Word Of The Day

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PURSE-PROUD adjective (purs-proud)

adjective
1. proud of one's wealth, especially in an arrogant or showy manner.


Quotes

London was still London ... heavy, clumsy, arrogant, purse-proud but not cheap; insular but large; barely tolerant of an outside world, and absolutely self-confident.
--*Henry Adams,*The Education of Henry Adams, 1918


The fellow is a bad neighbour, and I desire, to have nothing to do with him: but as he is purse-proud, he shall pay for his insolence ...
--*Tobias Smollett,*The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, 1771



Origin

Purse-proud was first recorded in 1675–85.

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OMNISHAMBLES noun (om-nuh-sham-buh lz)

noun
1. Chiefly British Informal. a situation, especially in politics, in which poor judgment results in disorder or chaos with potentially disastrous consequences.


Quotes

The Budget, dubbed an 'omnishambles' by critics, marked the government's mid-term low point which even the triumph of the London Olympics was unable to dispel.
--*Michael Burton,*The Politics of Austerity, 2016


Iannucci calls these characters "well-meaning but damaged individuals" and by putting them into situations of omnishambles where everything is deeply at stake, he makes a stronger satire of Washington and more entertaining television.
--*Marc Edward Shaw,*"Veep's poetics of omnishambles," Politics and Politicians in Contemporary US Television, 2017



Origin

The first element of omnishambles, omni- “all,” is familiar in English in omnibus, omnipotent, omnivorous, and omniscient, derived from the Latin adjective omnis “all.” Shambles has a gorier history. In the 9th century the Old English noun scomol (spelled variously) simply meant “stool, footstool,” derived from Latin scamellum, scamillum “low stool.” By the 10th century the noun also meant “a counter or table for conducting business”; by the 14th century the word acquired the sense “table or counter for selling meat.” During the 16th century shambles came to mean “slaughterhouse; place of wholesale carnage.” Shambles in the sense “a mess, a ruin, scene of disorder” was originally an Americanism, first occurring in print in 1926.

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BOOKLORE noun (book-lawr)

noun
1. facts and information about books, especially about authors and circumstances of publication.
2. book learning.


Quotes

Besides reviving interest in booklore generally and bringing about the secularization of many of the great libraries, the influence of Humanism and of the Reformation also resulted in demands that libraries be opened to the public.
--*H. H. Bockwitz,*"Books--In Spite of Fire and Sword," The Rotarian, December 1936


Scattered among the review excerpts of a gallaxy [sic] of its titles are some fascinating bits and pieces of book lore. Do you know the origin of the words book, volume and tome? Who now is the most widely translated author?
--*Al,*"Bookwatch," New Scientist, May 1, 1975



Origin

One of the current meanings of booklore, “facts about books, their authors and publication,” applies mostly to the business of buying, trading, and selling books, especially of first editions and antiquarian books. The other meaning of booklore is as a much less common synonym of book learning. Wulfstan of York (died 1023), Archbishop of York and homilist (a writer or speaker of sermons, usually on Biblical or religious subjects) is the first writer to use booklore. Not surprisingly Wulfstan uses bóclár in the sense “book learning, especially religious book learning.” Booklore entered English in the early 11th century.

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NEATNIK noun (neet-nik)

noun
1. Slang. a person who is extremely neat about surroundings, appearance, etc.


Quotes

This yard scrubbing leaves the neatnik poised and ready to intercept the very first leaf to yield to gravity.
--*Adrian Higgins,*"Americans love mulch--and many of us are misusing it," Washington Post, September 13, 2017


I could almost identify by type the managers who had come and gone in the thirty years the building had been occupied. One was a neatnik, who'd filed all the paperwork in matching banker's boxes.
--*Sue Grafton,*T Is for Trespass, 2007



Origin

Neatnik was formed in opposition to the supposedly scruffy, unshaven beatnik (coined in 1958). The suffix -nik, still unnaturalized in English, is of immediate Yiddish origin, from Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian). English peacenik, also derogatory, dates from 1962. Neatnik entered English in 1959.

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PANCHRESTON noun (pan-kres-tuh n)

noun
1. a proposed explanation intended to address a complex problem by trying to account for all possible contingencies but typically proving to be too broadly conceived and therefore oversimplified to be of any practical use.


Quotes

Bunnell ... suggested that the term "fragmentation" has become a panchreston because it has become a catch-all phrase that means different things to different people.
--*David B. Lindenmayer and Joern Fischer,*Habitat Fragmentation and Landscape Change, 2006


Unfortunately, this term has by now acquired so many definitions (at least 70 by recent count) that it has become a panchreston--a term that means so many different things that it means almost nothing.
--*Daniel Simberloff,*Invasive Species: What Everyone Needs to Know, 2013



Origin

English panchreston comes via Latin panchrēstos “good for everything, universal.” In Latin, its usage is restricted to medicine or derived metaphors, e.g., Pliny the Elder (a.d. 23-79) uses panchrēstos stomaticē, a phrase of two Greek words with Greek inflections, meaning “universal remedy for ailments of the mouth”; Cicero (106-43 b.c.), in one of his forensic speeches, uses panchrēstō medicāmentō “universal cure” as a scornful periphrasis for “bribe.” The original Greek adjective (and noun) pánchrēstos has the same relatively restricted meaning, i.e., to describe widely useful tools or medications. Panchreston entered English in the 17th century.

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BIOPHILIA noun (bahy-oh-fil-ee-uh)

noun
1. a love of life and the living world; the affinity of human beings for other life forms.


Quotes

Indeed, on a per-capita basis, New Zealand may be the most nature-loving nation on the planet. With a population of just four and a half million, the country has some four thousand conservation groups. But theirs is, to borrow E. O. Wilson’s term, a bloody, bloody biophilia.
--*Elizabeth Kolbert,*"The Big Kill," The New Yorker, December 22 & 29, 2014


... that fourth kind of love in Perdita's bundle--biophilia--isn't it rather intriguing? ... He thinks that all living things have an instinctive orientation toward one another. Biophilia is supposed to be deep in our biological makeup.
--*Hilary Scharper,*Perdita, 2013



Origin

Biophilia is a New Latin word formed by two Greek combining forms widely used in English, bio- (from bíos “life”) and -philia “love (of).” Biophilia was coined by the German-born U.S. psychoanalyst Erich Fromm (1900-80) in The Heart of Man: Its Genius for Good and Evil (1964) in the meaning “love for humanity and nature, and independence and freedom.” E. O. (Edward Osborne) Wilson, U.S. biologist, theorist, and author (born 1929) expanded the meaning to “the rich, natural pleasure that comes from being surrounded by living organisms” in Biophilia (1984). The word biophilia entered English in 1964.

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FALSTAFIAN adjective (fawl-staf-ee-uhn)

adjective
1. of, relating to, or having the qualities of Falstaff, especially his robust, bawdy humor, good-natured rascality, and brazen braggadocio: Falstaffian wit.


Quotes

You couldn't see the top of the harvest table for all the dishes and wine bottles, but I could see Paul presiding at the far end: bawdy, Falstaffian.
--*Robert Hellenga,*The Confessions of Frances Godwin, 2014


To it would his wholesome and happy mind revert, how often! to rest there for the space of a smile, at least, and sometimes long enough for a full, oceanic commotion of mirth, a perfected soul-delivery of Falstaffian laughter.
--*William MacDonald,*"General Preface: A Discourse of Editions Past and Present," Essays of Elia, 1903



Origin

The adjective Falstaffian derives from Falstaff, the family name of Sir John Falstaff, a fictional character in two of Shakespeare’s historical plays (Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2) and in the comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor. His death is briefly treated in Henry V. Falstaff as a character is fat, vain, boastful, cowardly, bibulous; he lives on stolen or borrowed money and consorts with petty criminals. He has always been a favorite character among playgoers. Falstaffian entered English in the early 19th century.

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GROK verb (grok)

verb
1. Slang. to understand thoroughly and intuitively.
2. Slang. to communicate sympathetically.


Quotes

Digital utopians have come in for criticism (sometimes in these pages) for failing fully to grok the messy realities of politics and the virtues of old-fashioned shoe leather in political protest ...
--*Ben McGrath,*"Nerd Parade," The New Yorker, January 30, 2012


Our gray matter is so complex, scientists lament, that it can’t quite understand itself. But if we can’t grok our own brains, maybe the machines can do it for us.
--*Robbie Gonzalez,*"AI Just Learned How to Boost the Brain's Memory," Wired, February 6, 2018



Origin

Grok was coined by Robert A. Heinlein in the science-fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land (1961).

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VELITATION noun (vel-i-tey-shuhn)

noun
1. a minor dispute or contest.


Quotes

... let him read those Pharsalian fields fought of late in France for religion, their massacres, wherein by their own relations in twenty-four years I know not how many millions have been consumed, whole families and cities, and he shall find ours to be but velitations to theirs.
--*Robert Burton,*The Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621


While the ladies in the tea-room of the Fox Hotel were engaged in the light snappish velitation, or skirmish, which we have described, the gentlemen who remained in the parlour were more than once like to have quarrelled more seriously.
--*Sir Walter Scott,*St. Ronan's Well, 1823



Origin

English velitation comes from Latin vēlitātiōn- (stem of vēlitātiō) “skirmish,” ultimately a derivation of vēles (stem vēlit-) “light-armed foot soldier wearing little armor, skirmisher,” which is a derivative from the adjective vēlox (stem vēlōc-) “quick, rapid, speedy” (and the source of English velocity). The vēlitēs, a specialized unit of soldiers in the ancient Roman army, were armed with swords, javelins, and small round shields and were stationed in front of the legionary lines. Before the main action began, these skirmishers threw their javelins at the enemy lines to break up their formation and then rapidly withdrew to the rear of the legionary lines. Vēlitēs as a type of soldier or unit in the Roman army were relatively brief: they are first mentioned about 211 b.c. in the dark, dark days (for Rome) of the Second Punic War (218–201 b.c.). The vēlitēs were probably formed owing to lowered property qualifications for military service in 214 b.c. and were drawn from the lowest, youngest, and poorest citizens. Vēlitēs are last mentioned in the Jugurthine War of 112-106 b.c.; presumably they were subsumed into the centuries (a company consisting of approximately 100 men) in a later reorganization of the Roman army. Velitation entered English in the 17th century.

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FRUGIVOROUS adjective (froo-jiv-er-uhs)

adjective
1. fruit-eating.


Quotes

... the frugivorous bats, and the fruit-eating quadrumana, including the gorgeous mandrill, are the most highly-coloured of the Mammalia.
--*Grant Allen,*The Colour-Sense: Its Origin and Development, 1879


Fruit, by the way, was all their diet. ... while I was with them, in spite of some carnal cravings, I had to be frugivorous also.
--*H. G. Wells,*The Time Machine, 1895



Origin

The English adjective frugivorous “fruit-eating” is used mostly in biology to describe animals that eat fruit. The first element, frugi-, is a combining form of Latin frux “fruit, crops, produce” related to the verb fruī “to enjoy the fruits or products or results of.” From the form frūg- English has frugal and frugivorous. From fructus, the past participle of fruī (from an assumed frūguī), English has fruit (from Old French, from Latin frūctus) and fructify (from Old French fructifier, from Latin frūctificāre). The second element, -vorous, ultimately comes from Latin vorāre “to swallow ravenously,” whence English has devour (from Middle French devourer, from Latin dēvorāre “to swallow down,” and voracious (from Latin vorāc-, the stem of vorax “ravenous, insatiable.” Frugivorous entered English in the 18th century.