Word Of The Day

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TIMESERVER noun (tahm-sur-ver)

noun

1. a person who shapes his or her conduct to conform to the opinions of the time or of persons in power, especially for selfish ends.


Quotes

He was labeled unreliable. He could even be thought a double-dealer or timeserver.
--*Eitaro Ishizawa,*"Too Much About Too Many," Ellery Queen's Japanese Golden Dozen, 1978


“I couldn't marry Belinda to a time-server or a palace-worshipper,” said the King decidedly.
--*Edith Nesbit,*The Magic World, 1912



Origin

Timeserver was first recorded in 1565–75.

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GADZOOKERY noun (gad-zoo-kuh-ree)

noun

1. British. the use or overuse of period-specific or archaic expressions, as in a historical novel.


Quotes

The language is convincing, and free of the gadzookery of Elizabethan pastiche.
--*Charles Nicholl,*"Exiting the Stage," New York Times, January 25, 2013


Several other stories and verses that they jointly contributed to magazines are historical and melodramatic in tone, larded with archaic oaths and exclamations and general gadzookery.
--*Julia Briggs,*A Woman of Passion: The Life of E. Nesbit, 1987



Origin

Gadzookery was first recorded in 1950–1955.

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SEPULCHER noun (sep-uh-l-ker)

noun

1. a tomb, grave, or burial place.
2. Also called Easter sepulcher. Ecclesiastical. a. a cavity in a mensa for containing relics of martyrs. b. a structure or a recess in some old churches in which the Eucharist was deposited with due ceremonies on Good Friday and taken out at Easter in commemoration of Christ's entombment and Resurrection.

verb

1. to place in a sepulcher; bury.


Quotes

The stale suffocating room felt like a sepulcher ...
--*Sue Monk Kidd,*The Invention of Wings, 2014


A clattering-rattling sound. A bony sound. Like the skeletons of long-dead men clawing their way out of a sepulcher.
--*Dean Koontz,*Phantoms, 1983



Origin

Sepulcher comes via French from Latin sepulcrum “grave, tomb,” a derivative of the verb sepelīre “to perform the funeral rites, bury, inter.” The Latin verb comes from the Proto-Indo-European root sep- “to honor,” extended to sep-el- “sorrow, care, awe.” The same root appears in Sanskrit sapati “(he) worships, tends.” The Greek derivative of sep- is the root hep-, which usually occurs in compound verbs, e.g., amphiépein “to look after, tend to,” as in the last line of the Iliad, “Thus they tended to (amphíepon) the funeral of horse-taming Hector.” Sepulcher entered English in the 13th century.

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KOSHER adjective (koh-sher)

adjective

1. Informal. a. proper; legitimate. b. genuine; authentic.
2. Judaism. a. fit or allowed to be eaten or used, according to the dietary or ceremonial laws: kosher meat; kosher dishes; a kosher tallith. b. adhering to the laws governing such fitness: a kosher restaurant.

noun
1. Informal. kosher food: Let's eat kosher tonight.

verb
1. Judaism. to make kosher: to kosher meat by salting.

Idioms
1. keep kosher, to adhere to the dietary laws of Judaism.


Quotes

This is kosher. I'm an officer of the court requesting assistance from a citizen.
--*Loren D. Estleman,*King of the Corner, 1992


Forsyth knew that was all a cover story. He knew the whole setup wasn't kosher.
--*Michael Savage,*Abuse of Power, 2011



Origin

Kosher is one of the most common words of Yiddish origin in American English. Yiddish kosher comes from Hebrew kosher (Ashkenazi pronunciation), from Hebrew kāshēr “right, fit, proper.” Kosher as an adjective “pertaining to foods prepared according to Jewish dietary law” dates from the mid-19th century; the sense “proper, legitimate” dates from the late 19th century. Kosher as a noun “kosher food, kosher store” dates from the late 19th century.

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INSCAPE noun (in-skeyp)

noun
1. the unique essence or inner nature of a person, place, thing, or event, especially depicted in poetry or a work of art.


Quotes

Spanish chestnuts: their inscape here bold, jutty, somewhat oaklike, attractive, the branching visible and the leaved peaks spotted so as to make crests of eyes.
--*Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889),*"Journal for 1868," The Collected Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins, 2015


What we wanted to do was to marry the meaning with the "inscape" of the poem.
--*Colum McCann,*Author's note on "An Ode to Curling," The New Brick Reader, 2013



Origin

It is likely that the English poet and Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89) coined the noun inscape. The obsolete noun inshape (i.e., internal form or inward shape) was a probable model. Hopkins also coined sprung rhythm and instress (i.e., the force sustaining an inscape). Inscape entered English in 1868.

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SHAVIE noun (shey-vee)

noun

1. Scot. a trick or prank.


Quotes

But urchin Cupid shot a shaft / That play'd a dame a shavie ...
--*Robert Burns,*"The Jolly Beggars," 1785


‘Twas then that Love played him a shavie, / And strak his dart in donsie Davie.
--*William Nicholson,*"The Country Lass," Tales in Verse and Miscellaneous Poems: Descriptive of Rural Life and Manners, 1814



Origin

Shavie is a rare word used in Scottish poetry, first appearing in English in the 18th century and current for just a little more than a century after that.

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ANECDATA noun (an-ik-dey-tuh)

noun

1. anecdotal evidence based on personal observations or opinions, random investigations, etc., but presented as fact: biased arguments supported by anecdata.


Quotes

Please. Stop letting yourself get carried away based on random anecdata from the Internet.
--*Julie Lawson Timmer,*Five Days Left, 2014


Again, industry stats support the anecdata. Publishers are reporting declining ebook sales but growing audiobook revenues, with audio filling the digital revenue gap that ebooks left.
--*Antonio Garcia Martinez,*"The Veni, Vidi, Vici of Voice," Wired, February 28, 2018



Origin

Anecdata is a reworking of anecdotal data. Anecdotal comes from the Greek adjective anékdotos “unpublished,” formed from the negative prefix an-, a-, the preposition and prefix ex-, ek- “out of,” and the past participle dotós “given, granted.” Each of the three Greek elements corresponds in form, origin, and meaning to Latin inēditus “unpublished” (the negative prefix in-, the preposition and prefix ex-, ē-, and the past participle datus “given.” Data is the neuter plural of datus used as a noun, “things given.” Anecdata entered English in the late 20th century.

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MYTHOCLAST noun (mith-uh-klast)

noun

1. a destroyer or debunker of myths.


Quotes

Tommy Moore, a life-long friend, an insatiable consumer of history, and a fellow mythoclast by constitution, accompanied me to the field on several occasions, and read sections of the working manuscript.
--*Scott Stine,*A Way Across the Mountain, 2015


... right now I reckon him a mythoclast, the sort of man you wouldn't trust with the Glastonbury Thorn, the Devil's Arrows at Boroughbridge, or Father Christmas.
--*John Hillaby,*"What's under York Minster?" New Scientist, March 29, 1973



Origin

English mythoclast comes from two familiar Greek words. The Greek noun mŷthos has many meanings: “speech, word, public speech, unspoken word, matter, fact,” as in mythology, “a set of stories, traditions, or beliefs.” The Greek combining form -klastēs “breaker” is most familiar in iconoclast “one who breaks images or statues” (literally and figuratively). A mythoclast is one who breaks or destroys a myth or myths in general. Mythoclast entered English in the late 19th century.

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SHANGRI-LA noun (shang-gruh-lah)

noun

1. a faraway haven or hideaway of idyllic beauty and tranquility.
2. an imaginary paradise on earth, especially a remote and exotic utopia.


Quotes

A small settlement wedged between fjord-like Lake Chelan and the jagged eastern slopes of the Cascades, Stehekin has several comfortable lodges, an excellent bakery and, best of all, relatively few visitors. ... First, of course, we had to get to this little Shangri-La.
--*Ethan Todras-Whitehill,*"In the Cascades, a Trifecta for Outdoor Enthusiasts," New York Times, September 17, 2014


With its youth and isolation and spectacular scenery, there was a tendency to think of Los Alamos as a Shangri-La.
--*Katrina R. Mason,*Children of Los Alamos: An Oral History of the Town Where the Atomic Age Began, 1995



Origin

The placename Shangri-La was coined by the English novelist James Hilton (1900-54), but the name has a firm Tibetan etymology. Shangri-La in Tibetan means “Shang Mountain Pass,” from Shang, the name of a region in Tibet; ri means “mountain,” and la means “pass.” Beyond the name itself, everything associated with Shangri-La is pure speculation and fantasy. Shangri-La entered English in 1933.

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MUSHYHEADED adjective (muhsh-ee-ned-id)

adjective

1. Informal. inadequately thought out: mushyheaded ideas.
2. Informal. having vague, unsubstantiated, or unrealistic ideas or opinions: a mushyheaded idealist.


Quotes

Hard-headed because it accepts self-interest as the basic human motivator and does not wish it away into what Alinsky considers the mushy-headed idea that people will do good because they believe in the good.
--*Frank Bardacke,*Trampling Out the Vintage, 2011


Though Cotton acknowledges that this might seem elitist, he derides the Federalists’ modern critics as mushy-headed and naive.
--*Molly Ball,*"The Making of a Conservative Superstar," The Atlantic, September 17, 2014



Origin

Mush, cornmeal boiled in water or milk until thick, eaten as a hot cereal, or molded and fried, is originally an Americanism dating back to the late 17th century. A derivative compound, mushhead “a stupid person,” also an Americanism, dates to the mid-19th century; its derivative adjective mush-headed “easily duped, stupid”, dates to the second half of the 19th century. Mushyheaded (or mushy-headed), a variant of mush-headed, dates to the late 20th century.