Word Of The Day

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VAGILITY noun (vuh-jil-i-tee)

noun
1. Biology. the ability of an organism to move about freely and migrate.


Quotes

Using the GPS collars that updated an animal’s location regularly and other data, the project found that vagility—the ability of an organism to move—declines in areas with human footprints by as much as half to two-thirds the distance than in places where there is little or no human activity.
--*Jim Robbins,*"Animals Are Losing Their Vagility, or Ability to Roam Freely," New York Times, February 19, 2018


With this combination of low vagility and narrow habitat requirements, the mayfly faunas of islands around New Zealand provide a unique opportunity to investigate the effects of isolation, dispersal ability and the response of communities to reduced diversity.
--*D. R. Towns,*"The mayflies (Ephemeroptera) of Great Barrier Island, New Zealand: macro- and micro-distributional comparisons," Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Volume 17, 1987



Origin

The rare English adjective vagile is restricted to biology and refers to an organism’s being able to scatter or be scattered in an environment. The English adjective comes from German vagil, of the same meaning. The German adjective derives from Latin vagus “wandering, roaming.” The German suffix -il and the English suffix -ile come directly from Latin -ilis, -ile; the English suffix -ity comes from Latin -itat- (the stem of -itās) via Old French -te (French -té). Vagility entered English in the 20th century.

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MACHIAVELLIAN adjective (mak-ee-uh-vel-ee-uhn)

adjective
1. characterized by subtle or unscrupulous cunning, deception, expediency, or dishonesty: He resorted to Machiavellian tactics in order to get ahead.
2. of, like, or befitting Machiavelli.
3. being or acting in accordance with the principles of government analyzed in Machiavelli's The Prince, in which political expediency isplaced above morality and the use of craft and deceit to maintain the authority and carry out the policies of a ruler is described.

noun
1. a follower of the principles analyzed or described in The Prince, especially with reference to techniques of political manipulation.


Quotes

I need to tell you about my shamefully Machiavellian motive for sending her packing and the subdolous way in which her death facilitated my crowning achievement.
--*Clanash Farjeon,*A Handbook for Attendants on the Insane: The Autobiography of 'Jack the Ripper' as Revealed to Clanash Farjeon, 2003


The doctor's mind pursued its own schemes with Machiavellian subtlety.
--*Joseph Conrad,*Nostromo, 1904



Origin

Machiavellian is an adjective derived from Machiavelli, the family name of the Florentine diplomat, historian, and political philosopher Niccolò Bernardo Machiavelli (1469–1527). He wrote his most famous work The Prince (Il Principe) in 1513 while in exile from Florence. Machiavellian entered English in the 16th century.

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TUSSIE-MUSSIE noun (tuhs-ee-muhs-ee)

noun
1. a small bunch of flowers or herbs.
2. a cone-shaped holder for a bouquet.


Quotes

The world would be a kinder and gentler place if we all exchanged tussie-mussies instead of badmouthing people behind their backs or unfriending them on Facebook.
--*Claire Cook,*The Wildwater Walking Club: Back on Track, 2017


When those were finished, they turned to the tussie-mussies--handheld herbal nosegays in which each plant has a special significance--for the women guests.
--*Susan Wittig Albert,*Lavender Lies, 1999



Origin

There is no clear etymology for tussie-mussie “bunch of flowers, nosegay.” The Middle English form, tusemose, and the 17th-century form tussimussie, suggest an assumed Middle English tus or tusse “cluster of flowers.” Tussie-mussie entered English in the mid-15th century.

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POCOCURANTE noun (poh-koh-koo-ran-tee)

noun
1. a careless or indifferent person.

adjective
1. caring little; indifferent; nonchalant.


Quotes

"I believe you are misinformed, sir," said Jekyl dryly, and then resumed as deftly as he could, his proper character of a pococurante.
--*Sir Walter Scott,*St. Ronan's Well, 1823


Calling a careless person a "pococurante" or other fancy name will not, by the precision of the term, suddenly make the careless careful.
--*Jeff VanderMeer,*The Third Bear, 2010



Origin

The English noun and adjective pococurante is a straightforward borrowing from Italian, even retaining its Italian pronunciation. Pococurante in both languages means “caring little, indifferent.” The first element poco in Italian is an indefinite adjective and adverb meaning “little, a little,” descended from the Latin adjective paucus “few” (the Latin adjective is related to Gothic fawai, Old English fēawe, and Middle English fewe, all plural adjectives of indefinite quantity meaning “few”). The Italian adjective curante is the present participle of the verb curare (the Latin forms are cūrant- and cūrāre) "to watch over, look after, cure.” The Latin verb is a derivative of the noun cūra “worry, concern, object of care,” of unknown etymology. Pococurante entered English in the 18th century.

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FORGETIVE adjective (fawr-ji-tiv)

adjective
1. Archaic. inventive; creative.


Quotes

O quick and forgetive power!
--*Dante Alighieri (written c. 1308–21),*The Vision: or, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, of Dante Alighieri, translated by Henry Francis Cary, 1814


A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It ... makes it apprehensive quick, forgetive, full of nimble fiery and delectable shapes ...
--*William Shakespeare,*Henry IV, Part 2, 1623



Origin

At first glance forgetive looks like a derivative of forget, to be pronounced with a hard g, accented on the second syllable, and meaning something like “forgetful.” It is, however, a coinage by Shakespeare, and appears in Henry IV, Part 2 (1596-99). Forgetive, obscure in its etymology and meaning, is usually interpreted as a derivation of the verb forge “to beat into shape, form by hammering” and meaning “creative, inventive.”

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SITH adverb, conjunction, preposition (sith)


adverb, conjunction, preposition
1. since.


Quotes

... for ever sith the lord Clisson turned French, he never loved him.
--*Jean Froissart (1333?– c.1400),*The Chronicles of Froissart, translated by John Bourchier, 1523–25


"Of course you see now, Sir Thomas, how ill a match Master John Feversham should have been for Blanche." "Wherefore?" was the short answer. "Sith he is no longer the heir."
--*Emily Sarah Holt,*Clare Avery, 1876



Origin

In English sith is an archaic or dialect word whose functions as an adverb, preposition, and conjunction have been taken over by since. The Old English siththa is a variant of siththan (originally sīth thām “after that, subsequent to”), an adverbial and prepositional phrase formed from the comparative adverb sīth “subsequently, later” (akin to German seit “since”) and thām, the dative of the demonstrative pronoun, the phrase meaning “subsequent to that, after that.”

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CINQUEFOIL noun (singk-foil)

noun
1. any of several plants belonging to the genus Potentilla, of the rose family, having yellow, red, or white five-petaled flowers, as P. reptans (creeping cinquefoil) of the Old World, or P. argentea (silvery cinquefoil) of North America.
2. Also called quinquefoil, quintefoil. Architecture. a panellike ornament consisting of five lobes, divided by cusps, radiating from a common center.
3. Heraldry. a charge in the form of a five-leaved clover.


Quotes

Cinquefoil, with small yellow blossom, and ranunculus, with glossy yellow cup, edged the sunny roads ...
--*Janet Lewis,*The Trial of Sören Qvist, 1947


This was my curious labor all summer,--to make this portion of the earth's surface, which had yielded only cinquefoil, blackberries, johnswort, and the like, before, sweet wild fruits and pleasant flowers, produce instead this pulse.
--*Henry David Thoreau,*Walden, 1854



Origin

The English noun cinquefoil comes from Middle French cincfoille “five leaves.” Cincfoille corresponds to Latin quīnque folia, a translation of Greek pentáphyllon, literally “five leaves,” and the name of the creeping cinquefoil (Potentilla reptans) or the silvery cinquefoil (P. argentea). Cinquefoil entered English in the 15th century.

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SABULOUS adjective (sab-yuh-luhs)

adjective
1. sandy; gritty.


Quotes

But clearly the beach is also a stage, a studio, indeed an arena, sabulous or otherwise, at the heart of the culture.
--*Peter D. Osborne,*Travelling light, 2000


The plants rose from the stones like a conjurer's trick, working roots down into hidden pockets of sabulous soil ...
--*Olivia Laing,*To the River, 2011



Origin

The English adjective sabulous is a clear-cut borrowing from Latin sabulōsus ”gravelly, sandy,” a derivative of sabulum “coarse sand, gravel.” Sabulum comes from an assumed Italic psaflom. (Italic is the branch of the Indo-European language family that includes Latin, Oscan, Umbrian, and the modern Romance languages.) Psaflom comes from the same Proto-Indo-European root bhes- “to rub” as Greek psêphos “pebble” and Germanic sandam (Old English and English sand, German Sand). Sabulous entered English in the 17h century.

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INFOMANIA noun (in-fuh-mey-nee-uh)

noun


Digital Technology. a. an obsessive need to constantly check emails, social media websites, online news, etc.: The fear of being out of the loop, not in the know, fuels infomania, especially among *****. b. the effects of this obsession, especially a decline in the ability to concentrate: She attributes her increasingly poor “life management skills” to infomania.
excessive enthusiasm for acquiring knowledge.
Citations


The Bagus Gran Cyber Cafés are Tokyo's grand temples of infomania. ... At first glance the spread looks officelike, but be warned: these places are drug dens for Internet addicts.
-- Virginia Heffernan, "In Tokyo, the New Trend Is 'Media Immersion Pods'," New York Times , May 14, 2006


Since then, he has led the charge at Intel to deal with " infomania ," which he describes as a debilitating state of mental overload--caused by backlogs of e-mail, plus interruptions such as e-mail notifications, cell phones and instant messages.
-- Stephanie Overby, "A Cure for Infomania," CIO , July 1, 2007

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OCELLATED adjective (os-uh-ley-tid)

adjective
1. having eyelike spots or markings.
2. (of a spot or marking) eyelike.


Quotes
... Méline's nose and eyes are such that you would swear you were looking at an ocellated butterfly, perching on a rosebud.
--*Éric Chevillard,*On the Ceiling, translated by Jordan Stump, 2000


Fantasia was quick to push close the door behind them, although when doing so momentarily trapped the end of the cockbird's ocellated or 'eyed' tail-feathers which, as a consequence, gave the signal for pandemonium to break loose.
--*Jeremy Mallinson,*The Count's Cats, 2004



Origin

The English adjective ocellated is a derivative of the Latin noun ocellus “(little) eye,” a diminutive of oculus “eye.” Ocellus is used especially in affectionate language, equivalent to “apple of my eye” or “darling.” As a horticultural term, ocellus means “incision made in the bark for inserting a bud or scion.” The only modern sense of ocellus does not occur in Latin; it is a zoological term meaning “simple eye or light-sensitive organ; a colored spot on birds’ feathers or butterflies” and dates from the 18th century.