Word Of The Day

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LITERATIM adverb (lit-uh-rey-tim)

adverb

1. letter-for-letter; literally.


Quotes

Now this is fine--it is rich!--and we have half a mind to punish this young scribbler for his egotism by really publishing his effusion verbatim et literatim, as he has written it.
--*Edgar Allan Poe,*"The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq.," Southern Literary Messenger, December 1844


It is impossible for me to examine literatum and verbatim; not even indeed lineatim and paginatim.
--*Hugh Henry Brackenridge,*Modern Chivalry: Containing the Adventures of Captain John Farrago and Teague O'Regan, His Servant, 1792



Origin

Latin has many fossil word forms, usually nouns, used as adverbs, such as partim “partly, in part” (an old accusative singular of pars, stem part- “part, piece”) and articulātim “piece by piece, piecemeal” from (articulātus “jointed"). Līterātim (also litterātim), however, is New Latin, coined or at least used by the great Renaissance scholar Desiderius Erasmus (1466?-1536). Literatim entered English in the 17th century.

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GERONTOCRACY noun (jer-uh-n-tok-ruh-see)

noun

1. a state or government in which old people rule.
2. government by a council of elders.
3. a governing body consisting of old people.


Quotes

The French Restoration was a gerontocracy--the two kings of the era, Louis XVIII and Charles X, were both brothers of Louis XVI, guillotined in 1793, and old men by the time they ascended to the throne--out of touch with the youth of the country.
--*Peter Brooks,*"Introduction," The Human Comedy: Selected Stories by Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), translated by Linda Asher, Carol Cosman, and Jordan M. Stump, 2014


Because poorer countries would be less likely to be dominated by a gerontocracy, tomorrow's divide between old and young would mirror the contemporary division between rich northern nations and their poorer southern neighbors.
--*Charles C. Mann,*"The Coming Death Shortage," The Atlantic, May 2005



Origin

The English noun gerontocracy is composed of two relatively common Greek elements: geront- (“old age”) and the combining form -cracy (from the Greek combining form -kratia “rule, government”). Geront- is the stem of the noun gérōn “old, old man, elder” and derives from the Proto-Indo-European root gerǝ- “to become old.” In Germanic the root appears in the noun karlaz “man,” which further develops into Old Norse karl “man, old man, married man,” Old English ceorl “man, freeman of the lowest class” (whence Modern English “churl”), and German Kerl “man, fellow, guy.” The Greek combining form -kratia is a derivative of krátos “strength, might,” from the Proto-Indo-European root ker-, kar- “hard,” source of Germanic (English) “hard.” Gerontocracy entered English in the 19th century.

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XANADU noun (zan-uh-doo)


noun

1. a place of great beauty, luxury, and contentment.


Quotes

So now there is this Xanadu, a ghost town from birth. On paper it is the second richest place in China, per capita income just behind Shanghai.
--*Ken Liu,*"The Long Haul: From the Annals of Transportation, The Pacific Monthly, May 2009," Clarkesworld, November 2014


Levy's Lodge--that was what the sign at the coast road said--was a Xanadu of the senses; within its insulated walls there was something that could gratify anything.
--*John Kennedy Toole,*A Confederacy of Dunces, 1980



Origin

Xanadu is associated with the English poet and critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) in his poem “Kubla Khan,” written in a “reverie” (possibly inspired by opium) in 1797. The first two lines run: “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure dome decree:” Kubla (Kublai) Khan (1215–94) was the grandson of the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan (1162-1227) and was the first emperor of the Chinese Yuan dynasty. Xanadu is from Chinese (Mandarin) ShÃ*ngdū (“Upper Capital”), now in Inner Mongolia about 220 miles north of Beijing. Xanadu first entered English in the 17th century.

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LOGOMACHY noun (loh-gom-uh-kee)

noun

1. a dispute about or concerning words.
2. an argument or debate marked by the reckless or incorrect use of words; meaningless battle of words.
3. a game played with cards, each bearing one letter, with which words are formed.


Quotes

And suppose he tackled me again with this logomachy, which might vainly have been set before ancient Oedipus.
--*Jules Verne,*Journey to the Center of the Earth, translated by Frederick Amadeus Malleson, 1877


Sir Richard Freeman coughed disapprovingly as Fen became launched on his logomachy; he had heard it all before. But Fen was oblivious to such mild innuendoes, and proceeded with irrepressible verve to enlarge on his ideas.
--*Edmund Crispin,*The Case of the Gilded Fly, 1944



Origin

English logomachy comes straight from the Greek noun logomachÃ*a “battle of words.” The Greek noun is very rare and also very late, first used in the First Epistle to Timothy, traditionally attributed to St. Paul (c5-67 a.d.). Logomachy entered English at the end of the 16th century.

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PALMY adjective (pah-mee)

adjective

1. glorious, prosperous, or flourishing: the palmy days of yesteryear.
2. abounding in or shaded with palms: palmy islands.
3. palmlike.


Quotes

Back in those palmy days, I would never have predicted what has recently occurred: I've become a turncoat, a mugwump, a snake-in-the-grass. I have become a part-time New Yorker.
--*Luc Sante,*"Paradise, Part-time," New York, December 22–29, 1997


Those were the palmy days of commercial supremacy and the seas were dotted with vessels from the old town.
--*Frederick Starr,*"Anthropological Work in America," The Popular Science Monthly, July 1892



Origin

Palmy in its literal sense “made or covered with palm leaves” first appears in English in the mid-15th century. Its current, most common sense, “prosperous, flourishing,” first appears in Hamlet (1603).

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GLEEK verb (gleek)

verb

1. Archaic. to make a joke; jest.


Quotes

Nay, I can gleek upon occasion.
--*William Shakespeare,*A Midsummer Night's Dream, 1623


He ever loves to gleek and gird at Will, and say that he doth lack learning.
--*Francis H. Mackintosh,*"The New Play--II: An Evening with Shakspere, A. D. 1611," The Bellman, Volume X, April 8, 1911



Origin

Gleek was first recorded between 1540 and 1550. It is of uncertain origin.

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DUNDREARIES plural noun (duhn-dreer-eez)

plural noun

1. long, full sideburns or muttonchop whiskers.


Quotes

... Mr. Pierce pulled at his dundrearies and everybody was very jolly and they talked about the schooner Mary Wentworth and how Colonel Hodgeson and Father Murphy looked so hard on the cheery glass ...
--*John Dos Passos,*The 42nd Parallel, 1930


... old Glory Allelujerum was round again today, an elderly man with dundrearies, preferring through his nose a request to have word of Wilhelmina, my life, as he calls her.
--*James Joyce,*Ulysses, 1922



Origin

Dundreries came to English in the 1860s after the sideburns worn by actor Edward A. Sothern as Lord Dundreary, a character in the play Our American Cousin (1858) by Tom Taylor.

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PERVIOUS adjective (pur-vee-uh s)

adjective

1. open or accessible to reason, feeling, argument, etc.
2. admitting of passage or entrance; permeable: pervious soil.


Quotes

But all things are pervious to love, even fire, water, and Scythian snows.
--*Longus,*Daphnis and Chloe, translated by George Thornley, 1916


But the man was one who was pervious to ideas of duty, and might be probably pervious to feelings of family respect.
--*Anthony Trollope,*The Vicar of Bullhampton, 1870



Origin

The adjective pervious is far less common than its opposite, impervious. Both adjectives come from the Latin root noun via “road, street, highway.” Latin via derives from the very common Proto-Indo-European root wegh- “to go, travel by vehicle,” source of Latin vehere “to carry, convey” and its derivative noun vehiculum “carriage, conveyance, vehicle,” as well as Germanic (English) “wagon, wain, way.” Pervious entered English in the 17th century.

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BRACHYLOGY noun (bruh.-kil-uh-jee)

noun

1. brevity of diction; concise or abridged form of expression.


Quotes

The term for the omission of words that are intended to be "understood" by the reader is ellipses. Its extreme or irregular form has a name in Greek rhetoric: brachylogy, relying on the listener to supply the missing words, much as I relied on the reader to put a verb in the sentence fragment "A profound question, that."
--*William Safire,*“On Language: Microwave of the Future,” New York Times, September 30, 1990


If Plato is letting Socrates allude to his elaborate comparison in the Republic of the class structure of the city to the soul's structure, it is safe to say that so compressed a brachylogy can hardly be matched anywhere else.
--*Seth Benardete,*The Rhetoric of Morality and Philosophy: Plato's Gorgias and Phaedrus, 1991



Origin

English brachylogy comes straight from the Greek noun brachylogÃ*a “brevity of speech or writing” and is generally positive in its connotations. BrachylogÃ*a, unsurprisingly, was attributed to the Spartans. Brachylogy entered English at the end of the 16th century.

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CRI DE COEUR noun (kreeduh koer

noun

1. French. an anguished cry of distress or indignation; outcry.


Quotes

It’s time. Women have resounded their cri de coeur. Listen.
--*Molly Ringwald,*"All the Other Harvey Weinsteins," The New Yorker, October 17, 2017


While Cooked ... is based on Pollan’s 2013 book of the same name, the sifting of Americans from their ******** has been his cri de coeur for much longer, particularly as food-themed television became mainstream.
--*Adam Chandler,*"Michael Pollan and the Luxury of Time," The Atlantic, April 12, 2016



Origin

Cri de Coeur was first recorded in the 1890s. It literally means “cry of (the) heart.”