Word Of The Day

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THEINE noun (thee-een)

noun

1. caffeine, especially in tea.


Quotes

What we were drinking, so dark and aromatic, was a mixture of his: leaves of the Li-Cungo, those tiny ones that give an intense color and contain a high percentage of theine, mixed with some quality Niassa, very light and fragrant.
--*Antonio Tabucchi,*"Theatre," Letter from Casablanca, translated by Janice M. Thresher, 1986

... learn how to steep correctly; never boil tea; use a china or earthenware teapot; throw away the leaves after steeping, and never steep over eight minutes; after that time the theine or stimulating quality disappears and tannin predominates.
--*Letter to the Editor: "Green Teas and Black Teas," New York Times, August 13, 1908



Origin

Theine comes from New Latin the(a) “tea” and -ine, a noun suffix used particularly in chemical terms (bromine; chlorine), and especially in names of basic substances (amine; caffeine). It entered English in the 1830s.

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BANAUSIC adjective (buh-naw-sik)

adjective
1. serving utilitarian purposes only; mechanical; practical: architecture that was more banausic than inspired.


Quotes

He was too worldly-wise--what we used to call 'banausic'--too bent on getting on.
--*John Buchan,*"'Tendebant Manus': Sir Arthur Warcliff's Story,"The Runagates Club, 1928

Athenians called work of this sort 'banausic' or 'mechanical,' a word suggestive of servility and stultification. "We call those arts mechanical which tend to deform the body," wrote Aristotle, "and likewise all paid employments, for they absorb and degrade the mind."
--*Edward Skidelsky,*"Are people frightened of leisure time?" The Guardian, September 10, 2013



Origin

Less than 40 percent of ancient Greek vocabulary has a recognizable Indo-European etymology; 8 percent of ancient Greek vocabulary is definitely of non-Greek origin; and the remaining 52 percent of ancient Greek vocabulary has no known etymology. Among the unknowns is the Greek noun baûnos “furnace” and its derivative noun bánausos a kind of craftsman or artisan or mechanic and the adjective banausikós “pertaining to artisans.” Banausic entered English in the 19th century.

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COMSTOCKERY noun (kuhm-stok-uh-ree)


noun

1. overzealous moral censorship of the fine arts and literature, often mistaking outspokenly honest works for salacious ones.


Quotes

... to boycott an author because of a brutality of expression is an act of retaliation so out of proportion with the gravity of the offense that it can be viewed only with indignation by the hot-headed and with a smile by those who have heard of what George Bernard Shaw was pleased to call, I believe, "American Comstockery."
--*Eugene P. Metour,*Letter to the Editor: "More 'American Comstockery,'" New York Times, February 11, 1906

Indeed, l'affaire Doubleday would become, through the 1920s, a rallying point for opponents of puritanism and comstockery in American letters.
--*James L. W. West III,*"The Composition and Publication of Jennie Gerhardt," in Jennie Gerhardt (1911) by Theodore Dreiser, 1992



Origin

Anthony Comstock (1844-1915) was a reformer of American public morals and a U.S. postal inspector who was stoutly defended by church-based groups and loudly denounced by civil liberties organizations. In 1873 he founded the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. That same year Comstock was also responsible for passage of the federal “Comstock Law,” which criminalized the use of the U.S. Postal Service to send erotica, contraceptives, and *** toys. Comstock’s many victims included George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), the Russian-born American anarchist Emma Goldman (1869-1940), and the nurse and *** educator Margaret Sanger (1879-1966). Comstockery appeared in an editorial in The New York Times in December 1895.

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QUAQUAVERSAL adjective (kwey-kwuh-vur-suh l)


adjective
1. (of a geological formation) sloping downward from the center in all directions.


Quotes

"Your yard is one piece of granite. It's like living on Stone Mountain." He stood at the apex of our land and said, "The term 'quaquaversal' comes to mind. ..."
--*George Singleton,*Work Shirts for Madmen, 2007

His Father, George Dixon, Sr., having ridden in late to Quarterly Meeting--a wet night, ev'ryone gone to bed, a pile of Shoes left out to be clean'd,--in all the great quaquaversal Array, he sees only the pair belonging to Mary Hunter.
--*Thomas Pynchon,*Mason & Dixon, 1997



Origin

The Latin adverb quāquā “whithersoever, wheresoever, wherever” does not occur in the literature of the Classical Latin period (1st century b.c. to the 2nd century a.d.) but does occur in early, preclassical Latin literature, e.g., in the comedies of Plautus (c254–184 b.c.) and in Late Latin, e.g., in the satires of Apuleius (a.d. 125?–180). Latin versus is the past participle of the verb vertere “to turn” and is used frequently in all periods of Latin as an adverb “turned in the direction of, toward” and follows the word it qualifies. (Latin versus and the English suffix -ward, as in homeward, agree in meaning and origin—the Proto-Indo-European root wert- “to turn.”) Quāquā, reinforced by versus, means “turned to wheresoever, facing everywhere.” Quaquaversal entered English in the late 17th century.

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GRAVID adjective (grav-id)


adjective

1. pregnant.


Quotes

She was now gravid with the fourth, and working at weaving another blanket to keep it warm.
--*Piers Anthony,*Isle of Woman, 1993

The husband of a gravid wife had occasion to call the family obstetrician at one of our larger hospitals last week. In answer to his request to speak to the doctor, the switchboard operator said, "He was here, but he got sick and had to be rushed home immediately."
--*"Talk of the Town: Taking a Powder," The New Yorker, June 5, 1965



Origin

Gravid comes from Latin gravidus, equivalent to grav(is) “burdened, loaded,” and -id, a suffix occurring in descriptive adjectives borrowed from Latin. It entered English in the late 1500s.

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INCOGITANT adjective (in-koj-i-tuh nt)


adjective

1. thoughtless; inconsiderate.
2. not having the faculty of thought.


Quotes

The bar will blush at this most incogitant woodcock. But see if a draught of Littleton will recover him to his senses.
--*John Milton,*Colasterion: A Reply to a Nameless Answer Against "the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce," 1645

With exaggerated blandness Rhodes stood staring around from the other men's incogitant faces to the Bridegroom's distinctly concentrated expression.
--*Eleanor Hallowell Abbott,*"Man's Place," Good Housekeeping, January 1915



Origin

Analyzing the composition of incogitant is a little tricky. The Latin negative prefix in- is clear enough (it is related to English un-); the participial ending -ant will be familiar to those who know French or Latin; and many will be familiar with the French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes’ (1596–1650) statement cōgitō ergō sum (“I think therefore I am”). The Latin verb cōgitāre “to think” can be broken down further to co-, a variant of com-, here used as an intensive suffix, and the verb agitāre “to set in motion, drive” (the co- and the a- of agitāre contract into a long ō). Agitāre is a frequentative verb (at least in form) formed from the simple verb agree “to drive (animals), do, make.” Incogitant entered English in the 17th century.

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FUNSTER noun (fuhn-ster)


noun

1. a person who creates or seeks fun, as a comedian or reveler.


Quotes

Capello is not a funster. The former Italian winger Roberto Donadoni once remarked: "I think he would have made a good prison guard."
--*Tim Adams,*"The many faces of Fabio Capello," New Statesman, June 7, 2010

There was a word which appeared for a moment above the verbal horizon, was hailed by knowing ones as a valuable and almost indispensable invention, and then sank out of sight again forever. This was "funster."
--*William S. Walsh,*"Books and Literature," The Illustrated American, November 15, 1890



Origin

The origin of the English suffix -ster, as in funster, is the Old English suffix -estre, which was used to form feminine agent nouns corresponding to masculine agent nouns in -ere, e.g., bæcere “baker” and bæcestre “female baker” (the source of the family name Baxter). Even in Old English the suffix -estre was used to form masculine agent nouns; thus we have today the doublets weaver (with the masculine suffix) and, with the originally feminine suffix, the archaic agent noun webster (source of the family name Webster). By the late 16th century, the suffix -ster acquired a humorous or disparaging sense, as in rhymester (along with the neutral youngster). Punster dates from the end of the 17th century and may have been the model for funster. The suffix nowadays is mostly humorous or disparaging as in gangster (late 19th century), the model for bankster, which also dates from the late 19th century. Funster entered English in the late 18th century.

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VERISIMILAR adjective (ver-uh-sim-uh-ler)


adjective

1. having the appearance of truth; likely; probable: a verisimilar tale.


Quotes

We may sense in the increasing pressure to produce novels that are lifelike, probably, verisimilar, an effort to tie the Novel down, to clip its wings so that it will not be guilty of the extravagances of moral imagining.
--*Margaret Anne Doody,*The True Story of the Novel, 1996

“He just took over the set,” Mr. Gansa said, “he showed us exactly what the lawyer would be doing, exactly where the meeting would take place, who would be waiting for whom. It made it feel verisimilar in a way we never could have done on our own.”
--*Liz Robbins,*"He Didn't Like 'Homeland.' Now He's Advising It." New York Times, March 12, 2017



Origin

Verisimilar comes from Latin Latin vērīsimil(is) (vērī, genitive singular of vērum “truth,” and similis “like”) and -ar, a suffix with the general sense “of the kind of, pertaining to, having the form or character of.” It entered English in the late 1600s.

[Altobelli]

RUTH noun (rooth)


noun

1. pity or compassion.
2. sorrow or grief.
3. self-reproach; contrition; remorse.


Quotes

So, then, you would all be on the side of mad Achilles, who knows neither right nor ruth?
--*Homer (9th or 8th century b.c.),*Iliad, translated by Samuel Butler, 1898

The emus stood and looked at me, orange eyes full or ruth and meaning.
--*Adrienne Miller,*The Coast of Akron, 2005



Origin

The noun ruth “pity” is to the verb rue “to feel sorrow over” as growth from grow or as death from die. The element -th forms action nouns from verbs (as growth from grow or as death from die) and nouns of quality or condition from adjectives (as length from long or as breadth from broad). The verb rue ultimately derives from the Old English verb hrēowan “to repent of, rue.” Ruth is first recorded in English during the 12th century.

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HESPERIDIUM noun (hes-puh-rid-ee-uh m)

noun

1. Botany. he fruit of a citrus plant, as an orange.


Quotes

As I was carefully filing the new postal arrivals alphabetically in the paper shredder, I noticed, amongst the profusion of catalogues that hawked everything from bird feeders to monthly deliveries of sundry drupe and hesperidium, there was an unsolicited little journal ...
--*Woody Allen,*"To Err is Human--To Float, Divine," Mere Anarchy, 2007

Nay, when we actually mean the fruit in person, not the tree, flower, or color, the picture called up will be different according to the nature of the phrase in which the word occurs. ... if I am talking to a botanical friend, my impression is rather that of a cross-section through a succulent fruit (known technically as a hesperidium), and displaying a certain familiar arrangement of cells, dissepiments, placentas, and seeds.
--*Grant Allen,*"A Thinking Machine," The Popular Science Monthly, March 1886



Origin

Hesperidium ultimately derives from the Greek noun Hesperídes (the plural of the adjective hesperís “western”), the daughters of Night or Evening who guarded the golden apples that Gaea, the goddess of the earth, gave to Hera at Hera’s marriage. It is uncertain whether the “golden apples” were apples or a kind of citrus fruit, especially the orange. The golden apples grew in a garden at the western edge of the world (the same location as the Elysian Fields). The Greek noun and adjective hésperos (dialect wésperos) “evening, evening star, Venus (the planet), (the god) of evening (i.e., death)” is closely related to Latin vesper “evening, the west.” The Swedish botanist Linnaeus (1707-78), alluding to the golden apples of the Hesperides, gave the taxonomic name Hesperideæ to the botanical order that contains the genus Citrus. Modern botany and chemistry use the combining form hesperid- “derived from citrus fruit.” The suffix -ium is used in scientific terms modeled on Latin. Hesperidium entered English in the 19th century.