Word Of The Day

[The Bedlington Terrier]

As in CONCATENATION - we finish fourth and go into the Champions League?

[The Bedlington Terrier]

VAMOOSE verb (va-moos)

verb
1. Slang. to leave hurriedly or quickly; decamp.
2. Slang. to leave hurriedly or quickly from; decamp from.


Quotes

"I swear to you, man to man, I did not come to Butte to stir up trouble. What more can I do to convince you?" "Leave town. Vamoose."
--*Ivan Doig,*Work Song, 2010

Somewhere east of the Wayne and west of Arness, the romantic Cowboy Hero was tracked down by a posse of hard-eyed realists and told to vamoose. It was time for a Truth about the Old West.
--*"For Young Readers: In the Days of the Cowboy," New York Times, February 14, 1971



Origin

Vamoose meaning “leave in a hurry” has long been associated with cowboys of the American West and Southwest in the 19th century. The American pronunciation væˈmus is an approximate pronunciation of Spanish vamos “let’s go!” The Spanish form derives straightforwardly from Latin vādāmus, the 1st person plural subjunctive used as a “hortatory subjunctive” (a 1st person imperative) of vādere “to go.” Latin vādere is related to English wade. Vamoose entered English in the 19th century.

As in Parish to de Boer at Turf Moor? Vamoose!

[Altobelli]

MICKLE adjective (mik-uh l)

adjective
1. Archaic. great; large; much.


Quotes

O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies / In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities ...
--*William Shakespeare,*Romeo and Juliet, 1623

Many a little makes a micle.
--*William Camden,*Remaines, Concerning Britaine, 1614



Origin

English mickle and much have many variants in Old and Middle English. Both words derive from the very widespread Proto-Indo-European root meg- (and its variant megh-) “great.” This root is clearest in the Greek adjective mégas “great, large” (as in “megabit” and “megabyte”). The root appears in the Latin adjective magnus “great” (as in “magnify, magnanimous”). The variant megh- appears in Sanskrit as maha-, familiar in mahārājā ”great king.”

[Altobelli]

SENSORIUM noun (sen-sawr-ee-uh m)

noun

1. a part of the brain or the brain itself regarded as the seat of sensation.
2. the sensory apparatus of the body.


Quotes

The ringing of the bell and the rap upon the door struck likewise strong upon the sensorium of my uncle Toby, but it excited a very different train of thoughts ...
--*Lawrence Sterne,*The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Volume II, 1759

When Carlotta plugged into the electronic universe of the Pacifican media network, the immediate ground-level world outside faded almost at once from the surface of her mind as her sensorium went multiplex and electronic.
--*Norman Spinrad,*A World Between, 1979



Origin

The Late Latin noun sēnsōrium is a derivative of the verb sentτre “to discern by the senses, perceive, feel.” Sensorium is a rare word, first occurring and probably coined in the sense “seat or organ of sensation" by the Roman statesman and philosopher Boëthius (475?-525? a.d.), in his commentary on Aristotle’s Topics. By the 17th century sensorium meant “the seat or organ within the brain where sensations or perceptions were united.” Nowadays sensorium refers to the areas of the brain that receive, process, and interpret incoming sensory information, enabling the individual to be consciously aware of the outside world.

[Altobelli]

CERVINE adjective (sur-vahyn, vin)

adjective
1. resembling or characteristic of deer; deerlike.
2. of deer or the deer family.
3. of a deep tawny color.


Quotes

At that moment, the taxidermist appeared to be working on a deer head mount. ... It looked grotesquely unnatural, a cervine version of Frankenstein.
--*Yann Martel,*Beatrice and Virgil, 2010

To which she replied sweetly, shaking that fine cervine head ...
--*Lawrence Durrell,*Livia; or, Buried Alive, 1978



Origin

The English adjective cervine comes directly from Latin cervτnus “pertaining to a deer” (cervus). Latin cervus means “stag, deer” and derives from a complicated Proto-Indo-European root ker- (with many variants) “uppermost part (of the body), head, horn.” The same root yields Latin cornū “horn” (as in unicorn and in corn in the sense “thickening and hardening of the skin on a toe”), cervτx “neck,” and cornea (horny coating or tissue). In Germanic the root appears as her-, source of English horn, hart (the animal), and hornet. Cervine entered English in the 19th century.

[Altobelli]

MASSCULT noun (mas-kuhlt)

noun
1. the forms of culture, as music, drama, and literature, as selected, interpreted, and popularized by the mass media for dissemination to the widest possible audience.


Quotes

Folk Art grew mainly from below, an autochthonous product shaped by the people to fit their own needs, even though it often took its cue from High Culture. Masscult comes from above. It is fabricated by technicians hired by businessmen.
--*Dwight MacDonald,*"Masscult and Midcult," Against the American Grain: Essays on the Effects of Mass Culture, 1962

In today's marketplace, however, elitism has no value -- money has become the only yardstick. Thus High Culture lusts after the market share of Masscult.
--*Michiko Kakutani,*"The Trickle-Down Theory," New York Times, September 22, 1996



Origin

Masscult (from “mass culture”) and midcult (from “middlebrow culture”) were coined by Dwight Macdonald (1906-82) in his essay “Masscult and Midcult” (1960). Macdonald was an American journalist, social critic, and political radical. He opposed mass media because they exemplified mediocrity and their only standards were popularity.

[Altobelli]

CLANDESTINE adjective (klan-des-tin)

adjective
1. characterized by, done in, or executed with secrecy or concealment, especially for purposes of subversion or deception; private or surreptitious: Their clandestine meetings went undiscovered for two years.


Quotes

Mr. Felt drew on his espionage experience in 1972 when he insisted that the Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward take circuitous routes to their clandestine meetings in an underground parking garage and use elaborate communications signals that were recounted by Mr. Woodward and Carl Bernstein in their book "All the President's Men."
--*David Johnston,*"Behind Deep Throat's Clandestine Ways, a Cloak-and-Dagger Past," New York Times, June 4, 2005

The director of the CIA reluctantly stepped in. "Sir, that is one of the inherent risks of clandestine operations. …"
--*Stephen Coonts,*Cuba, 1999



Origin

Clandestine comes from Latin clandestīnus meaning “secret, hidden” from clam meaning “secretly.” The -stīnus element is probably modeled after intestīnus meaning “internal.” Clandestine entered English in the 1560s.

[Altobelli]

OCEANICITY noun (oh-shuh-nis-i-tee)

noun
1. the degree to which the climate of a place is influenced by the sea.


Quotes

“Three cold, miserable countries,” said Louis when he heard the title of this paper as it was delivered in a preliminary version, and indeed what characterises them are their high northern latitudes ... and their extreme oceanicity, which modifies the cold with rain-laden winds from a relatively warm sea.
--*T. C. Smout,*"Energy Rich, Energy Poor: Scotland, Ireland and Iceland, 1600–1800," Exploring Environmental History: Selected Essays, 2009

... the heavier rainfall and generally greater oceanicity of this region may more than cancel out its greater warmth, compared with the southeast.
--*Derek Ratcliffe,*The Peregrine Falcon, 1980



Origin

Oceanicity was first recorded in the 1930s. The -ity suffix is used to form abstract nouns expressing state or condition and ultimately derives from Latin.

[Altobelli]

SHOFAR noun (shoh-fer)

noun

1. a ram's horn blown as a wind instrument, sounded in Biblical times chiefly to communicate signals in battle and announce certain religious occasions and in modern times chiefly at synagogue services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.


Quotes

On the last Rosh Hashanah Spencer celebrated in the temple, he convinced Rabbi Zimmerman to let him bring in the New Year with a call from the shofar that would rattle the windows.
--*Paul Beatty,*Tuff, 2000

... I cannot conceive of anything on earth would upset her more than if she missed hearing the shofar blown at synagogue.
--*Sholem Aleichem,*"The White Scape Hen," Nine**** to the Dozen, translated by Ted Gorelick, 1998



Origin

A shofar or ram’s horn is blown during the Jewish high holy days of Rosh Hashanah (usually September) and Yom Kippur (ten days after Rosh Hashanah). Shōphār in Hebrew means “ram’s horn”; the development in meaning is ram (the animal) to ram’s horn to this horn used as a musical instrument. Shofar entered English in the 19th century.

[Altobelli]

POLYHISTOR noun (pol-ee-his-ter)

noun
1. a person of great and varied learning.


Quotes

Most could not read, in contrast to Falcon, a polyhistor who spent twenty hours a week pouring over old tomes when the weather was fair--this, because as captain he could not bear having anyone, especially his first mate, correct him.
--*Charles Johnson,*Middle Passage, 1990

For writings so full-bodied as those he was to give to the world, it was necessary that he should step into literature as already himself a polyhistor or accomplished universal scholar; and, when he did step conspicuously into literature, it was in fact as already such a polyhistor.
--*David Masson,*"Masson's Interpretation of Carlyle," The Popular Science Monthly, December 1885



Origin

The English combining form poly- meaning “much, many” is also a combining form in Greek, with the same meanings, and is very familiar from such words as polygon (Greek polýgōnon “polygon,” literally “many-angled, many-kneed”) and polygamy (Greek polygamía “frequent marriage, polygamy”). The second element, -histor, comes from Greek ístōr (also hístōr, and in some dialects wístōr), which means “one who knows the law, a judge; learned, skilled.” Hístōr also appears in history (Greek, historía “investigation, the published results of an investigation”). The is-, his-, and wis- are the usual Greek phonetic developments of the Proto-Indo-European root weid- “to see, know,” source of Greek ideîn (from wideîn) “to see” and eidénai (from weidénai) “to know,” Latin vidēre “to see,” English wit, unwitting, and Slavic (Czech) vědět “to know” and vidět "to see." Polyhistor entered English in the 16th century.