Word Of The Day

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BLELLUM noun (blel-uhm)

noun
1. Scot. Obsolete. an idle, indiscreet talker.


Quotes

A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum ...
--*Robert Burns,*"Tam o' Shanter," The Edinburgh Herald, March 18, 1791


How was ye to foresee that Mr. Manners was a blellum?
--*Winston Churchill,*Richard Carvel, 1899



Origin

Not only does blellum not have an etymology, it has very few citations. One of which is in the poem Tam o’Shanter (1790) by Robert Burns (1759–96); so it’s a keeper.

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GNATHONIC adjective (na-thon-ik)

adjective
1. sycophantic; fawning.


Quotes

That Jack's is somewhat of a gnathonic and parasitic soul, or stomach, all Bideford apple-women know ...
--*Charles Kingsley,*Westward Ho!, 1855


... Pandarus is not unlike familiar gnathonic persons who attach themselves to their betters, as he does both in his defense of Paris ad in his eagerness to satisfy the appetities [sic] of his prince.
--*D. W. Robertson Jr.,*"The Probable Date and Purpose of Chaucer's Troilus," Medievalia et Humanistica, No. 13, 1985



Origin

The English adjective gnathonic comes from Latin gnathōnicus, an adjective derivative of Gnathō (inflectional stem Gnathōn-), the name of a sycophant and parasite in Eunuchus, a comedy by the Latin playwright Terence (Publius Terentius Afer, c190–c159 b.c.). Terence also coined the derivative plural noun Gnathōnicī “disciples of Gnatho” as a comic general term for sycophants and parasites. Gnathonic entered English in the 17th century.

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APPLESAUCE noun (app-uhl-saws)

noun
1. Slang. nonsense; bunk.
2. apples stewed to a soft pulp and sometimes sweetened or spiced with cinnamon.


Quotes

Nonsense! Fiddlesticks! Baloney! Phoo! Poo! Poppycock! Bah! Twaddle! Don't be silly! My eye! In your hat! That's pure applesauce!
--*Dean Koontz,*Life Expectancy, 2004


The opinion offers several new candidates for a master list of Scalia’s best turns-of-phrase, which should be published as a book as far as we are concerned. One example: the majority’s reasoning? “Pure applesauce,” he wrote.
--*Elise Viebeck,*"Scalia on King ruling: 'Pure applesauce'," Washington Post, June 25, 2015



Origin

Applesauce is a straightforward compound noun. The original sense is first recorded in the 17th century. The American slang term first appears in Ring Lardner (1885–1933) and then in the novel Appointment in Samarra (1934) by John O’Hara (1905–70).

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DIAPASON noun (dahy-uh-pey-zuhn)

noun
1. Music. a full, rich outpouring of melodious sound.
2. Music. the compass of a voice or instrument.
3. Music. a fixed standard of pitch.
4. Music. either of two principal timbres or stops of a pipe organ, one of full, majestic tone (open diapason) and the other of strong, flutelike tone (stopped diapason).
5. Music. any of several other organ stops.
6. Music. a tuning fork.


Quotes

... and from the dell below rose in the night, now the monotonous chanting of the frogs, and now, as some great bull-frog took the note, a diapason worthy of a Brescian organ.
--*Stanley J. Weyman,*Count Hannibal, 1901


... [Harley] concluded a speech which, for popular effect, had never been equalled in that hall, amidst a diapason of cheers that threatened to bring down the rafters.
--*Edward Bulwer Lytton,*My Novel; or, Varieties in English Life, 1853



Origin

The English noun diapason comes from the Latin noun diapāsōn “musical interval of the octave,” extracted from the Greek phrase dià pāsôn (chordôn) “through all (the notes),” from the full phrase hē dià pāsôn chordôn symphōnía “the concord through all the notes of the scale.” Diapason entered English in the 14th century.

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INTERLOPER noun (in-ter-loh-per)

noun
1. a person who interferes or meddles in the affairs of others.
2. a person who intrudes into a region, field, or trade without a proper license.


Quotes

Caruso is a veteran narrator who has voiced audiobooks for the works of Joan Didion, Louisa May Alcott, and Jonathan Safran Foer—but to me, in the moment, she was instead an interloper. What was she doing here? Who was she to intrude on my literary shiva?
--*Arielle Pardes,*"Listening Isn't Reading, but Audiobooks Still Resonate," Wired, August 1, 2018


... the Lorax is an environmental activist who wastes no time in berating the axe-wielding Once-ler, a shady money-grabbing interloper who lays waste to the environment to produce peculiar knitted outfits called thneeds.
--*Nicola Davis,*"Dr Seuss's Lorax 'inspired by orange Kenyan monkeys'," Guardian, July 23, 2018



Origin

Interloper originally meant “unauthorized trader who trades on his own account and violates the rights or privileges of a trade monopoly.” It also has a tricky etymology. Inter-, its first element, is obviously the Latin preposition and prefix meaning “between, among.” The problem lies mostly with the second element -loper. Some authorities say that -loper is the same as in landloper “wanderer, vagrant,” an English borrowing from Dutch landlooper dating from about 1570. English interloper dates from the end of the 16th century, but a Dutch dictionary (1767) stated that the Dutch word enterlooper, phonetically equivalent to English interloper, is a borrowing from English. It is also difficult to reconcile an English word composed of the Latin prefix with the Dutch noun looper “runner.” It is more likely that -lope (and -loper) is a Middle English dialect variant of leap, ultimately from Old Norse hlaupa “to leap, spring, climb.” Interloper entered English on the late 16th century; the sense of “meddler” dates from the mid-17th century.

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NUGACITY noun (noo-gas-I-tee)

noun
1. triviality; insignificance.
2. something insignificant or inconsequential; a trifle.


Quotes

For this play that appears to address itself to a serious intellectual problem has almost nothing to say on the subject, and proceeds to disguise its nugacity by resorting to any number of modish--or, rather, outmoded--strategies.
--*John Simon,*"All's Well That Ends 'Good'," New York, October 25, 1982


Somehow before I leave town I should find a graceful way to assure Jason that when I first met him I had had no inkling of that particular Aggrandizement report ... even if the disclaimer obliges me to reveal the nugacity of my financial wardrobe.
--*Jonathan Bayliss,*Gloucesterbook, 1992



Origin

Nugacity is a direct borrowing from the Late Latin noun nūgācitās (stem nūgācitāt-), which first appears in the letters of St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430 a.d.). Nūgācitās means “worthlessness, frivolity” and is a derivative of the Latin adjective nūgāx (stem nūgāc-) “bungling, incompetent,” itself a derivative of the plural noun nūgae “absurdities, nonsense, frivolities, trifles” (its further etymology is unknown). Nugacity entered English in the 16th century.

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REWILD verb (ree-wahyld)

verb
1. to return (land) to a more natural state: rewilding an unpopulated island for use as an animal preserve.
2. to introduce (animals or plants) to their original habitat or to a habitat similar to their natural one: proposals to rewild elephants to the American plains.
3. to introduce living organisms to a habitat.
4. to return land to a less developed state.


Quotes

"A big effort was made to rewild a huge swath of the Great Plains to its original flora, fauna and animal life," Fallows says.
--*Gary Stoller,*"Author of 'Our Towns' Best Seller Finds Ideal Vacation Spots While Seeing America Reinvent Itself," Forbes, August 21, 2018


I argue that the three r’s of the climate-catastrophe generation – reduce, reuse, recycle – need a serious upgrade. In their place I propose resist, revolt, rewild.
--*Mark Boyle,*"My advice after a year without tech: rewild yourself," The Guardian, March 19, 2018



Origin

Rewild combines the word wild with the prefix re-, used to indicate withdrawal or a motion backwards toward another point. Rewild was first recorded in 1980–85.

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NOTIONATE adjective (noh-shuh-nit)

adjective
1. Chiefly Midland and Southern U.S. strong-willed or stubborn.
2. Chiefly Midland and Southern U.S. having foolish and fanciful notions.


Quotes

He wouldn't let me give a direction. He's fussy sometimes and notionate.
--*George Madden Martin,*The House of Fulfilment, 1904


In Saturday's stretch run, Alysheba turned rank, or sour, refusing to run in a straight line, his head twisted in the manner of notionate colts, and he came out to sideswipe second-place Cryptoclearance.
--*Shirley Povich,*"Belmont Unfolding Proves Alysheba Is Only Equine," Washington Post, June 8, 1987



Origin

Notionate, an adjective from the noun notion and the adjective suffix -ate, is a dialect word used mostly used in the Midland and Southern U.S., Northern Ireland, and Scotland. Notionate entered English in the 19th century.

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TUMP noun (tuhmp)

noun
1. British Dialect. a small mound, hill, or rise of ground.
2. British Dialect. a clump of grass, shrubs, or trees, especially rising from a swamp or bog.
3. British Dialect. a heap or stack, as a haystack.


Quotes

Despite the fine afternoon sunlight all around, the tump itself seemed steeped in perpetual shadow, brooding and ominous.
--*Stephen R. Lawhead,*The Spirit Well, 2012


They buried the coffin in their garden. No cross marked it, just a brown tump in the bleak landscape.
--*Willy Peter Reese,*A Stranger to Myself, translated by Michael Hofmann, 2005



Origin

The noun tump has an obscure etymology. It is a dialect word used mostly in the British West Country (Somerset, Cornwall) and the West Midlands (around Birmingham). Tump may come from the Welsh noun twmp “round mass, hillock,” unless the Welsh word comes from English. Tump entered English in the 16th century.

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SCHADENFREUDE noun (shahd-n-froi-duh)

noun
1. satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune.


Quotes

Social media exploded with gleeful Schadenfreude.
--*Naomi Fry,*"Searching for Meaning in the Leftover Merchandise of Fyre Festival," The New Yorker, May 24, 2018


It also let Peggy see the sagging flesh under Blanche's chin. Since her own jawline was still pretty good, she soaked up some Schadenfreude on that score.
--*Harry Turtledove,*The Big Switch, 2011



Origin

Schadenfreude is a direct borrowing from German. In German Schadenfreude is a compound noun made up of the nouns Schaden “harm, injury, damage” and Freude “joy.” Schaden is related to English scathe (via Old Norse). Freude is a derivative of the adjective froh “happy,” and is related to English frolic, which comes from Dutch vrolijk “cheerful, gay.” Schadenfreude entered English in the late 19th century.