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Thread: Word Of The Day

  1. #1031
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    ATHENAEUM noun (ath-uh-nee-uhm_

    noun
    1. a library or reading room.
    2. an institution for the promotion of literary or scientific learning.
    3. (initial capital letter) a sanctuary of Athena at Athens, built by the Roman emperor Hadrian, and frequented by poets and scholars.


    Quotes

    The back of his state-issued S.U.V. is stacked with notebooks filled with ideas and data culled from books and articles and conversations with nearly four hundred experts; it’s a kind of rolling athenaeum.
--*Tad Friend,*"Gavin Newsom, the Next Head of the California Resistance," The New Yorker, November 5, 2018


    At the top of the main staircase, with patterned risers and leather-covered treads, a bedroom was turned into the Athenaeum, or classical library.
--*Julie Lasky,*"A Victorian Wonderland in Park Slope," New York Times, March 16, 2018



    Origin

    Athenaeum ultimately derives from Greek Athḗnaion, the name of the temple of Athena in ancient Athens where poets read their works. It entered English in the 1720s.

  2. #1032
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    SCROOCH verb (skrooch)

    verb
    1. Chiefly Midland and Southern U.S. to crouch, squeeze, or huddle (usually followed by down, in, or up).


    Quotes

    When you want to get up again, you sort of scrooch forward and the chair comes up straight so you don't have to dislocate your sciatica trying to get out of the pesky thing.
--*Charlotte MacLeod,*Something the Cat Dragged In, 1984


    Myr Korso, please tell him to scrooch down if he has to be there.
--*James Tiptree, Jr.,*Brightness Falls from the Air, 1985



    Origin

    Scrooch “to crouch, squeeze, huddle” was originally a U.S. colloquial and dialect word. It is probably a variant of scrouge “to squeeze, crowd,” itself a blend of the obsolete verb scruze “to squeeze” and gouge. To make things even more unclear, scruze itself is a blend of screw and bruise. Scrooch entered English in the 19th century.

  3. #1033
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    TRIMMING noun (trim-ing)

    noun
    1. anything used or serving to decorate or complete: the trimmings of a Christmas tree.
    2. Usually trimmings. an accompaniment or garnish to a main dish: roast turkey with all the trimmings.
    3. trimmings, pieces cut off in trimming, clipping, paring, or pruning.
    4. the act of a person or thing that trims.
    5. Informal. a beating or thrashing.
    6. Informal. a defeat: Our team took quite a trimming.


    Quotes

    It was after eleven when William in his socks made his way to the attic where the trimmings for the tree were stored.
--*Mary Roberts Rinehart,*"The Butler's Christmas Eve," Alibi for Isabel, 1944


    Painting china, carving wood, button-holing butterflies and daisies onto Turkish towelling, and making peacock-feather trimming, amused her for a time ...
--*Louisa May Alcott,*"What Becomes of the Pins," Aunt Jo's Scrap Bag, Volume 5: Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc., 1879



    Origin

    It is quite a jump to go from Byrhtnoth, Ealdorman of Es***, arranging his men in battle order (trymian) against the Vikings (recorded in the magnificent Old English poem The Battle of Maldon) to cranberry sauce and creamed onions with the Thanksgiving turkey. The Old English adjective trum “strong, firm” is the source of the verb trymian, trymman “to encourage, strengthen, prepare.” The Old English noun trymming, derived from the verb, means “strengthening, confirmation, edification, establishment.” The modern spelling trimming first appears in the first half of the 16th century with several meanings. One is “the repair or preparation of equipment, especially fitting out of a ship,” e.g., “trimming of the sails.” A second sense, all but contemporaneous with the first, is “adornment, dressing one’s hair or beard, dressing up.” A third sense of trimming, perhaps associated with the notion of dressing (up), is “a rebuke, a beating,” that is, “a dressing down.” In the early 17th century, trimming, especially in the plural, and typically in the phrase "all the trimmings," meant “ordinary accessories (as for a house or cooked meat).” In the early 19th century, trimming acquired the meaning “pieces cut off, cuttings, scraps.”

  4. #1034
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    RUTILANT adjective (root-l-uhnt)

    adjective
    1. glowing or glittering with ruddy or golden light.


    Quotes

    Sometimes, when reading one of his works, I wonder whether Mr. Lawrence has not mistaken his medium, and whether it is not a painter he ought to have been, so significant is for him the slaty opalescence of the heron's wing and so rutilant the death of the sun.
--*W. L. George,*"Three Young Novelists," Literary Chapters, 1918


    She looks up occasionally, between cross stitches, to gaze upon the steady stream of tourists stopping to admire the rutilant, shimmering sandstone folds unfurling 4,000 feet below.
--*Sam McManis,*"Discoveries: Grand Canyon's South Rim crowded but not overbearing," Sacramento Bee, July 25, 2015



    Origin

    It is one thing to see greatly varying descendants of Proto-Indo-European words in its daughter languages, as for instance in the very common (and easy to handle) Proto-Indo-European root bher-, bhor- “to carry, bear, bear children,” which appears as bhar- in Sanskrit, pher- in Greek, fer- in Latin, and ber- in Slavic, Armenian, and Germanic (English bear). It is another thing to see wildly variant forms of a Proto-Indo-European root within one language, but Latin offers a good example from the Proto-Indo-European root reudh-, roudh-, rudh- “red.” (The root variant roudh- becomes raud- in Germanic, rēad in Old English (the ēa is a diphthong from au) and red in English.) Roudh- is also the source of Latin rūfus, a dialect word meaning “red, tawny” and also a proper name “Red” (rufous and Rufus in English). Roudh- also yields Latin rōbus “red (of oxen and other animals)," rōbur “oak, red oak" (the adjective rōbustus "of oak, oaken, strong” becomes robust in English). The root variant rudh- yields Latin ruber “red,” rutilus “glowing red,” with its derivative verb rutilāre "to glow with a bright red or golden color,” whose present participle stem rutilant- becomes English rutilant. Rutilant entered English in the 15th century.

  5. #1035
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    LOGORIPH noun (law-guh-grif)

    noun
    1. an anagram, or a puzzle involving anagrams.
    2. a puzzle in which a certain word, and other words formed from any or all of its letters, must be guessed from indications given in a set of verses.


    Quotes

    He was most anxious to secure for himself the priority of discovery, and yet he was unwilling to make a premature and possibly incorrect announcement. So he resorted to the ingenious device of a "logogriph," or puzzle. It appears ... as follows: aaaaaaa ccccc d eeeee g h iiiiiii llll mm nnnnnnnnn oooo pp q rr s ttttt uuuuu
--*Harold Jacoby,*Astronomy: A Popular Handbook, 1913


    That one man should have possessions beyond the capacity of extravagance to squander, and another, able and willing to work, should perish for want of embers, rags and a crust, renders society unintelligible. It makes the charter of human rights a logogriph.
--*John J. Ingalls,*“John J. Ingalls on the Social Malady,” Sunday Herald, June 11, 1893



    Origin

    A logogriph is a special kind of word puzzle in which a word, and other words formed from any or all of its letters, must be guessed from hints given in verses. Lógos is well known in English: the first, most obvious of its many, many meanings is “word,” as in the prologue to St. John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word (Lógos).” The combining form logo- is very common in Greek (e.g., logopoieîn “to compose, write speeches,” logoprageîn “to write copiously”) and in English (e.g., logocentrism and logorrhea). The tricky word is grîphos (its variant grîpos shows it is not a native Greek word). Grîphos means “(woven) fishing basket, creel,” and metaphorically “something intricate, dark saying, riddle; forfeit paid for failing to guess a riddle.” Grîphos by itself would have been sufficient; adding the combining form logo- specifies its meaning. Logogriph entered English in the late 16th century.

  6. #1036
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    AHISTORICAL adjective (ey-hi-stawr-i-kuhl)

    adjective
    1. without concern for history or historical development; indifferent to tradition.


    Quotes

    The notion that all human history – and all human societies – can be shoehorned into a simple binary scheme is not new ... But it is always simplistic, ahistorical, and therefore wrong.
--*Alan Knight,*"Tight/loose cultures theory is simplistic and ahistorical," The Guardian, September 18, 2018


    The boxlike room, stripped of all embellishment or parlor fussiness, a room that wished to be timeless or ahistorical, and there, in the middle of it, my deeply historical, timeworn grandmother.
--*Jeffrey Eugenides,*Middle***, 2002



    Origin

    The formation of the adjective ahistorical is clear: the first syllable, a-, is a variety of the Greek prefix an-, a- “not” (an-, a- is from the same Proto-Indo-European source as English un-). Historical is a derivative of Greek historía “learning or knowing by inquiry, history,” a derivative of hístōr “one who knows or sees,” akin to English wit and Latin vidēre “to see,” and the Latin suffix -al, with the general sense “of the kind of, pertaining to, having the form or character of” that named by the stem. Ahistorical entered English in the 20th century.

  7. #1037
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    LARDY-DARDY adjective (lahr-dee-dahr-dee)

    adjective
    1. Chiefly British Slang. characterized by excessive elegance.


    Quotes

    "Good afternoon!" -- in rather lardy-dardy, middle-class English. "I wonder if I may see your things in your studio."
--*D. H. Lawrence,*The Captain's Doll, 1923


    It was exaggerated flattery he always felt provoked and disgusted with. Such absurd palaver, and lardy-dardy talk as that of his grand mover and seconder.
--*F. A. J.,*"Greaswick for Coalheavers': or, The Alderman's Election" The Amateur's Magazine, 1859



    Origin

    Pity that one doesn’t see as many lardy-dardy types as formerly—affected swells, languid fops, chichi dandies lounging about music halls and theaters. Lardy-dardy entered English in the 1850s, at the height of the Victorian era. It is often said to be the British aristos’ non-rhotic (“r-less”) Received Pronunciation of la-di-da—a nice story except that lardy-dardy predates la-di-da by nearly 20 years.

  8. #1038
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    NUMMARY adjective (nuhm-uh-ree)

    adjective
    1. of or relating to coins or money.
    2. dealing in coins or money.


    Quotes

    ... Re-coinages, which had the same Effect in depreciating nummary Denominations in France, that frequent and large Emissions of Paper-Money have in our Colonies ...
--*William Douglass,*"A Discourse Concerning the Currencies of the British Plantations in America," 1740


    His capital does not have a numerical or nummary value, but it nonetheless has a value, if only in the sustenance he gets out of putting it to productive use.
--*Manu Saadia,*Trekonomics, 2016



    Origin

    The adjective nummary comes straight from Latin nummārius “pertaining to coins or money,” a derivative of nummus (also nūmus), the name of several silver or gold coins. The Latin nouns come from noûmmos “current coin” in a western Doric Greek dialect spoken in southern Italy and Sicily and equivalent to Greek nómos “law, custom, something in customary or habitual use.” Nummary entered English in the early 17th century.

  9. #1039
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    LUCULENT adjective (loo-kyoo-luhnt)

    adjective
    1. convincing; cogent.
    2. clear or lucid: a luculent explanation.


    Quotes

    The thundering acclamations, which greeted the close of that luculent and powerful exposition, the zeal with which the concourse hailed him unanimously Savior of Rome and Father of his country ...
--*Henry William Herbert,*The Roman Traitor, 1846


    ... now he would favour us with a grace ... expatiating on this text with so luculent a commentary, that Scott, who had been fumbling with his spoon long before he reached his Amen, could not help exclaiming as he sat down, 'Well done, Mr. George!"
--*John Gibson Lockhart,*The Life of Sir Walter Scott, 1837–1838



    Origin

    English luculent comes straight from the Latin adjective lūculentus, a derivative of lux (stem lūc-) “light,” from a very widespread Proto-Indo-European root leuk-, louk-, luk- “light, bright.” (The suffixed form leuktom becomes leuhtan in Germanic, lēoht in Old English, and light in English.) Latin lūculentus and English luculent are not much used in their literal senses but have a metaphorical sense like splendid and the colloquial British brilliant. Luculent entered English in the 15th century.

  10. #1040
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    SUPPLICATE verb (suhp-li-keyt)

    verb
    1. to pray humbly to; entreat or petition humbly.
    2. to seek or ask for by humble entreaty.
    3. to pray humbly; make humble and earnest entreaty or petition.


    Quotes

    Alas! on my knees I supplicate you to forbear--Will you leave me a prey to Frederic?
--*Horace Walpole,*The Castle of Otranto, 1746


    I ask you but to extend to one whose fault was committed under strong temptation that mercy which even you yourself, Lord King, must one day supplicate at a higher tribunal, and for faults, perhaps, less venial.
--*Sir Walter Scott,*The Talisman, 1825



    Origin

    Supplicate comes directly from Latin supplicātus, past participle of the verb supplicāre “to sue for forgiveness or mercy, make a humble petition.” The Latin verb is a derivative of the adjective supplex (stem supplic-) “bringing peace, making humble petition.” Supplex and supplicāre come from the root plāk-, plak-, the source of Latin placēre “to please, be acceptable to” (source of English placebo “I shall please” and pleasant, via Old French), and plācāre “to conciliate, calm,” whose past participle plācātus is the source of English placate. Supplicate entered English in the 15th century.

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