Word Of The Day

[Altobelli]

ABUBBLE adjective (uh-buhb-uh l)

adjective

1. characterized by intense enthusiasm or activity: The store was abubble with last-minute shoppers.
2. bubbling, as while cooking or boiling.


Quotes

Suddenly Piggy was a-bubble with decorous excitement.
--*William Golding,*Lord of the Flies, 1954


He'd got the idea for the quartet that he was never to finish, and he was enchanted, abubble with enthusiasm ...
--*Joan Brady,*Death Comes for Peter Pan, 1996



Origin

There are English adjectives that, like abubble, can be used only in the predicate and not as attributives, such as aglow and asleep: one can say “The baby is asleep,” but not “the asleep baby.” These predicative adjectives are in origin noun phrases consisting of the preposition on governing a following noun, which also explains why predicate adjectives show no degree of comparison (e.g., asleeper, asleepest) and cannot be modified by adverbs (e.g., “The baby is extremely asleep”). Abubble entered English in the 18th century.

[Altobelli]

BLITHERSOME adjective (blahyth-suh m)

adjective

1. lighthearted; merry; cheerful: a blithesome nature.


Quotes

Then came the merry maskers in, / And carols roared with blithesome din; / If unmelodious was the song / It was a hearty note and strong.
--*Sir Walter Scott,*Marmion, 1808


Hearing it for the first time ignited a heady rush of blithesome memories and emotions I'd not recalled or felt in years.
--*Robin Hilton,*"First Listen: 'Muppets: The Green Album'," NPR, August 14, 2011



Origin

Blithesome is a much less common, somewhat affected synonym of blithe. Blithe dates back to Old English, appearing in the poems of Cynewulf, who lived probably in the 9th century. Blithesome dates from the 18th century.

[Altobelli]

PROPINE noun (proh-peen)

noun

1. Scot. to offer as a present.
verb

1. Scot. a present; gift.


Quotes

A rich present they did to her propine / A costly cup, that large thing would contain.
--*William Dunbar,*"The Queen's Reception at Aberdeen," 1511


... he made them great banquetting and merriness; and also propined them with great gifts, that he might the better pacify their wrath towards him, and obtain their favour.
--*C. J. Lyon,*History of St. Andrews, Episcopal, Monastic, Academic, and Civil, 1843



Origin

The English verb and noun propine comes via French from the Latin verb propīnāre “to drink to one’s health, pledge one’s health.” Considering the convivial and colloquial meaning of propīnāre, it is not surprising that it first occurs in the comedies of Plautus (c254–c184 b.c.) and Terence (c190–159? b.c.). Greek supplies many colloquial, even casual words to Latin in addition to learned and technical vocabulary, and propīnāre is one of them. It is a direct borrowing of Greek propī́nein, literally “to drink first, drink up, drink to one’s health, pledge one’s health” (as in Latin). Propine entered English in the 15th century.

[Altobelli]

YULE noun (yool)

noun

1. Christmas, or the Christmas season.


Quotes

They bring me sorrow touch'd with joy, / The merry merry bells of Yule.
--*Alfred Tennyson,*In Memoriam, 1850


Yule, Karácson, or Christmas, all is the same, if we imitate our ancestors today in one thing; if by laughter, good cheer, and presents we drive off the modern devils called blue and make ourselves happy through the happiness we induce in others.
--*"Why Yule?" New York Times, December 25, 1887



Origin

The English were converted to Christianity centuries before the Norse (Danes, Swedes, Norwegians), and in Old English geōl (earlier geohol) and geōl(a) mean “Christmas day, the twelve days of Christmas, Christmastide.” Old English maintains the phrases se ǽrra geōla (“the earlier Yule”) and se æftera geōla (“the later Yule”) for December and January, respectively. Old English geōl and its other forms corresponds exactly to Old Norse (Icelandic) jόl, the name of the pagan winter feast lasting 12 days, later applied to Christmas. Yule entered English before 900.

[Altobelli]

AFTERGLOW noun (af-ter-gloh)

noun

1. the pleasant remembrance of a past experience, glory, etc.: She basked in the afterglow of her stage triumph.
2. the glow frequently seen in the sky after sunset; afterlight.
3. a second or secondary glow, as in heated metal before it ceases to become incandescent.
4. phosphorescence.


Quotes

He sat gazing incredulously at the face of his wife, on which the afterglow of her laugh still enchantingly lingered.
--*Edith Wharton,*The Buccaneers, 1938


That was when you found out what a man was really like, in the afterglow of dinner, when he was digesting ...
--*T. C. Boyle,*"What Separates Us from the Animals," Harper's, October 2010



Origin

Afterglow was first recorded in the 1870s.

[Altobelli]

PINGUID adjective (ping-gwid)

adjective

1. fat; oily.


Quotes

He is a mighty mass of pinguid bronze, with a fat lisp, and a broad sunflower smile, and he lectures us with a vast and genial breadth of manner on the ruins, contradicting all our guesses at things with a sweet "Perdoni, signori! ma---."
--*William Dean Howells,*Italian Journeys, 1867


What did his consuming of that inordinately pinguid sandwich mean?
--*Henry Roth,*A Diving Rock on the Hudson, 1995



Origin

The Latin adjective pinguis means “fat, fertile, plump, in good condition” and by extension “heavy, dull, gross, stupid.” The English adjective pinguid may derive from Medieval Latin pinguidus (with the same meaning as pinguis), or it may derive from pingu- (the stem of pinguis) and the suffix -id, as in fetid, humid, and pallid. Pinguid entered English in the 17th century.

[Altobelli]

TABERNACLE noun (tab-er-nak-uh l)

noun

1. any place or house of worship, especially one designed for a large congregation.
2. (often initial capital letter) the portable sanctuary in use by the Israelites from the time of their wandering in the wilderness after the Exodus from Egypt to the building of the Temple in Jerusalem by Solomon. Ex. 25–27.
3. Ecclesiastical. an ornamental receptacle for the reserved Eucharist, now generally found on the altar.
4. a canopied niche or recess, as for an image or icon.
5. a temporary dwelling or shelter, as a tent or hut.
6. a dwelling place.
7. the human body as the temporary abode of the soul.

verb
1. to place or dwell in, or as if in, a tabernacle.


Quotes

He had a tabernacle and preached every night.
--*Carson McCullers,*The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, 1940


He had an idea what the cube-shaped structure was--it was a tabernacle of some sort, a holy chamber not unlike those found atop Aztec or Mayan pyramids.
--*Matthew Reilly,*Temple, 1999



Origin

One of the meanings of Latin tabernāculum, a diminutive of taberna “hut, booth, cottage” is “(soldier’s) tent.” In Roman religious usage, the technical phrase tabernāculum capere means “to choose a place outside the city walls to erect a tent from which to observe the auspices.” The Roman religious usage passed over easily into the Vulgate (St. Jerome’s edition or translation of the Bible) to translate the Hebrew Sukkoth (sukkōth) “(Feast of Tabernacles”), mishkan “residence, dwelling place,” and ōhel (mōʽēd) “tent of (meeting).” Tabernacle entered English in the late 14th century.

[Altobelli]

BEDIZEN verb (bih-dahy-zuh n)

verb

1. to dress or adorn in a showy, gaudy, or tasteless manner.


Quotes

Prithee, young one, who art thou, and what has ailed thy mother to bedizen thee in this strange fashion?
--*Nathaniel Hawthorne,*The Scarlet Letter, 1850


Things begin passably but unexcitingly with the fantasies of fifteen-year-old Janet-Ann, who imagines herself an Oscar-winning movie star as she extracts various gewgaws from her truck and proceeds to bedizen herself with them ...
--*John Simon,*"Of, By, and For the Birds," New York, June 25, 1984



Origin

Bedizen is not a common verb in English. It is a derivative of the even more uncommon verb dizen, which occurs only from the 16th century and becomes obsolescent by the end of the 19th century. The element diz- is probably the same as in distaff “a staff for holding flax or wool for spinning” and is probably related to Middle Low German dise “bunch of flax on a staff for spinning.” Bedizen entered English in the 17th century.

[Altobelli]

WHOOP-DE-DO noun (hoop-dee-doo)

noun

1. Informal. lively and noisy festivities; merrymaking: New Year's Eve whoop-de-do.
2. Informal. heated discussion or debate, especially in public: a whoop-de-do over the new tax bill.
3. Informal. extravagant publicity or fanfare: the whoop-de-do of a movie premiere.


Quotes

The 1497 whoop-de-do turned out to be no fun at all.
--*William Safire,*"On Language: Title Search," New York Times, March 5, 1989


Tonight's a big Georgetown party night. ... You know. Frats. Alumni. Lots of politicos. Come down here for a big whoop-de-do.
--*William Bernhardt,*Capitol Murder, 2006



Origin

Whoop-de-do is an Americanism of uncertain origin. It entered English in the 1920s.

[Altobelli]

INSTAURATION noun (in-staw-rey-shuh n)

noun

1. renewal; restoration; renovation; repair.
2. Obsolete. an act of instituting something; establishment.


Quotes

In the period of strongest social division (before the instauration of democratic cultures), reading and writing were equally class privileges ...
--*Roland Barthes,*"From Work to Text," The Rustle of Language, translated by Richard Howard, 1986


Warm friendship, indeed, he felt for her; but whatever that might have done towards the instauration of a former dream was now hopelessly barred by the rivalry of the thing itself in the guise of a lineal successor.
--*Thomas Hardy,*The Well-Beloved, 1897



Origin

English instauration comes directly from the Latin noun instaurātiōn- (stem of instaurātiō) “renewal, repetition,” a derivative of instaurāre “to renew, repeat,” originally “to set up stakes or poles (in building),” from the obsolete noun staurus. The Latin root of the verb and noun is stau-, an uncommon extension of the Proto-Indo-European root stā-. The same rare variant also appears in Greek staurόs “upright stake, pile (for a foundation).” Staurόs is also the word used in the gospels, e.g., Matthew 27:40, for the cross on which Jesus was crucified. Instauration entered English in the early 17th century.