Word Of The Day

[Altobelli]

LAEOTROPIC adjective (lee-uh-trop-ik)

adjective
1. oriented or coiled in a leftward direction, as a left-spiraling snail shell.


Quotes

The arms of the cross are slightly oblique; and it is worthy of note that the direction of their inclination is laeotropic, while in Crepidula and Ischnochiton the arms show a slight dexiotropic twist.
--*Samuel J. Holmes,*"The Early Development of Planorbis," Journal of Morphology, Volume XVI, February 1900


... the direction of corresponding cleavages is the same, i.e., the second cleavage is laeotropic and the third dexiotropic, and so on .... Why should this constancy occur?
--*C. M. Child,*"The Significance of the Spiral type of Cleavage and Its Relation to the Process of Differentiation," Biological Lectures from the Marine Biological Laboratory of Woods Holl, 1899



Origin

The adjective laeotropic “turning leftward” is restricted to describing snail shells. The second element, -tropic “turning (to),” is common enough in the physical sciences, e.g., geography, meteorology, chemistry. The first element laeo- is rare. It comes from the Greek adjective laiós “left, on the left” (there is one ancient lexicographical reference implying the form laiwós). Laiwós is all but identical to Latin laevus and pretty close to Slavic (Polish) lewy. Outside these three branches of the Indo-European languages (and possibly also Lithuanian, among the Baltic languages), laiwo- does not occur. Laeotropic entered English in the 19th century.

[Altobelli]

RIANT adjective (rahy-uhnt)

adjective
1. laughing; smiling; cheerful.


Quotes

Mistress Marjory bent her head with a murmured assurance of "giving him small trouble," but again the riant eyes belied the lips ...
--*Sara Beaumont Kennedy,*"Sweet Marjory," Outing, Volume XXVII, January 1896


At the head of that open and legal agitation, was a man of giant proportions in body and mind; ... a humor broad, bacchant, riant, genial and jovial ...
--*John Mitchel,*Jail Journal; or, Five Years in British Prisons, 1854



Origin

The rare adjective riant is a direct borrowing from the French present participle riant “laughing,” from the verb rire, ultimately from Latin rīdēre “to laugh,” which comes from a very complicated Proto-Indo-European root wer- “to twist, bend” (rīdēre would mean “twist the face or mouth”). Wer- has many suffixes and extensions that form some startling words. The meaning of the root extended with the suffix -t is clearly seen in Latin vertere “to turn,” with its many English derivatives, e.g., revert, convert, invert. The Germanic form of wert- is werth-, source of the English suffix -ward(s), as in homeward(s), toward(s). A variant form of wer- with the suffix -m forms Latin vermis “worm” (from its twisting) and Germanic wurmiz (Old English wyrm “dragon, serpent”; English worm). Finally, somewhat related to rīdēre is the Latin noun rictus “wide open mouth, gaping jaws” (English rictus). Riant entered English in the 16th century.

[Altobelli]

MARPLOT noun (mahr-plot)

noun
1. a person who mars or defeats a plot, design, or project by meddling.


Quotes

... Time is unalterable; he swings his merry bomb through centuries, nor feels a jot the mental agony of us sublunary mortals; therefore is he, to our thinking, a Marplot.
--*"New Music," The Metropolitan, April 1843


Humpty is Puss’ childhood frenemy: pal, rival and seemingly inept marplot to our hero’s suave efficiency in a crisis.
--*Richard Corliss,*"Antonio Banderas in Puss in Boots: One Cool Cat," Time, October 28, 2011



Origin

The noun marplot is a combination of the verb mar “to damage, spoil” and its direct object, the noun plot, formed like the noun pickpocket. Marplot is a character in a farce, The Busie Body, written by Susanna Centlivre, c1667-1723, an English actress, poet, and playwright, and produced in 1709. In the play Marplot is a well-meaning busybody who meddles in and ruins the romantic affairs of his friends.

[Altobelli]

ANODYNE noun (an-uh-dahyn)

noun
1. anything that relieves distress or pain: The music was an anodyne to his grief.
2. a medicine that relieves or allays pain.

adjective
1. relieving pain.
2. soothing to the mind or feelings.


Quotes

... he realized that then, and now, work had been an anodyne of sorts. It had occupied his mind.
--*Patrick Taylor,*An Irish Country Courtship, 2010


... he would run down the great staircase, with its lions of gilt bronze and its steps of bright porphyry, and wander from room to room, and from corridor to corridor, like one who was seeking to find beauty an anodyne from pain, a sort of restoration from sickness.
--*Oscar Wilde,*"The Young King," A House of Pomegranates, 1891



Origin

Anodyne has a surprising etymology. Its Greek original, anṓdynos “painless,” breaks down to the elements an-, ṓd-, -yn-, -os-. The first element, an- “not,” is from the same Proto-Indo-European source as Latin in- and Germanic (English) un-. The second to last element -yn- is from the noun suffix -ýnē; the last element, -os, is an adjective ending. The main element odýnē “pain” (édyna in the Aeolic dialect) consists of ṓd-, a derivative of the Greek root ed-, od- from the Proto-Indo-European root ed-, od- “to eat” (source of Latin edere, Germanic (Old English) etan, Hittite et-, Homeric Greek édmenai, all meaning “eat, to eat.”) In Greek odýnē is something that eats you (cf. colloquial English, “What’s eating you?”). The Germanic languages also have the compound verb fra-etan “to eat up, devour,” which becomes in German fressen “devour, gorge, corrode,” and in Old English fretan “to devour,” English fret, which nowadays usually has only its extended sense “feel worry or pain.” Anodyne entered English in the 16th century.

[Altobelli]

CORPOCRACY noun (kawr-pok-ruh-see)

noun
1. a society in which corporations have much economic and political power.
2. a corporate bureaucracy.
3. a company characterized by bureaucracy.
4. a government run like a corporate bureaucracy.


Quotes

Whether you are in business or government, you will be members of the same corpocracy. In the West, there are tensions between government and business elites. In China, these elites are part of the same social web, cooperating for mutual enrichment.
--*David Brooks,*"The Dictatorship of Talent," New York Times, December 4, 2007


... David Mitchell’s “Cloud Atlas” features a futuristic South Korea-inspired “corpocracy,” a hotbed of clones, plastic surgery (“facescaping&rdquo, and insurrection.
--*Ed Park,*"Sorry Not Sorry," The New Yorker, October 19, 2015



Origin

Corpocracy is an unlovely compound noun formed from corporate or corporation plus the common combining form -cracy, ultimately from the Greek combining form -kratía, formed from krátos “strength, power,” and the noun suffix -ía. Corpocracy is not a recent word: it first appears in print in 1935, right smack in the middle of the Great Depression, during FDR’s first term.

[Altobelli]

PRIMA FACIE adjective (prahy-muh-shee-ee)

adjective
1. plain or clear; self-evident; obvious.

adverb
1. at first appearance; at first view, before investigation.


Quotes

McCain and Palin have been quoting this remark ever since, offering it as prima-facie evidence of Obama’s unsuitability for office.
--*Hendrik Hertzberg,*"Like, Socialism," The New Yorker, November 3, 2008


There was no prima-facie absurdity in his hypothesis—and experiment was the sole means of demonstrating its truth or falsity.
--*Thomas H. Huxley,*"William Harvey," Popular Science Monthly, March 1878



Origin

The English phrase prima facie is obviously Latin: prīmā faciē (ablative singular in form) means “at first sight.” (Faciēs has very many meanings: "physical or outward appearance, looks, sight, scene, good looks,….") It is not incredible that the English phrase at first blush is a literal translation of the Latin phrase: blush, a noun meaning "glance, sight," is obsolete except for the phrase at (on) (the) first blush. Prima facie entered English in the 15th century.

[Altobelli]

SQUAMOUS adjective (skwey-muhs)

adjective

covered with or formed of squamae or scales.
scalelike.
Citations

The back was piebald with yellow and black, and dimly suggested the squamous covering of certain snakes.
-- H. P. Lovecraft, "The Dunwich Horror," Weird Tales , April 1929

They speak no known tongue and are said to sacrifice sailors to their squamous , fish-headed gods, likenesses of whom rise from their stony shores, visible only when the tide recedes.
-- George R. R. Martin, Elio M. García, Jr., and Linda Antonsson, The World of Ice and Fire , 2014

[Altobelli]

LUNULA noun (loo-nyuh-luh)

noun
1. something shaped like a narrow crescent, as the small, pale area at the base of the fingernail.


Quotes

It refuses to grow back, the nail of this one finger, the lunula destroyed, a moon permanently obliterated by one smash of his interrogator's pistol.
--*Vaddey Ratner,*Music of the Ghosts, 2017


I ... wore only a simple shift of amber-and-brown plaid wool, and only ghillies, ovals of calfskin, laced around my feet. No golden tore, no silver lunula, nor am I royal of stature or of mien.
--*Nancy Springer,*“The Kingmaker,” Firebird Soaring, 2009



Origin

The uncommon noun lunula is restricted to anatomy, biology, and archaeology or art history. It’s a straightforward borrowing of Latin lūnula, literally “little moon,” but meaning “crescent-shaped ornament” (one of its senses in English). The only common meaning for this uncommon noun is the pale, crescent-shaped are at the base of a fingernail or toenail. Lūnula is a diminutive of lūna “moon,” which is disconcertingly similar to Russian luná “moon.” (The cognate Polish łuna means “glow.”) Both the Slavic and the Latin nouns derive from the same Proto-Indo-European source, louksnā, the same source as Avestan raoxshna- “shining; a light.” (Raoxshna is also used as a proper female name that in Greek is rendered Rhōxánē “Roxane.” The “original” Raoxshna/Roxane was a Bactrian princess born c340 b.c.; she married Alexander the Great in 327 b.c., and was poisoned in prison in 310 b.c.). Proto-Indo-European louksnā becomes in Old Prussian the plural noun lauxnos “stars,” and Middle Irish luan “moon.” All of these forms derive from the very common Proto-Indo-European root leuk- and its variants louk- and luk- “light, bright.” Lunula entered English in the 16th century.

[Altobelli]

KYOODLE verb (kahy-ood-l)

verb
1. to bark or yelp noisily or foolishly; yap.


Quotes

No living thing moved upon it, not even a medicine wolf to kyoodle to the invisible moon.
--*Richard Sale,*The White Buffalo, 1975


But the dogs waved their tails happily and sought out a rabbit and went kyoodling after it.
--*John Steinbeck,*Tortilla Flat, 1935



Origin

Kyoodle began as and still may be an Americanism. The word has no distinguished etymology (except for the vague label Imitative), which exactly fits the verb and also one of its noun meanings: mutt, noisy dog. Some distinguished American authors have used the word, however, including John Steinbeck, John O’Hara, and Sinclair Lewis. Kyoodle entered English in the late 19th century.

[The Bedlington Terrier]

That fcuking Kyoodler across our street is going to get my foot up its arse if it does not wrap up!