated derivatives of the root mer- (and its variants) “to remember, care for.” This same reduplicated root is the source of Mímir (also Mim) “(the) Rememberer,” in Norse mythology a giant who guarded the well of knowledge and wisdom. The simple, unreduplicated root is the source of English “mourn” (from Old English murnan “to be anxious about, care for”). Memoriter entered English in the 17th century.

  7. #357
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    CANTANKEROUS adjective (kan-tang-ker-uh s)

    adjective
    1. disagreeable to deal with; contentious; peevish: a cantankerous, argumentative man.

    Quotes

    Yes, Thomas, you are an extremely cantankerous man to work with--I know that to my cost. You disregard everything that you ought to have consideration for.
--*Henrik Ibsen,*An Enemy of the People, translated by R. Farquharson Sharp, 1911

Lily Tomlin shines as the cantankerous, combative, brutally frank poet Elle Reid, now fallen into literary silence after the death of her partner of thirty-eight years.
--*Richard Brody,*"Movies: Grandma," The New Yorker, August 24, 2015


    Origin

    Cantankerous sounds as apt in sound and meaning as honk or boom. One earlier spelling of the word is contankerous, which suggests its development from Middle English contak, conteke “quarrel, disagreement,” from which are formed contecker, contekour “one who causes dissension.” An unattested adjective conteckerous, contakerous could have been formed on the models of traitorous or rancorous or contentious. Cantankerous entered English in the 18th century.

  8. #358
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    CHINWAG noun (chin-wag)

    noun

    1. Slang. an idle chat.

    verb

    1. Slang. to chat idly; gossip.

    Quotes

    Mrs. M's recent chin-wag at the kitchen door with the milk-float man was likely to have resulted in more swapping of intelligence than a chin-wag between Lord Haw-Haw and Mata Hari.
--*Alan Bradley,*A Red Herring Without Mustard, 2011

He wanted a man's life, men's company, and he would creep around the lorry park waving, gesturing, looking for his mates, making the secret signal that men make to other men, to say they want a chin-wag and a smoke, to say they're lonely, to say they want company but they're not like that.
--*Hilary Mantel,*Beyond Black, 2005


    Origin

    Chinwag sounds like a word that Abraham Lincoln used or maybe even coined during his youth on the “far northwest” frontier of Illinois. Actually chinwag is a British colloquialism that first appeared in Punch, the English satirical magazine. Chinwag is more common in British, Irish, and Australian English than in Canadian or American English.

  9. #359
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    BACKRONYM noun (bak-ruh-nim)

    noun

    1. an existing word turned into an acronym by creating an apt phrase whose initial letters match the word, as to help remember it or offer a theory of its origin. For example, rap has been said to be a backronym of “rhythm and poetry.”

    2. the phrase itself. For example, “port out, starboard home” is a misleading backronym for posh.

    Quotes

    Butterfield, who liked the cheekiness and loved the sound of the word, coined a "backronym" to justify it: searchable log of all communication and knowledge. He got his way.
--*Jeff Bercovici,*"Slack Is Our Company of the Year. Here's Why Everybody's Talking About It," Inc., December 2015

Hence the name, CARMELO, which my colleague Neil Paine (our senior sports writer) and I later developed into a silly backronym (Career-Arc Regression Model Estimator with Local Optimization).
--*Nate Silver,*"We're Predicting The Career Of Every NBA Player. Here's How." FiveThirtyEight, October 9, 2015


    Origin

    One backronym familiar to every parent of a newborn is that of the Apgar score. The expansion for Apgar is “Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, Respiration.” Actually the Apgar score is named after Virginia Apgar (1909-74), a US anesthesiologist who developed the test in 1952 to evaluate the effects of obstetric anesthesia on neonates. Backronym entered English in the late 20th century.

  10. #360
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    WINSOME adjective (win-suh m)

    adjective

    1. sweetly or innocently charming; winning; engaging: a winsome smile.


    Quotes

    ... two persons living together, as master and mistress of the house, and father and mother of a winsome, merry little child ...
--*Anne Brontë,*The Tenant of Windfell Hall, 1848

In the last scenes, the Beatles get down to work, or play. Winsome Paul, witty John, thoughtful George, goofy Ringo.
--*Carolyn See,*"A Way to Live in the World," The Beatles Are Here!: 50 Years after the Nand Arrived in America, Writers, Musicians, and Other Fans Remember, edited by Penelope Rowlands, 2014


    Origin

    Winsome comes from a Proto-Indo-European root wen-, won- (with other variants) originally meaning “to strive, work hard for” but developing the senses “to desire, love, please.” In Latin the root appears in venus “love (romantic, ***ual), Venus (goddess and planet)"; even the month April was called veneris mēnsis “month of Venus.” (Roman scholars thought, wrongly, that venus came from the verb venīre “to come” because “love comes to all.”) Venus is related to German wünschen and Old English wӯscan “to wish.” Other derivatives of the root in Old English include winnan “to strive after,” wine “friend,” and the noun wynn or wen “joy, pleasure.” Wynn is also the Old English name for the rune ƿ, representing the sound w and later replaced by uu ("double u") and still later by w. Winsome entered English before 900.

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