Word Of The Day

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ICONOCLASTIC adjective (ahy-kon-uh-klas-tik)

adjective

1. attacking or ignoring cherished beliefs and long-held traditions, etc., as being based on error, superstition, or lack of creativity: an iconoclastic architect whose buildings are like monumental sculptures.
2. breaking or destroying images, especially those set up for religious veneration.


Quotes

Seeing saucepans and ******** as objects worthy of artistic notice was more in line with the iconoclastic manifestos of fellow modernist--but female--writer Virginia Woolf.
--*Marta Dvořak,*"Introduction," Thanks for Listening: Stories and Short Fictions by Ernest Buckler, 2004

Sometime around 1920, the German composer Stefan Wolpe, then eigh**** years old, organized a Dada provocation in Berlin, in which he set up eight Victrolas on a stage, placed on each of them a recording of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, and had a team of confederates play the records at different speeds. ... The event was typical of the iconoclastic spirit of Dada in the years after the First World War.
--*Alex Ross,*"Beethoven Dada," The New Yorker, April 1, 2013



Origin

Iconoclastic is an adjective derived from the nouns iconoclasm “image smashing” and iconoclast “image smasher.” The Greek noun eikṓn means “image, likeness,” whether a painting or a statue; -clast and -clastic- derive from the Greek adjective klastós “broken in pieces.” The most famous instance of iconoclasm began under the Byzantine emperor Leo III the Isaurian (c680–741). It lasted from about 726 to 787 and was partly based on the injunction against graven images in the Hebrew Bible (the second of the Ten Commandments recorded in Exodus and Deuteronomy). A second period of iconoclasm occurred in Switzerland, the Holy Roman Empire, France, and elsewhere in western Europe in the 16th century during the Protestant Reformation. Iconoclastic entered English in the 17th century. The modern nonreligious, secular sense arose in the 19th century.

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ULULATE verb (uhl-yuh-leyt)

verb

1. to lament loudly and shrilly.
2. to howl, as a dog or a wolf; hoot, as an owl.
3. to utter howling sounds, as in shrill, wordless lamentation; wail.


Quotes


And above these words spoken all about me as I climbed towards the white cone of the volcano, among the mourners indifferent to my task, ululated one high, shrill lament, a flame of words that lay like a protective mantle over the funereal ceremony of that night ...
--*Carlos Fuentes,*Terra Nostra, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden, 1976

On the stage, we get a man and woman, brother and sister, leaping and staggering around a primitive wooden effigy as they moan, chant, ululate, "Mut-ter," "mud-der," and "mut-yer," over and over again.
--*John Simon,*"Strictly from Hunger," New York, March 28, 1988



Origin

Ululate is a straightforward borrowing from Latin ululātus, past participle of the verb ululāre “to howl, shriek.” The verb derives from the noun ulala and a variant uluca “owl” from a Proto-Indo-European root of imitative origin: u- with variants ul-, ulul-, and uwal- “to howl.” (Imitative roots must be handled carefully because it is easy to make unjustified derivations.) The variant u- is the source of German Uhu “owl.” Latin uluca is related to Sanskrit úlūka- “owl.” The root variant uwal- is the source of German Eule “owl” and English owl. Ululate entered English in the 17th century.

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I had this urge Saturday night !!

Tarantism
[tar-uh n-tiz-uh m]
Spell Syllables
Word Origin
noun
1.
a mania characterized by an uncontrollable impulse to dance, especially as prevalent in southern Italy from the 15th to the 17th century, popularly attributed to the bite of the tarantula.
Expand
Compare tarantula (def 3).
Origin of tarantism Expand
1630-1640 From the New Latin word tarantismus, dating back to 1630-40. See Taranto, -ism
Related forms Expand
tarantist, noun

[The Bedlington Terrier]

ULULATE verb (uhl-yuh-leyt)

verb

1. to lament loudly and shrilly.
2. to howl, as a dog or a wolf; hoot, as an owl.
3. to utter howling sounds, as in shrill, wordless lamentation; wail.


Quotes


And above these words spoken all about me as I climbed towards the white cone of the volcano, among the mourners indifferent to my task, ululated one high, shrill lament, a flame of words that lay like a protective mantle over the funereal ceremony of that night ...
--*Carlos Fuentes,*Terra Nostra, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden, 1976

On the stage, we get a man and woman, brother and sister, leaping and staggering around a primitive wooden effigy as they moan, chant, ululate, "Mut-ter," "mud-der," and "mut-yer," over and over again.
--*John Simon,*"Strictly from Hunger," New York, March 28, 1988



Origin

Ululate is a straightforward borrowing from Latin ululātus, past participle of the verb ululāre “to howl, shriek.” The verb derives from the noun ulala and a variant uluca “owl” from a Proto-Indo-European root of imitative origin: u- with variants ul-, ulul-, and uwal- “to howl.” (Imitative roots must be handled carefully because it is easy to make unjustified derivations.) The variant u- is the source of German Uhu “owl.” Latin uluca is related to Sanskrit úlūka- “owl.” The root variant uwal- is the source of German Eule “owl” and English owl. Ululate entered English in the 17th century.

I used to knock about with a young lady who ululated rather loudly when things got dirty. A caravan lid in Bowness nearly got blown off and there was no wind blowing about whatsoever!

[The Bedlington Terrier]

I had this urge Saturday night !!

Tarantism
[tar-uh n-tiz-uh m]
Spell Syllables
Word Origin
noun
1.
a mania characterized by an uncontrollable impulse to dance, especially as prevalent in southern Italy from the 15th to the 17th century, popularly attributed to the bite of the tarantula.
Expand
Compare tarantula (def 3).
Origin of tarantism Expand
1630-1640 From the New Latin word tarantismus, dating back to 1630-40. See Taranto, -ism
Related forms Expand
tarantist, noun

Oh heck! Brings back awful memories of my Uncle Ian's wedding dance. OMG that was embarrassing!

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PALUDAL adjective (puh-lood-)

adjective

1. of or relating to marshes.
2. produced by marshes, as miasma or disease.


Quotes

We durst not ... make a sudden leap, princum-prancum!, from the pleasant land of Hesse, the German garden, to marshy Dublin, its paludal heavens, its big winds and rains and sorrows and puddles of sky-flowers ...
--*Samuel Beckett (1906–1989),*Dream of Fair to Middling Women, 1992

Beneath this Port Hudson clay stratum lie formations materially different, and of such a character, both physical and biological, as clearly proves them to be not river alluvium, but of marine, brackish and paludal origin.
--*E. W. Hilgard,*"A New Development in the Mississippi Delta," The Popular Science Monthly, March 1912



Origin

The English adjective paludal is formed from Latin palūd- (stem of palūs) “swamp, marsh, fen.” The noun palude “swamp, fen” existed in English from the time of Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400), who first used it, to Richard Hakluyt (1552?–1616), the English geographer and editor whose works greatly influenced Shakespeare (1564–1616). Hakluyt used Palude as a part of a place name, as in “the Palude or marshes of Venice.” Italian also uses palude as a common noun and as a place name, in the form Paludo, e.g., San Giacomo in Paludo (a small island in the Venetian lagoon). Italian also has the family name Padula, a metathesized form of palude, for someone who lived in or near a fen or swamp. Paludal entered English in the 19th century.

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The most scary word i have found !!

Oenophobia

Wine
Oenophobia (from oenos, Greek for wine) is the fear of wine. The most common reason why people fear wine is because they contain alcohol, which is a toxin that could cause unpleasant effects. People suffering methyphobia (fear of alcohol) would fear the wine and beer (zythophobia). Sufferers would not drink wine while avoiding people who are drinking wine as they worry that drinking wine may make them act unpleasantly to them.

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KIBITZER noun (kib-it-ser)

noun

1. a giver of uninvited or unwanted advice.
2. Informal. a spectator at a card game who looks at the players' cards over their shoulders, especially one who gives unsolicited advice.
3. a person who jokes, chitchats, or makes wisecracks, especially while others are trying to work or to discuss something seriously.


Quotes

Setting up his easel near the Seine, he completed the picture in a few hours, abetted by comments from American tourists, Swiss cyclists and a full-time Parisian kibitzer.
--*"Amateur Big League: Lawyer on the Left Bank," Life, April 16, 1951

"The winning strategy is to--" "Don't be a kibitzer!" Grampa snapped. "When I need help, I'll ask for it. No dad-blamed machine is gonna outthink Grampa!" He snorted indignantly.
--*James E. Gunn,*"The Gravity Business," Galaxy Science Fiction, January 1956



Origin

Kibitzer is an informal word borrowed originally into American English from Yiddish kibitzer (also kibbitzer), a derivative of the Yiddish kibetsn and German kiebitzen “to look over the shoulders of card players and offer unsolicited advice and comments.” The Yiddish and German verbs derive from the noun German Kiebitz “lapwing, plover, busybody.” Kibitzer entered English in the 20th century.

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CONFABULATE verb (kun-n-fab-yuh-leyt)

verb

1. to converse informally; chat.
2. Psychiatry. to engage in confabulation.


Quotes

In the large room, where several different groups had been formed, and the hum of voices and of laughter was loud, these two young persons might confabulate ... without attracting attention.
--*Henry James,*Washington Square, 1880

If a person asks a machine “How tall are you?” and the machine wants to win the Turing test, it has no choice but to confabulate.
--*Gary Marcus,*"Why Can't My Computer Understand Me?" The New Yorker, August 14, 2013



Origin

Confabulate has a straightforward origin in the Latin verb confābulārī “to converse, discuss,” which in turn is a compound of fābulārī “to talk, chat” (the source of Spanish hablar and Portuguese falar “to speak”). Fābulārī is formed from the noun fābula “story, narration,” which in turn derives from the simple verb fārī “to speak.” The Latin root fā- derives from the Proto-Indo-European root bhā-, which is very well represented in the classical languages: Latin, e.g., fāma “fame,” fātum “fate” and Greek, e.g., phḗmē (dialect phā́mā) “utterance, report, fame” (as in Polýphēmos “much spoken of, famous,” and the name of the Cyclops in the Odyssey) and phṓnē “sound, voice” (as in telephone, microphone). Confabulate entered English in the early 17th century.

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DAYMARE noun (dey-mair)

noun

1. a distressing experience, similar to a bad dream, occurring while one is awake.
2. an acute anxiety attack.


Quotes

... a monstrous load that I was obliged to bear, a daymare that there was no possibility of breaking in, a weight that brooded on my wits and blunted them!
--*Charles Dickens,*David Copperfield, 1850

A breeze that smells of car fumes washes over my face, and it's over, my daymare, my vision, my whatever-it-was, is over.
--*David Mitchell,*The Bone Clocks, 2014



Origin

Daymare is formed on the analogy of the much earlier noun nightmare (which dates from the 14th century). The element -mare in both words has nothing to do with mares, stallions, or horses: it comes from the Germanic noun marō “elf, goblin, incubus, succubus, nightmare,” appearing as mare, mære in Old English and Mahr and Nachtmahr “nightmare” in German. Daymare entered English in the 18th century.