Word Of The Day

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FENESTRATED adjective (fen-uh-strey-tid)

adjective

1. Architecture. having windows; windowed; characterized by windows.


Quotes

As you approach the formal entrance from State Street on the west, you're looking at five or six stories ... of ornately carved and fenestrated red sandstone.
--*Sarah Andrews,*Fault Line, 2002


Even those who feel queasy at the sight of such ostentatious perpetrations of Sir Gilbert Scott in his Gothic Revival style, may yet feel its presence visually preferable to yet another skyscraping multiplication of a single fenestrated module.
--*Patrick Ryan,*"The last word on ... Diplomatic dilapidation," New Scientist, January 16, 1975



Origin

The English adjective fenestrated is used in the technical language of architecture, anatomy (“pierced, perforated”), and entomology (“having transparent spots”). Fenestrated is obviously derived from the Latin noun fenestra “window.” But Latin fenestra has no clear etymology. Some derive it from Etruscan fnestra, which is not only unattested but also may be a loan word in Etruscan from another, unknown language. Fenestrated entered English in the 19th century.

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EPISTEMIC adjective (ep-uh-stee-mik)

adjective

1. of or relating to knowledge or the conditions for acquiring it.


Quotes

Debates over epistemic principles sound abstract, but they have enormous practical repercussions. For instance, in order to decide policy matters (like what to put in our textbooks and what to teach in science classrooms) we need to decide on the facts.
--*Michael Lynch,*"Defending Science: An Exchange," New York Times, March 11, 2012


The US is experiencing a deep epistemic breach, a split not just in what we value or want, but in who we trust, how we come to know things, and what we believe we know — what we believe exists, is true, has happened and is happening.
--*David Roberts,*"America is facing an epistemic crisis," Vox, November 2, 2017



Origin

The Greek noun epistḗmē “skill, knowledge, scientific knowledge, science” is a derivative of the verb epistánai “to know how (to do), believe (that), be acquainted with, know, know as a fact.” The verb is composed of the prefix epi- “on, over” and stánai “to stand.” Various languages use different prefixes plus the verb to stand to express intellectual comprehension: in Greek one “stands over”; in German verstehen means literally “stand before’”; and in English one "stands under."

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OBLIVESCENCE noun (ob-luh-ves-uh ns)


noun

1. the process of forgetting.


Quotes

Would that our sins had built-in qualities of oblivescence such as our dreams have.
--*Iris Murdoch,*A Word Child, 1975


Even in reasoning, the gratifying confirmatory instance sticks in the mind, while the negative cases all go glimmering into oblivescence.
--*H. L. Hollingworth,*"The Oblivescence of the Disagreeable," The Journal of Philosophy Psychology and Scientific Methods, Volume VII, January–December 1910



Origin

Oblivescence dates from the late 19th century and is a later spelling of obliviscence, which dates from the late 18th century. The spelling oblivescence arose by influence of the far more common suffix -escence. The English noun is a derivative of the Latin verb oblīviscī “to forget,” literally “to wipe away, smooth over.” The Latin verb is composed of the prefix ob- “away, against” and the same root as the adjective lēvis “smooth.”

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MOXIE noun (mok-see)

noun

1. Slang. courage; nerve; determination.
2. Slang. vigor; verve; pep.
3. Slang. skill; know-how.


Quotes

“The only safe thing is to take a chance,” she told Nichols, who was both amazed at her moxie and inspired by her trust in him.
--*"Sweet and Sour," The New Yorker, June 13, 2005


He's not a natural singer ... but like the kid in the school play who sells the thing by sheer force of moxie, Crowe handily wins us over.
--*Richard Lawson,*"'Les Miserables': Destroying Cynicism with Song," The Atlantic, December 17, 2012



Origin

Moxie originally was the trademark of a carbonated soft drink that was created by Dr. Augustin Thompson, a homeopathic physician who was born in Maine and spent his professional life in Massachusetts. Dr. Thompson patented his beverage in 1885 and promoted it as a “nerve tonic” or “nerve food.” Moxie, the drink, has always been associated with New England: Calvin Coolidge liked it; Ted Williams endorsed it on the radio; the state of Maine made Moxie its official soft drink in 2005. Moxie’s lowercase sense "courage, spirit, vigor" entered English in the 20th century.

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BYZANTINE adjective (biz-uh-n-teen)

adjective

1. complex or intricate: a deal requiring Byzantine financing.
2. (initial capital letter) of or relating to Byzantium.
3. (initial capital letter) of or relating to the Byzantine Empire.
4. (initial capital letter) noting or pertaining to the architecture of the Byzantine Empire and to architecture influenced by or imitating it: characterized by masonry construction, round arches, impost blocks, low domes on pendentives, the presence of fine, spiky foliage patterns in low relief on stone capitals and moldings, and the use of frescoes, mosaics, and revetments of fine stone to cover whole interiors.
5. Fine Arts. (initial capital letter) pertaining to or designating the style of the fine or decorative arts developed and elaborated in the Byzantine Empire and its provinces: characterized chiefly by an ecclesiastically prescribed iconography, highly formal structure, severe confinement of pictorial space to a shallow depth, and the use of rich, often sumptuous color.
6. characterized by elaborate scheming andintrigue, especially for the gaining of political power or favor: Byzantine methods for holding on to his chairmanship.
7. (initial capital letter) of or relating to the Byzantine Church.

noun
1. (initial capital letter) a native or inhabitant of Byzantium.


Quotes

“We’ve had the process referred to as byzantine, shrouded in secrecy, opaque. Yet this is the process that Congress designed, a process that not only demands confidentiality, but strict confidentiality. This is the system we’re tasked to administer,” Grundmann said.
--*Joe Davidson,*"Hill's workplace rights agency points to Congress for lack of transparency," Washington Post, December 1, 2017


Over the course of two hundred pages I had improvised a byzantine system involving highlighter, underlines, and marginal punctuation marks.
--*Tom Perrotta,*Joe College, 2000



Origin

The English adjective Byzantine originally applied to the city of Byzantium (later Constantinople) and the art, architecture, and history of the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire. The most common current sense "complex, intricate" dates from the first half of the 20th century. Byzantine entered English in the 18th century.

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CRUMP verb (kruhmp)

verb

1. to make a crunching sound, as in walking over snow, or as snow when trodden on.
2. (of an artillery shell) to land and explode with a heavy, muffled sound.
3. to crunch or make a crunching sound, as with the teeth.

noun
1. a crunching sound.
2. a large explosive shell or bomb.
3. Also called bump. Mining. a sudden ground movement in underground workings.


Quotes

With the new snow flattening sounds he felt almost deaf or dreaming. His boots crumped down into it.
--*Adam Foulds,*The Quickening Maze, 2009


The horses' hooves crunched in the snow, the wagon wheels creaked through it and, behind, the march of several hundred feet crump-crumped along.
--*Janet Paisley,*White Rose Rebel, 2007



Origin

Crump was first recorded in 1640-50. It is imitative of the sound of something crunching underfoot.

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CEREBRATE verb (ser-uh-breyt)

verb

1. to use the mind; think or think about.


Quotes

To think, then, is to cerebrate. To worry is to cerebrate intensely.
--*George Wharton James,*Quit Your Worrying!, 1917


If you simply retire to your own room, shove your backside into an excessively sprung easy chair, and there grimly cerebrate, the chances are that you will eventually do no more than crawl into bed -- to wake up six to eight hours later with an unsolved conundrum and a filthy headache.
--*Michael Innes,*An Awkward Lie, 1971



Origin

The verb cerebrate is a back formation from the noun cerebration, which is a derivative of the Latin noun cerebrum “brain, understanding.” Cerebrum is a derivative of a very widespread, very complicated Proto-Indo-European root ker- “uppermost part of the body, head, horn, nail (of the finger or toe).” This root has many variant forms and is related to the Latin noun crābro “hornet” (English hornet comes from the same root), Greek kár “head” and kéras “horn,” and German Hirn “brain." Cerebrate entered English in the 19th century.

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LENITY noun (len-i-tee)

noun

1. the quality or state of being mild or gentle, as toward others.
2. a lenient act.


Quotes

He confined the knowledge of governing within very narrow bounds, to common sense and reason, to justice and lenity, to the speedy determination of civil and criminal causes ...
--*Jonathan Swift,*Gulliver's Travels, 1726


... I have relaxed, as I believe I may depend on her observing the rules I have laid down for their discourse. But do not imagine that with all this lenity I have for a moment given up my plan of her marriage ...
--*Jane Austen,*Lady Susan, 1871



Origin

The English noun lenity is a borrowing of Old French lenité or Latin lēnitat-, the stem of lēnitās “softness, smoothness, gentleness,” a derivative of the adjective lēnis, from which English has lenient and lenition. Lenity entered English in the mid-16th century.

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NAISSANCE noun (ney-suy ns)

noun

1. a birth, an origination, or a growth, as that of a person, an organization, an idea, or a movement.


Quotes

If this was a period of Renaissance for Western Europe, was it not rather a Naissance for Russia?
--*Mary Platt Parmele,*A Short History of Russia, 1899


Nina's watchful eyes opened wider and wider as she witnessed in Eileen the naissance of an unconscious and delicate coquetry, quite unabashed, yet the more significant for that ...
--*Robert W. Chambers,*The Younger Set, 1907



Origin

The English noun naissance comes from Middle French naissance, which is a derivative of the verb naître “to be born.” The French verb comes from the Vulgar Latin nāscere, a regular verb replacing the Latin deponent verb nāscī. Naissance entered English in the late 15th century. The sense of “new style, movement, or development (in the arts)” comes from a French usage of the 20th century.

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INTERSECTIONALITY noun (in-ter-sek-shuh-nal-i-tee)

noun

1. the theory that the overlap of various social identities, as race, gender, ***uality, and class, contributes to the specific type ofsystemic oppression and discrimination experienced by an individual (often used attributively): Her paper uses a queer intersectionality approach.

2. the oppression and discrimination resulting from the overlap of an individual’s various social identities: the intersectionality of oppression experienced by black women.


Quotes

Intersectionality tells us that there is no one singular experience for women because of the way gender works in conjunction with race, ethnicity, social class, and ***uality.
--*Anna Diamond,*"Making the Invisible Visible," Slate, September 3, 2015


... flippant or vague references to "intersectionality" abound and can serve to obscure a profound critique of deeply entrenched cognitive habits that inform feminist and antiracist thinking about oppression and privilege.
--*Anna Carastathis,*Intersectionality: Origins, Contestations, Horizons, 2016



Origin

Intersectionality was coined by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw. It entered English in 1989.