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[Abyssinian 84]

Taste The Saline Rolling Down Your Cheekbone, Feel Your Heart It Breaks Within Your Chest Now...

Word of the Day for Tuesday, May 2, 2006



daedal DEE-duhl, adjective:

1. Complex or ingenious in form or function; intricate.
2. Skillful; artistic; ingenious.
3. Rich; adorned with many things.


Most Web-site designers realize that large image maps and daedal layouts are to be avoided, and the leading World Wide Web designers have reacted to users' objections to highly graphical, slow sites by using uncluttered, easy-to-use layouts.
-- "Fixing Web-site usability", InfoWorld, December 15, 1997

He gathered toward the end of his life a very extensive collection of illustrated books and illuminated manuscripts, and took heightened pleasure in their daedal patterns as his own strength declined.
-- Florence S. Boos, preface to The Collected Letters of William Morris

I sang of the dancing stars,
I sang of the daedal earth,
And of heaven, and the giant wars,
And love, and death, and birth.
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Hymn Of Pan"

Daedal comes from Latin daedalus, "cunningly wrought," from Greek daidalos, "skillful, cunningly created."

...I Hear Sound Echo In The Emptiness, All Around, But You Can't Change This Loneliness. Look At What You Found. I Am Falling Down

 

[Abyssinian 84]

Taste The Saline Rolling Down Your Cheekbone, Feel Your Heart It Breaks Within Your Chest Now...

Word of the Day for Wednesday, May 3, 2006



temerity tuh-MER-uh-tee, noun:
Unreasonable or foolhardy contempt of danger; rashness.


The elaborate caution with which the British commander now proceeded stands out in striking contrast with the temerity of his advance upon Bunker Hill in the preceding year.
-- John Fiske, "Washington's Great Campaign of 1776", The Atlantic, January 1889

When English merchants had the temerity to set up a trading post or 'factory' -- junior merchants were known as factors -- the Dutchmen defended their monopoly by massacring them.
-- Anthony Read and David Fisher, The Proudest Day

Drivers with the temerity to accelerate out of turns are likely to encounter torque steer, an unsettling glitch in control as the engine fights to take charge of the steering.
-- Peter Passell, "Mitsubishi Diamante: Back From Down Under", New York Times, February 23, 1997

Throughout the anti-trust trial its executives treated the courts and the US government with sneering contempt, coupled with a ratty annoyance that any public authority should have the temerity to interfere in its business.
-- John Naughton, "Gates must not win at monopoly", The Observer, October 28, 2001

Temerity comes from Latin temeritas, from temere, blindly, rashly.

...I Hear Sound Echo In The Emptiness, All Around, But You Can't Change This Loneliness. Look At What You Found. I Am Falling Down

 

[Abyssinian 84]

Taste The Saline Rolling Down Your Cheekbone, Feel Your Heart It Breaks Within Your Chest Now...

Word of the Day for Friday, May 5, 2006



execrable EK-sih-kruh-buhl, adjective:

1. Deserving to be execrated; detestable; abominable.
2. Extremely bad; of very poor quality; very inferior.


His human-rights record was abysmal. His relations with Washington were adversarial. He rivaled Zimbabwe's execrable Robert Mugabe for the title "Africa's Saddam."
-- James S. Robbins, "The Liberian Opportunity", National Review, July 8, 2003

For while agents and editors often misunderstand their market and sometimes reject good or even great works, they do prevent a vast quantity of truly execrable writing from being published.
-- Laura Miller, "Slush, slush, sweet Stephen", Salon, July 25, 2000

Any theatergoer who has ever felt the urge to murder an actor for an execrable performance should get a kick out of two backstage mysteries that do the deed with a nice theatrical flourish.
-- Marilyn Stasio, review of The Gold Gamble, by Herbert Resnicow and Death Mask, by Jane Dentinger, New York Times, October 30, 1988

The decision to level the ancient cathedral is described candidly by one latter-day authoritative guidebook as having demonstrated "execrable taste."
-- d**k Grogan, "Pillars speak out to save cathedral", Irish Times, June 11, 1997

Execrable derives from Latin exsecrabilis, execrabilis, from exsecrari, execrari, "to execrate, to curse," from ex-, "out of, away from, outside of" + sacer, "sacred."

...I Hear Sound Echo In The Emptiness, All Around, But You Can't Change This Loneliness. Look At What You Found. I Am Falling Down

 

[Abyssinian 84]

Taste The Saline Rolling Down Your Cheekbone, Feel Your Heart It Breaks Within Your Chest Now...

Word of the Day for Monday, May 8, 2006



aspersion uh-SPUR-zhuhn; -shuhn, noun:

1. A damaging or derogatory remark; slander.
2. The act of defaming or slandering.
3. A sprinkling with water, especially in religious ceremonies.


Orley had once been forced to resign from a local men's club for casting aspersions on the character of another member's wife.
-- Thomas A. Underwood, Allen Tate: Orphan of the South

Its meetings were fiercely argumentative; members seemed to love nothing better than to cast aspersions on each other's intellect and class loyalty.
-- Glenn Frankel, Rivonia's Children

Aspersion is from Latin aspersio, from aspergere, from ad- + spargere, "to scatter, to sprinkle, to strew."

...I Hear Sound Echo In The Emptiness, All Around, But You Can't Change This Loneliness. Look At What You Found. I Am Falling Down

 

[Abyssinian 84]

Taste The Saline Rolling Down Your Cheekbone, Feel Your Heart It Breaks Within Your Chest Now...

Word of the Day for Tuesday, May 9, 2006



otiose OH-shee-ohs; OH-tee-, adjective:

1. Ineffective; futile.
2. Being at leisure; lazy; indolent; idle.
3. Of no use.


Mr. Federspiel's surreal flourishes and commentaries straddle the line between interesting and otiose. Most of the surrealism is pretty but pointless.
-- D. F. Wallace, "The Million-Dollar Tattoo", New York Times, May 5, 1991

Although the wild outer movements and the angular Minuet can take such clockwork precision, the Andante, with its obsessive, claustrophobic dialogues between strings and bassoons, seemed sluggish and otiose.
-- Tim Ashley, "VPO/Maazel", The Guardian, April 16, 2002

The umlaut he affected, which made no difference to the pronunciation of his name, was as otiose as a pair of strategically positioned beauty spots.
-- Peter Conrad, "Hidden shallows", New Statesman, October 14, 2002

One hazard for religions in which all professional intermediaries are dispensed with, and in which the individual is enjoined to 'work out your own salvation' and is regarded as fully capable of doing so, is that belief and practice become independent of formal organized structures which may in such a context come to be perceived as otiose.
-- Lorne L. Dawson, "The Cultural Significance of New Religious Movements: The Case of Soka Gakkai", Sociology of Religion, Fall 2001

Otiose is from Latin otiosus, "idle, at leisure," from otium, "leisure."

...I Hear Sound Echo In The Emptiness, All Around, But You Can't Change This Loneliness. Look At What You Found. I Am Falling Down

 

[Abyssinian 84]

Taste The Saline Rolling Down Your Cheekbone, Feel Your Heart It Breaks Within Your Chest Now...

Word of the Day for Thursday, May 11, 2006



derogate DER-uh-gayt, intransitive verb:

1. To deviate from what is expected.
2. To take away; to detract; -- usually with 'from'.
3. To disparage or belittle; to denigrate.


If someone wants to derogate from that and make a choice, then they are free to do it.
-- Ciaran Fitzgerald, "Food champion'srecipe for success", Irish Times, November 13, 1998

Evidently, in Robbins's moral calculus, prostituting one's art in the name of the foremost mass murderer of modern times does not in the least derogate from one's idealism and courage.
-- Terry Teachout, "Cradle of Lies", Commentary Magazine, February 2000

Likewise, there has been a blatant attempt to distort the impact of Ronald Reagan's leadership during this period and to derogate or deny his accomplishments.
-- Edwin Meese, With Reagan

And if the other is other than us, then that otherness is either something we would like to have, so we choose to romanticize the other; or it is something we would like to leave behind, so we choose to derogate the other; or it is something we would like to keep available, so we choose to celebrate the other.
-- Richard A. Shweder, "Storytelling Among the Anthropologists", New York Times, September 21, 1986

Derogate comes from the past participle of Latin derogare, "to propose to repeal part of a law, to diminish," from de-, "away from" + rogare, "to ask, to ask the people about a law."

...I Hear Sound Echo In The Emptiness, All Around, But You Can't Change This Loneliness. Look At What You Found. I Am Falling Down

 

[Abyssinian 84]

Taste The Saline Rolling Down Your Cheekbone, Feel Your Heart It Breaks Within Your Chest Now...

Word of the Day for Saturday, May 13, 2006



appurtenance uh-PUR-tn-un(t)s, noun:

1. An adjunct; an accessory; something added to another, more important thing.
2. [Plural]. Accessory objects; gear; apparatus.
3. [Law]. An incidental right attached to a principal property right for purposes such as passage of title, conveyance, or inheritance.


The inauguration of presidents, the coronation of monarchs, the celebration of national holidays--these events require everywhere the presence of the soldier as a "ceremonial appurtenance."
-- Barbara Ehrenreich, Blood Rites

She began by demolishing an 18th-century Paris mansion whose wainscoting, paneling and other appurtenances she admired, instructing an architect to design a house for her that would incorporate these elements.
-- Angeline Goreau, "A Spectacular Mess of a Marriage", New York Times, August 31, 1997

Apart from sports cars, he did not have his father's passion for the appurtenances of celebrity.
-- Howard Chua-Eoan, "He Was My Hero'", Time, January 27, 1997

A few of the appurtenances of wealth are well known--the Range Rovers and Rolexes, the little Chanel purses and the personal chefs trained in the Pritikin diet.
-- Richard Lacayo, "Murder in Polo Land", Time, September 22, 1997

Appurtenance is derived from the present participle of Late Latin appertinere, "to belong to," from Latin ad- + pertinere, "to relate to, to belong to," from per-, "through" + tenere, "to hold."

...I Hear Sound Echo In The Emptiness, All Around, But You Can't Change This Loneliness. Look At What You Found. I Am Falling Down

 

[Abyssinian 84]

Taste The Saline Rolling Down Your Cheekbone, Feel Your Heart It Breaks Within Your Chest Now...

Word of the Day for Sunday, May 14, 2006



cupidity kyoo-PID-uh-tee, noun:
Eager or excessive desire, especially for wealth; greed; avarice.


Curiosity was a form of lust, a wandering cupidity of the eye and the mind.
-- John Crowley, "Of Marvels And Monsters", Washington Post, October 18, 1998

At the end, all but rubbing his hands with cupidity, Rockefeller declares he will now promote abstract art--it's better for business.
-- Stuart Klawans, "Rock in a Hard Place", The Nation, December 27, 1999

This strain of cupidity sprang from the mean circumstances of his youth in the Finger Lakes district of upstate New York.
-- Jack Beatty, "A Capital Life", New York Times, May 17, 1998

For such is human cupidity that we Thoroughbreds have but one chance to survive it -- to run so fast and to win so much money that we are retired in comfort in our declining days.
-- William Murray, "From the Horse's Mouth", New York Times, August 8, 1993

Myself, I have always believed that BMWs achieve their presence (and their grip on the collective imagination and cupidity of the middle classes) because they combine an athletic, masculine bulk and stance with feminine details and lines.
-- Stephen Bayley, "The evolution of the curve", Independent, October 22, 1998

Cupidity ultimately comes from Latin cupiditas, from cupidus, "desirous," from cupere, "to desire." It is related to Cupid, the Roman god of love.

...I Hear Sound Echo In The Emptiness, All Around, But You Can't Change This Loneliness. Look At What You Found. I Am Falling Down

 

[Abyssinian 84]

Taste The Saline Rolling Down Your Cheekbone, Feel Your Heart It Breaks Within Your Chest Now...

Word of the Day for Tuesday, May 16, 2006



fulsome FUL-sum, adjective:

1. Offensive to the taste or sensibilities.
2. Insincere or excessively lavish; especially, offensive from excess of praise.


He recorded the event in his journal: "Long evening visit from Mr. Langtree--a fulsome flatterer."
-- Edward L. Widmer, Young America: The Flowering of Democracy in New York City

Concealed disgust under the appearance of fulsome endearment.
-- Oliver Goldsmith, The Citizen of the World

Fulsome is from Middle English fulsom, from full + -som, "-some."

...I Hear Sound Echo In The Emptiness, All Around, But You Can't Change This Loneliness. Look At What You Found. I Am Falling Down

 

[Abyssinian 84]

Taste The Saline Rolling Down Your Cheekbone, Feel Your Heart It Breaks Within Your Chest Now...

Word of the Day for Wednesday, May 17, 2006



arrant AR-unt, adjective:
Thoroughgoing; downright; out-and-out; confirmed; extreme; notorious.


More deplorable is his arrant and compulsive hypocrisy . . . Under all the chest hair, he was a hollow man.
-- J. D. McClatchy, review of Crux: The Letters of James Dickey, New York Times, December 19, 1999

I think a pilot would be a most arrant coward, if through fear of bad weather he did not wait for the storm to break but sank his ship on purpose.
-- Georges Minois, History Of Suicide translated by Lydia Cochrane

The moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun.
-- Shakespeare, Timon of Athens

The entire story is a load of arrant nonsense.
-- Victor Pelevin, Buddha's Little Finger translated by Andrew Bromfield

Arrant was originally a variant spelling of errant, meaning "wandering." It was first applied to vagabonds, as an arrant (or errant) rogue or thief, and hence passed gradually into its present sense. It ultimately derives from Latin iter, "a journey."

...I Hear Sound Echo In The Emptiness, All Around, But You Can't Change This Loneliness. Look At What You Found. I Am Falling Down

 

[Abyssinian 84]

Taste The Saline Rolling Down Your Cheekbone, Feel Your Heart It Breaks Within Your Chest Now...

Word of the Day for Friday, May 19, 2006



spurious SPYUR-ee-uhs, adjective:

1. Not proceeding from the true or claimed source; not genuine; false.
2. Of illegitimate birth.


Some of these graves are clearly spurious and were manufactured by nineteenth-century royalists who wanted evidence of an unbroken 2,000-year-old imperial line.
-- Gale Eisenstodt, "Behind the Chrysanthemum Curtain", The Atlantic, November 1998

We need at least to separate the real issue from the spurious.
-- Eugene D. Genovese, "Getting States' Rights Right", The Atlantic, March 2001

Well, setting aside the sentimental nostalgia that elevates the "good old days" to a spurious perfection . . . the fact remains that Nellie Melba was a unique vocal phenomenon.
-- Tim Page, "For Melba a Well-Deserved Toast", Washington Post, February 9, 2003

Spurious comes from Latin spurius, "illegitimate, hence false, inauthentic."

...I Hear Sound Echo In The Emptiness, All Around, But You Can't Change This Loneliness. Look At What You Found. I Am Falling Down

 

[Abyssinian 84]

Taste The Saline Rolling Down Your Cheekbone, Feel Your Heart It Breaks Within Your Chest Now...

Word of the Day for Saturday, May 20, 2006



cognoscente kon-yuh-SHEN-tee; kog-nuh-; -SEN-, noun;
plural cognoscenti -tee:
A person with special knowledge of a subject; a connoisseur.


However, I thought it well to acquaint myself with the latest scientific thinking, so as not to write a tale that would embarrass me among the cognoscenti.
-- Ronald Wright, A Scientific Romance

In the early 1600s, however, beliefs that decried curiosity and restricted information about the "secrets" of nature to a handful of cognoscenti were under attack.
-- Tom Shachtman, Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold

Greenspan, to his credit, tells the truth about what he does, but until now, he has done it in a way that only the cognoscenti can understand.
-- Paul Krugman, "Labor Pains", New York Times Magazine, May 23, 1999

Cognoscente derives from the Obsolete Italian, from Latin cognoscens, cognoscent-, present participle of cognoscere, "to know."

...I Hear Sound Echo In The Emptiness, All Around, But You Can't Change This Loneliness. Look At What You Found. I Am Falling Down

 

[Abyssinian 84]

Taste The Saline Rolling Down Your Cheekbone, Feel Your Heart It Breaks Within Your Chest Now...

Word of the Day for Monday, May 22, 2006



incontrovertible in-kon-truh-VUR-tuh-buhl, adjective:
Too clear or certain to admit of dispute; indisputable; unquestionable.


It is in the nature of philosophical questions that they do not have final, incontrovertible answers, or, more exactly, that every answer raises new questions.
-- George Soros, Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism

And although the evidence was substantial, it was not incontrovertible.
-- Al Strachan, "Phantom Goal, part 2", Toronto Sun, May 23, 1999

Despite speculation based on ancient tales and ancient art, no incontrovertible evidence has been discovered of polio's existence before the nineteenth century, at least not in its epidemic form.
-- Sherwin B. Nuland, "A Summer Plague: Polio and Its Survivors", New Republic, October 16, 1995

Incontrovertible is in-, "not" + controvertible, which is derived from Latin controversia, "a dispute," from controvertere, "to turn against, to turn in the opposite direction, to dispute" from contro-, "against" + vertere, "to turn." It is related to controversy.

...I Hear Sound Echo In The Emptiness, All Around, But You Can't Change This Loneliness. Look At What You Found. I Am Falling Down

 

[Abyssinian 84]

Taste The Saline Rolling Down Your Cheekbone, Feel Your Heart It Breaks Within Your Chest Now...

Word of the Day for Monday, May 22, 2006



incontrovertible in-kon-truh-VUR-tuh-buhl, adjective:
Too clear or certain to admit of dispute; indisputable; unquestionable.


It is in the nature of philosophical questions that they do not have final, incontrovertible answers, or, more exactly, that every answer raises new questions.
-- George Soros, Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism

And although the evidence was substantial, it was not incontrovertible.
-- Al Strachan, "Phantom Goal, part 2", Toronto Sun, May 23, 1999

Despite speculation based on ancient tales and ancient art, no incontrovertible evidence has been discovered of polio's existence before the nineteenth century, at least not in its epidemic form.
-- Sherwin B. Nuland, "A Summer Plague: Polio and Its Survivors", New Republic, October 16, 1995

Incontrovertible is in-, "not" + controvertible, which is derived from Latin controversia, "a dispute," from controvertere, "to turn against, to turn in the opposite direction, to dispute" from contro-, "against" + vertere, "to turn." It is related to controversy.

...I Hear Sound Echo In The Emptiness, All Around, But You Can't Change This Loneliness. Look At What You Found. I Am Falling Down

 

[Abyssinian 84]

Taste The Saline Rolling Down Your Cheekbone, Feel Your Heart It Breaks Within Your Chest Now...

Word of the Day for Tuesday, May 23, 2006



protean PRO-tee-un; pro-TEE-un, adjective:

1. Displaying considerable variety or diversity.
2. Readily assuming different shapes or forms.


The [Broadway] musical was ceaselessly protean in these years, usually conventional but always developing convention, twisting it, replacing it.
-- Ethan Mordden, Coming Up Roses

Roosevelt's performance in the civil rights meeting illustrated one of the central operating principles of his protean executive style, a style that transformed the presidency, and the nation: a willingness to delay decisions, change his mind, keep his options open, avoid commitments, or even deceive people in the relentless pursuit of noble objectives.
-- William Doyle, Inside the Oval Office

He was a protean character who constantly adapted to his environment.
-- David Maraniss, The Clinton Enigma

Protean is derived from Proteus, an ancient Greek god who had the ability to change his shape at will.

...I Hear Sound Echo In The Emptiness, All Around, But You Can't Change This Loneliness. Look At What You Found. I Am Falling Down