Word Of The Day

[Altobelli]

PSYCHOMANCY noun (sahy-koh-man-see)

noun

1. occult communication between souls or with spirits.


Quotes

" ... There is something, though, that is rather queer, but it belongs to psychomancy rather than psychology, as I understand it." "Ah!" I said. "What is that queer something?" "Being visibly present when absent. It has not happened often, but it has happened that I have seen Marion in my loft when she was really somewhere else and not when I had willed her or wished her to be there."
--*William Dean Howells,*Questionable Shapes, 1903

To one who has an adequate knowledge of the laws of electricity and magnetism, it is more than amusing to see with what pedantic gravity these latter philomaths descant upon electricity and magnetism, contorting and butchering their established laws all the while, to explain some vile juggle, or unravel the psychomancy of rappers and tippers ...
--*Charles G. Page,*Psychomancy: Spirit-Rappings and Table-Tippings Exposed, 1853



Origin

Psychomancy is a less common euphemistic synonym of the far more sinister necromancy. The first element, psycho-, familiar from English psychiatry and psychology, is a combining form from the Greek noun psȳchḗ “breath, soul, spirit, ghost.” Psȳchḗ is also the name of a butterfly, which inspired the English poet and critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) to write a short poem, “Psyche,” about the double meaning “soul” and “butterfly.” The element -mancy ultimately derives from Greek manteía “divination,” a derivative of mántis “diviner, soothsayer, prophet,” and also “praying mantis (the predatory insect).” Psychomancy entered English in the 16th century.

[alfinyalcabo]

GONGOOZLER

A person who idly watches the labours of others while declining to offer assistance or becoming involved. Traditionally a term used by canal bargees when referring to onlookers found clustering around locks and moorings where barges have to stop and the crew engage in sometimes hardphysical activity to make progress.
"Don't stuff up at Five Rise Locks or you'll get a cheer from the gongoozlers"

[Altobelli]

GONGOOZLER

A person who idly watches the labours of others while declining to offer assistance or becoming involved. Traditionally a term used by canal bargees when referring to onlookers found clustering around locks and moorings where barges have to stop and the crew engage in sometimes hardphysical activity to make progress.
"Don't stuff up at Five Rise Locks or you'll get a cheer from the gongoozlers"

Nice one

[Altobelli]

KOBOLD noun (koh-bold)

noun

1. (in German folklore) a spirit or goblin, often mischievous, that haunts houses.
2. (in German folklore) a spirit that haunts mines or other underground places.


Quotes

The telling and retelling of old tales, from parent to child, down the long generations, have made Europe the home of "the Little People"--pixie and kobold and brownie and gnome ...
--*Edwin Markham,*"Mr. Markham Writes of Some American Fairy Tales," New York Times, November 30, 1901

What of the grand tools with which we engineer, like kobolds and enchanters, tunnelling Alps, canalling the American Isthmus, piercing the Arabian desert?
--*Ralph Waldo Emerson,*Society and Solitude, 1870



Origin

In German folklore a Kobold is either of two things: a spirit living in human houses like a brownie or pixie, playing pranks but also doing small chores for the humans; a spirit or goblin haunting mines. Kobold is also the source of the name for the metallic element found in silver mines, usually combined with poisonous arsenic. Medieval German silver miners had no use for cobalt, let alone its potentially poisonous effects, and called this unwanted element Kobold in the belief that Kobolds, goblins, had switched the silver to this undesirable element. The English spelling cobolt occurs in the late 17th century, and the spelling cobalt in the 18th century. Kobold entered English in the 17th century.

[Altobelli]

HEEBIE-JEEBIES noun (hee-bee-jee-beez)

noun

1. Slang. a condition of extreme nervousness caused by fear, worry, strain, etc.; the jitters; the willies (usually preceded by the): Just thinking about ghosts gives me the heebie-jeebies.


Quotes

In the sudden swelling of the shadows, the dolls appeared to shift on the shelves, as if preparing to leap to the floor. Their painted eyes--some bright with points of reflected light and some with a fixed inky glare--seemed watchful and intent. I had the heebie-jeebies. Big time.
--*Dean Koontz,*Fear Nothing, 1998

... we enjoy Pixar's Wall-E and Nintendo's Mario, but we get the heeby jeebies from the ultra-realistic faces of The Polar Express or the upcoming Tintin movie.
--*Mark Brown,*"Why Brains Get Creeped Out by Androids," Wired, July 19, 2011



Origin

The American cartoonist William (“Billy”) De Beck (1890-1942) was most famous for his comic strip Take Barney Google, F'rinstance (1919), which became Barney Google and Snuffy Smith in 1934. De Beck is responsible for coining heebie-jeebies, balls of fire, and time’s a-wastin. Heebie-jeebies entered English in the 20th century.

[alfinyalcabo]

Gozzer

(Sport: Fishing)
Definition

A very soft, white maggot that is the larvae of bluebottle but smaller in size, with a jet black body.

annattogozzer... Is a maggot that has been dyed with a reddish coloured dye and gives the appearance of a yellow colour ..

[Altobelli]

I know someone who is a very soft, white maggot (Gozzer)

[Altobelli]

BONCE noun (bons)

noun

1. British Slang. head; skull.


Quotes

There's ... guys with great big bandages round their heads from being hit with blunt and heavy objects or simply falling over lagging and landing on the bonce.
--*J. J. Connolly,*Layer Cake, 2000

Let's face it, Des. Her bonce is going.
--*Martin Amis,*Lionel Asbo: State of England, 2012



Origin

The head or skull sense of bonce perhaps finds its origins in a British term meaning “marble.” It entered English in the 1860s.

[Altobelli]

HYPOGEAL adjective (hahy-puh-jee-uh l)

adjective

1. underground; subterranean.


Quotes

When planted, germination is hypogeal and following emergence the plant produces a lax hollow stem which cannot usually climb without support.
--*R. H. M. Langer and G. D. Hill,*Agricultural Plants, 1981

Henry just informed me that I'd better pack you guys extra-heavy fleece jackets because it will be very cold in the hypogeal domain.
--*Christine Lehner,*Absent a Miracle, 2009



Origin

Hypogeal is an uncommon adjective used in biology to describe organisms (e.g., insects, plants) that live underground and in geology for subterranean geological features. The main components of hypogeal are Greek. The Greek preposition and prefix hypό- “under, down, from under” is thoroughly naturalized in English. Formerly words beginning with hypo- were pronounced with a short vowel, as in “hip”; nowadays the prefix rhymes with “high” except for hypocrite and hypocrisy. The second component, -gaios or -geios, is a derivative of the Greek noun gê (dialectically géē, and in poetry gaîa) “earth, the (planet) earth, land, country.” Gê has the combining form geo-, familiar in the English nouns geography (Greek geōgraphía “description of the earth”) and geometry (Greek geōmetría “measurement of the earth”), and, not so obviously, in the personal name George (from Greek geōrgόs, from unattested geoworgόs “farmer”—literally “earth worker”; the combining form -worg(os) is related to English “work.”) Hypogeal entered English in the late 17th century.

[Altobelli]

EBULLIENT adjective (ih-buhl yuh nt)

adjective

1. overflowing with fervor, enthusiasm, or excitement; high-spirited: The award winner was in an ebullient mood at the dinner in her honor.

2. bubbling up like a boiling liquid.


Quotes

Howie is ebullient. He bounds up to Alberta to hug her awkwardly.... "You were great!"
--*Marge Piercy,*Braided Lives, 1982

Troy Schumacher, who is one of the company’s most buoyant and ebullient Pucks, told me, “The role is unique in that you are responsible for just about everything! Puck has twenty entrances—the most, I believe, in any ballet—and he is often carrying props! He’s the catalyst for the action, and everything depends on him!”
--*Cynthia Zarin,*"Dreaming with Shakespeare During a Summer of Chaos," The New Yorker, August 24, 2017



Origin

The English adjective ebullient comes from the Latin present participle stem ebullient-, from the verb ēbullīre “to bubble, boil, boil over.” The Latin verb derives from the noun bulla “bubble, knob, stud,” i.e., something that swells up and becomes round. From the Latin noun bulla, English has bull (as in a “papal bull”), bowl (as in the sport), and bulla (a medical term meaning “large vesicle”). The verb ēbullīre has the prefix e-, from ex- “going out or forth, changing condition” (as when water boils) and derives from the simple verb bullīre “to bubble, boil.” Bullīre regularly becomes boillir in Old French (bouillir in modern French), the source of the English verb boil. Ebullient entered English in the late 16th century.