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 Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2013 7:32 am
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leeward
LEE-werd; Naut. LOO-erd , adjective;
1. pertaining to, situated in, or moving toward the quarter toward which the wind blows (opposed to windward).
noun:
1. the lee side; the point or quarter toward which the wind blows.
adverb:
1. toward the lee.
Quotes:
Look out to leeward, a little afore the beam, and you will see one a long way out of the ordinary.
-- Patrick O'Brian, The Wine-Dark Sea, 1993
Two of the most daring flew to the main-rigging, one ascending to windward and the other to leeward.
-- Frederick Marryat, The King's Own, 1830
Origin:
While the ultimate origin of leeward, first appearing in English in the 1500s, is not known for certain, it contains the Old English hleo meaning "strong." This in turn came from the Old Norse hly meaning "shelter" and "warmth."
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Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2013 7:16 am
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bibelot
BIB-loh; Fr. beebuh-LOH , noun;
1. a small object of curiosity, beauty, or rarity.
Quotes:
And in the meanwhile she was tasting what, she begun to suspect, was the maximum of bliss to most of the women she knew: days packed with engagements, the exhilaration of fashionable crowds, the thrill of snapping up a jewel or a bibelot or a new "model" that one's best friend wanted, or of being invited to some private show, or some exclusive entertainment, that one's best friend couldn't get to.
-- Edith Wharton, The Glimpses of the Moon, 1922
Eugenio knew a number of old ladies whose circumstances reminded him of all he had lost, and in whose houses his cold sycophancy, his careful foreigner's diction, his elaborate courtliness screened the cupidity, the longing, with which he noted every teacup, every bibelot, every scrap of evidence of the blissful oblivion which money only can bring.
-- Paula Fox, The Widow's Children, 1976
Origin:
Bibelot entered English in the late 1800s from the Old French beubelet meaning "trinket" or "jewel." This term originally came from the reduplication in Old French belbel, a word for a "plaything," the literal translation of which is "pretty pretty."
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Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2013 6:45 am
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indite
in-DAHYT , verb;
1.to compose or write, as a poem.
2.to treat in a literary composition.
3.Obsolete. to dictate.
4.Obsolete. to prescribe.
Quotes:
"Will it be any harm," he said to his friends, "in a piece you want to be written so low, if we should teach them how they should think and act in common cases, as well as indite?"
-- Samuel Richardson, A Quiet Corner in a Library, 1915
And then she called her father Sir Barnard and her brother Sir Tirry, and heartily she prayed her father that her brother might write a letter like as she did indite; and so her father granted her.
-- Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte D'arthur, 1470
Origin:
Appearing in English in the mid-1300s, this wordy word comes from the Latin root dictare meaning "to declare, dictate, or compose in words." Combined with the prefix in-, indite literally means "to put down in writing."
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Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 4:59 am
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rialto
ree-AL-toh , noun;
1. an exchange or mart.
Quotes:
We always did so in the same place, by a particular house, beyond the rialto in a steep-sloping backstreet of tenements, where advertisements turned in colours under the ivy.
-- China Miéville, Embassytown, 2011
I learn from Michael Lynch that courage of even the most spectacular nature isn't after all a spectacle, an arena with fixed sightlines, but instead a kind of floating permeable rialto of common lending, borrowing, extravagant indebtedness, and exchange.
-- Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet, 1990
The following morning dawned clear and cool, and the chef decided to send me to the Rialto to buy pears and Gorgonzola.
-- Elle Newmark, The Chef's Apprentice, 2011
Origin:
Rialto comes from the name for the mercantile quarter of Venice during the middle ages. Shakespeare is thought to have brought the term into widespread usage from his play the Merchant of Venice, first performed at the turn of the seventeenth century. While it initially referred only to the specific marketplace in Venice, rialto soon took on a broader sense and could be applied marketplaces elsewhere.
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Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 3:24 pm
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tertiary
TUR-shee-er-ee, TUR-shuh-ree , adjective;
1. of the third order, rank, stage, formation, etc.; third.
2. Chemistry. A. noting or containing a carbon atom united to three other carbon atoms. B. formed by replacement of three atoms or groups.
3. (initial capital letter) Geology. noting or pertaining to the period forming the earlier part of the Cenozoic Era, occurring from 65 million to 2 million years ago, characterized by the development and proliferation of mammals.
4. Ornithology. tertial.
5. Ecclesiastical. noting or pertaining to a branch, or third order, of certain religious orders that consists of lay members living in community (regular tertiaries) or living in the world (secular tertiaries).
noun:
1. (initial capital letter) Geology. the Tertiary Period or System.
2. Ornithology. a tertial feather.
3. (often initial capital letter) Ecclesiastical. a member of a tertiary branch of a religious order.
4. tertiary color.
Quotes:
For it was impossible not to be sensible, that, while these three characters figured so largely on my private theatre, I — though probably reckoned as a friend by all — was at best but a secondary or tertiary personage with either of them.
-- Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance, 1852
She'd explained all of this the last couple of days to various out-of-town cops who'd volunteered to take over the secondary and tertiary policing duties of the city.
-- Jay McInerney, The Good Life, 2007
He might dissect, anatomize, and give names; but, not to speak of a final cause, causes in their secondary and tertiary grades were utterly unknown to him.
-- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, 1818
Origin:
Since entering English in the mid 1500s, tertiary, which comes from the Latin tertius meaning "third," has been applied as a technical term for many different subject matters.
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Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2013 6:47 am
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scupper
SKUHP-er , verb;
1. Informal. to prevent from happening or succeeding; ruin; wreck.
2. Military. to overwhelm; surprise and destroy, disable, or massacre.
Quotes:
But what if Ira had tried to back out, threatening to scupper the entire thing?
-- Mark Zuehlke, Hands Like Clouds, 2000
Last summer, Edward DeMarco, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's regulator, scuppered the White House's plan to write down principal for half a million homeowners who'd fallen behind on payments, listing among his reasons that it would encourage others to stop paying.
-- Tad Friend, "Home Economics," The New Yorker, Feb. 4, 2013
Origin:
Scupper first entered English as a nautical noun in the late 1400s. The verb senses did not enter English until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
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Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 12:15 pm
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shilly-shally
SHIL-ee-shal-ee , verb;
1. to show indecision or hesitation; be irresolute; vacillate.
2. to waste time; dawdle.
noun:
1. irresolution; indecision; vacillation: It was sheer shilly-shally on his part.
adjective:
1. irresolute; undecided; vacillating.
Quotes:
Great mistake—Make up your mind and don't shilly shally.
-- Agatha Christie, A Caribbean Mystery, 1964
But look, Your Highness, I didn't come to shilly-shally, so don't say anything to inhibit her. I want it straight.
-- Saul Bellow, Henderon the Rain King, 1959
Origin:
In the great tradition of reduplicating a phrase to infuse it with a dose of levity, shilly-shally comes from the phrase “shall I, shall I.” When shilly-shally first entered English at the turn of the eighteenth century, it was spelled "shill I, shall I."
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Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 11:16 pm
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bevel
BEV-uhl , noun;
1. irresolutely.
noun:
1. the inclination that one line or surface makes with another when not at right angles.
2. a surface that does not form a right angle with adjacent surfaces.
3. (of a lock bolt) the oblique end that hits the strike plate.
4. (of a lock with a beveled bolt) the side facing in the same direction as the bevel at the end of the bolt.
5. bevel square.
6. an adjustable instrument for drawing angles or adjusting the surface of work to a particular inclination.
7. Printing. beard (def. 5).
verb:
1. to cut or slant at a bevel: to bevel an edge to prevent splintering.
adjective:
1. Also, beveled; especially British, bevelled. oblique; sloping; slanted.
Quotes:
One edge was rough and jagged, but from that edge, the stone had been worked into a smooth, clean semicircular curve, its edges trimmed in a simple bevel.
-- John Saul, Hellfire, 2010
Gives them a sort of three-D effect. The plus-one must be the width of the bevel.
-- Ellen Ullman, The Bug, 2003
Origin:
The origin of bevel, which entered English in the 1500s, is uncertain, though it could possibly come from the Old French term biaiser meaning "to slope" or "to make slanting." It is unclear which came first: the adjective or the noun form.
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Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2013 9:35 pm
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truant
TROO-uhnt , noun;
1. a person who shirks or neglects his or her duty.
2. a student who stays away from school without permission.
3. One of the worst Pokemon abilities ever.
adjective:
1. absent from school without permission.
2. neglectful of duty or responsibility; idle.
3. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a truant.
verb:
1. to be truant.
Quotes:
Ozcma hath no hold on my heart, in the way thou fanciest — never had, beyond a passing and truant inclination.
-- James Fenimore Cooper, Mercedes of Castile, 1861
He thought of his coming trip to Spain, and then, catching sight of her looking out towards the town and ocean, bit the truant thought back.
-- Pico Iyer, Abandon, 2007
Origin:
Truant comes to English from the Old French word of the same spelling meaning "beggar" or "rogue." The noun form of truant entered English in the late 1200s, though it was not until the 1500s that English speakers started using this term as an adjective.
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Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2013 9:45 pm
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madcap
MAD-kap , adjective;
1. wildly or heedlessly impulsive; reckless; rash: a madcap scheme.
noun:
1. a madcap person.
Quotes:
You can still see strong strains of formal qualities and madcap humor in his own work, which he began creating in 1971.
-- Claudia La Rocco, "Sights in New York Like No Others," The New York Times, Dec. 14, 2012
Slothrop recognizes him on sight, Judge Hardy's freckled madcap son, three-dimensional, flesh, in a tux and am-I-losing-my-mind face.
-- Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, 1995
Origin:
Madcap is a portmanteau dated back to the late 1500s. The first part of this word comes from the Old High German gimeit, literally meaning "foolish" or "vain," and the second part takes a metaphorical spin on the the Late Latin cappa meaning "a hooded cloak."
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Posted: Sat Mar 16, 2013 1:59 am
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prolepsis
proh-LEP-sis , noun;
1. Rhetoric. the anticipation of possible objections in order to answer them in advance.
2. the assigning of a person, event, etc., to a period earlier than the actual one; the representation of something in the future as if it already existed or had occurred; prochronism.
3. the use of a descriptive word in anticipation of its becoming applicable.
4. a fundamental conception or assumption in Epicureanism or Stoicism arising spontaneously in the mind without conscious reflection; thought provoked by sense perception.
5. Pathology. the return of an attack of a periodic disease or of a paroxysm before the expected time or at progressively shorter intervals.
Quotes:
It looks as though Homer, in this dubious prolepsis, were himself referring to an ambiguous tradition, or rather — since nothing in the present case prevented him from choosing, as did his continuators after him — as though he wished to leave them an open field by merely indicating the two possible roads to follow.
-- Gérard Genette, Palimpsests, 1997
As this is accomplished, the women are suddenly awakened to the various ways in which they have not yet shed the chains of the past, and as in a perfectly wrought prolepsis, intuit one another as the necessary tools with which to do so.
-- Terri Ginsberg, "Entre Nous, Female Eroticism, and the Narrative of Jewish Erasure", Romancing the Margins?, 2000
Origin:
Prolepsis came to English in the mid-1400s from the Ancient Greek prolambanein literally meaning "to take before."
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Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 4:35 pm
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sundry
SUHN-dree , adjective;
1. various or diverse: sundry persons.
Quotes:
The early counts in the indictment will be thrown out: they concern sundry words spoken, at sundry times, about the act and the oath, and More's treasonable conspiracy with Fisher—letters went between the two of them, but it seems those letters are now destroyed.
-- Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall, 2009
He looked like an Italian, was dressed like an Englishman, and had the independent air of an American—a combination which caused sundry pairs of feminine eyes to look approvingly after him, and sundry dandies in black velvet suits, with rose-colored neckties, buff gloves, and orange flowers in their buttonholes, to shrug their shoulders, and then envy him his inches.
-- Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, 1868
Origin:
Sundry first appeared in English before the year 900. It is derived from the Old English syndrig meaning "separate," "apart," and "special." While sundi and sundrie were acceptable spellings between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, since then they have fallen out of use in favor of sundry.
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Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 4:27 pm
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qualm
kwahm, kwawm , noun;
1. an uneasy feeling or pang of conscience as to conduct; compunction: He has no qualms about lying.
2. a sudden feeling of apprehensive uneasiness; misgiving: a sudden qualm about the success of the venture.
3. a sudden sensation or onset of faintness or illness, especially of nausea.
Quotes:
A soft qualm, regret, flowed down his backbone, increasing.
-- James Joyce, Ulysses, 1922
“Uh nuh nuh nuh,” Bosco told her, wagging a finger as if she'd spoken this rogue qualm aloud.
-- Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad, 2010
Origin:
The etymology of qualm is uncertain. It may come from the Old English cwealm, which means "torment," "pain," and "injury," but scholars believe there is not enough evidence to assume a direct connection between these terms.
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Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2013 3:56 am
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Posted: Thu Mar 21, 2013 5:14 am
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Reply
