Word Of The Day

[Altobelli]

OVINE adjective (oh-vahyn)

adjective

1. pertaining to, of the nature of, or like sheep.


Quotes

In the gaze of its ovine inhabitants, we glimpse their dim recognition that a new sort of shepherd has arisen.
--*"Dronestagram's View," New York Times, June 5, 2015

Alas! for the ovine nature of mankind, if one jumps over the gate, the others call come "tumbling after."
--*Thomas Hood,*"The Maker and Model of Harmonious Verse," Quips and Cranks, 1861



Origin

Ovine comes straightforwardly from the Late Latin adjective ovīnus “pertaining to a sheep.” The Latin noun ovis “sheep” is identical with the Proto-Indo-European noun owis “sheep,” the source of Greek óïs (dialectal ówis), Lithuanian avìs, Sanskrit ávi-, Germanic awiz, which becomes ēowu in Old English and ewe in modern English. Ovine entered English in the 17th century.

[Altobelli]

PHLEGETHON noun (fleg-uh-thon)

noun

1. (often lowercase) a stream of fire or fiery light.
2. Classical Mythology. a river of fire, one of five rivers surrounding Hades. Also called Pyriphlegethon.


Quotes

And now Atal, slipping dizzily up over inconceivable steeps, heard in the dark a loathsome laughing, mixed with such a cry as no man else ever heard save in the Phlegethon of unrelatable nightmares ...
--*H. P. Lovecraft,*"The Other Gods," The Fantasy Fan, November 1933

Looking down from this pinnacle upon the howling Phlegethon below, I could not help smiling at the simplicity with which the honest Jonas Ramus records, a matter difficult of belief, the anecdotes of the whales and the bears ...
--*Edgar Allen Poe,*"A Descent into the Maelström," Graham's Magazine, May 1841



Origin

Phlegethon is the name of the fiery river surrounding Hades. In form it is the present active participle “burning, flaming” of the infinitive phlegéthein, a Greek verb used only in poetry for the “prosaic” phlégein. The Greek root phleg- derives from the complicated Proto-Indo-European root bhel-, “to burn, shine, flash,” which has many variants (e.g., bhlē-) and extended forms (e.g., bhleg-). Phlegethon, spelled Flegeton, entered English in the poetry of John Gower (c.1325–1408).

[Altobelli]

LICKSPITTLE noun (lik-spit-l)


noun
1. a contemptible, fawning person; a servile flatterer or toady.


Quotes

What do we have here, an honest muttonhead or a lickspittle?
--*George R. R. Martin,*A Storm of Swords, 2000

Please, I don't mind your making me out to be a soulless, corporate lickspittle, but at least don't make me sound like an ignorant, soulless, corporate lickspittle.
--*Christopher Buckley,*Thank You for Smoking, 1994



Origin

Lickspittle was first recorded in the 1620s. It is a combination of the terms lick, an action performed by the tongue, and spittle, a blend of Middle English nouns spit and spetil “saliva” (Old English spǣtl, variant of spātl).

[Altobelli]

AL DESKO adjective (a ldes-koh)

adjective, adverb

1. Facetious. (of meals or eating) at one's desk in an office: always snacking al desko; having an al desko lunch.


Quotes

They'll be working through until it's done, so Janice has gone to KFC for a bargain bucket. They're dining al desko.
--*Christopher Fowler,*The Water Room, 2004

Other reasons people dine ''al desko'' vary .... They need to high-tail it out of the office at 5 p.m. sharp to pick up the kids. They want to save money, or they are just too stressed to leave.
--*Abby Ellin,*"When the Food Critics Are Deskside," New York Times, February 18, 2007



Origin

Al desko is patterned after al fresco and was first recorded in the 1980s.

[Altobelli]

TARN noun (tahrn)

1. a small mountain lake or pool, especially one in a cirque.


Quotes

There is a little lake not far over the saddle, a tarn really, a mountain pond bordered in marsh marigold and yarrow, with water black and glassy as obsidian.
--*Edward Abbey,*Desert Solitaire, 1968

At the sides of many a tarn and lake you may see the ice grooves and scratches passing beneath the water, so as to leave no doubt whatever that ice has once occupied the rocky hollow.
--*Rev. J. Clifton Ward,*"The Origin of Upland Lakes," The Popular Science Monthly, April 1879



Origin

Tarn comes from Old Norse tjǫrn, “small lake, pool.” It was originally restricted to northern English dialects (where the Danes settled) or in written works about northern England. Tarn became mainstream English in the works of the Lake Poets (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey) in the early 19th century.

[Oldtimeram]

A "Two Hat" = a poor sad soul who devotes his entire life to following Snottingham Florest in a futile endeavour to see them play football again......They won the European Cup twice you know?!?...so they keep telling everybody.

[Altobelli]

A "Two Hat" = a poor sad soul who devotes his entire life to following Snottingham Florest in a futile endeavour to see them play football again......They won the European Cup twice you know?!?...so they keep telling everybody.

Is that wayward soul of a poster still giving you grief Rammy ?

[Altobelli]

POLEMIC noun (puh-tem-ik)

noun

1. a controversial argument, as one against some opinion, doctrine, etc.
2. a person who argues in opposition to another; controversialist.
adjective
1. of or relating to a polemic; controversial. Also, polemical.


Quotes

The second [book] is an angry polemic against the pervasive corruption of representative democracy wrought by economic inequality.
--*Jonathan A Knee,*"The New Gilded Age in Philanthropy," New York Times, May 1, 2017

An Orwellian polemic against mass-market journalism, of which one would expect the left-wing Lucas to approve, reveals a ‘righteous’ hatred.
--*Terry Eagleton,*"Reach-Me-Down Romantic," London Review of Books, Vol. 25, No. 25, June 19, 2003



Origin

Polemic comes from the Greek adjective polemikós, a derivative of the noun pólemos “war, battle” in the strict sense and not as in, say “war of words.” The adjective is also restricted to warfare. The current (and only) senses “controversial, controversialist,” first appear in Middle French in the late 16th century and in English as an adjective and noun in the early 17th century.

[Altobelli]

HIGHFALUTIN adjective (hahy-fuh-loot-n)

adjective

1. Informal. pompous; bombastic; haughty; pretentious.


Quotes

Domenic was at a back table talking to a suited man in the sombre, highfalutin English he put on for people of stature, in this case probably the noodle salesman.
--*Nino Ricci,*The Origin of Species, 2008

We've got a job to do," Mac insisted. "We've got no time to mess around with high-falutin' ideas."
--*John Steinbeck,*In Dubious Battle, 1936



Origin

Highfalutin came to English 1830s. It might find its origins in flutin, a variant of fluting, the present participle of flute.

[Altobelli]

LITOTES noun (lahy-tuh-teez)

noun

1. Rhetoric. understatement, especially that in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary, as in “not bad at all.”


Quotes

"For Danny's house was not unlike the Round Table and Danny's friends were not unlike the knights of it." ... With the use of the litotes, Steinbeck suggests we are not to take the parallel of the Round Table too closely.
--*Thomas Fensch,*Introduction to Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck (1902–1968), 1997

Litotes’ ability to draw attention to something by appearing to ignore or diminish it is attractive to politicians because it’s the rhetorical equivalent of having your cake and eating it.
--*Martin Shovel,*"Litotes: the most common rhetorical device you've never heard of," The Guardian, March 26, 2015



Origin

Litotes may be familiar nowadays only to those who read Cicero’s orations in high school. The Greek noun lītótēs has the general meaning “plainness, simplicity,” and as a rhetorical term “assertion by understatement or negation.” A famous example of assertion by negation occurs in the New Testament (Acts 21:39), where St. Paul says that he is “…a citizen of no mean city” (Tarsus in Cilicia), i.e., that Tarsus was an important city. Meiosis in its rhetorical sense is often used as a synonym for litotes, but meiosis is restricted to understatement rather than the double negative. Litotes entered English in the mid-17th century.