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the worthless word for the day is: benignity
[fr. MF. benignité]
/bi NIG nuh tee/ (rhymes with dignity)
1) the state of being gracious
2) archaic kindness
"The abbé spoke of the faith with wisdom and
benignity."
- W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge (1944)
"The evil inherent in human nature forbids the
fancy of a despot blending benignity with energy,
or an oligarchy at once sagacious and generous."
- The New York Times July 29, 1867
____________
NB: here is an RSS feed for wwftd
the worthless word for the day is: peenging
[prob. an imitative alteration of whinging]
Sc. and n. Eng. regional whining, complaining,
moping; peevish
"[T]hat useless peenging thing of a lassie there, at
Ellangowan..."
- Walter Scott, Guy Mannering (1815)
"And he says, I've sold some neeps - you ken he
had that girny peenging voice - I've sold a cartload
of neeps to a chiel in London, but he wants me to
deliver them, and I don't ken where it is."
- Duncan McLean, Blackden (1994)
[neeps are turnips!]
more recent entries
another recent search: "aggrawator"; I don't find much
for this, but I do find aggerwator given on a couple of
word lists as locks of hair that frame the face — let's
see if we can find something more on this one.
someone recently searched for cacestogenous, which Mrs.
Byrne gives as 'caused by unfavorable home environment';
but I can find no evidence it's ever been used anywhere.
whoever was recently searching for "area subject to
dust storms" was, I presume, thinking of dust bowl.
spotted any obscure words? questions? other comments?
send e-mail to: wwftd master
-tsuwm
I periodically add words to the wwftd dictionary,
just because they come up so often; either used by
me or searched for by visitors to this site.
Faldage points out that quixotry is the highest-scoring
Scrabble word ever in tournament play.
other recent adds: logophile, linguaphile, direption,
alembic, precession, subhumerate, flibbertigibbet,
catawampus (or cattywampus), pluviosity, snallygaster,
coprophagous, tergiversate, scrutate
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wwftd was recently a Mr. Modem's Site of the Week.
wwftd is listed as a resource at UsingEnglish.com,
under the ESL Web Directory!
J. Reid writes to inform me, "your web page was listed
on Wacky Web Sites Page-A-Day Calendar on May 3, 2007."
It was recently pointed out to me that Spunk and Bite,
by Arthur Plotnik (2005), mentions our site saying,
"Anything but worthless."
OEDILF
Improve Your Vocabulary
Oh the ignominy! -- we've been mentioned by the Conservative Voice.
Spreading the polemical wealth somewhat is a brief mention in
The Capital Times, Wisconsin's Progressive Newspaper.
Not to be outdone, the Libertarians have found us via this blog.
o Russell Perkins writes:
The phrase "yesterday's home page" from the P.K. Dick
quotation used to illustrate "kipple" caught my eye as
being anachronistic for a 1960's novel. My 1996 Del
Rey reprint of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
reads (p.65) "yesterday's homeopape." I believe that
the word "homeopape" is another of the words coined by
P.K. Dick. From the contexts in which the word appears,
a homeopape seems to be something like a futuristic
newspaper. My guess at the etymology would be:
"homeo-" similar + "pape" paper.
o Mel DeSart writes to suggest that the Darwin quote,
which can be found online in a couple of places,
should probably have read, "Mammalia, Ornithology,
Ichthyology, and Entomology." well, it was only
a letter...
o somehow I took on the notion that plunderbund was
coined by Adlai Stevenson, but according to OED2 it
dates back at least to 1914:
plunderbund - [U.S. colloq.] A corrupt alliance of
political, commercial, and financial interests engaged
in exploiting the public
1914 Voice of People (New Orleans) 8 Jan. 1/1 The
whole force of the Texan plunderbund..are howling at
the heels of the dauntless army of workers.
--Robotman--
the sportswriters at ESPN seem to have taken this up, e.g.:
"This time, it appears we won't have to wait nearly as long,
because I doubt we will see a more shambolic effort than the
one Utah submitted on a second-quarter fastbreak against L.A.
on Sunday."
- John Hollinger, PER Diem, April 20 2009
"..that was only until the four or five masked men formed a
cluster round the pair of them - a kind of testudo as the
Romans had called it in her Latin lessons - and dragged and
carried them to the minibus..."
- John le Carre, A Most Wanted Man (2008)
"I couldn't make any headway at all with its search functions,
because of all its cack-handed efforts to assist me."
- Neal Stephenson, Anathem (2008)
__
I know a little man both ept and ert.
An intro-? extro-? No, he's just a vert.
Sheveled and couth and kempt, pecunious, ane,
His image trudes upon the ceptive brain.
When life turns sipid and the mind is traught,
The spirit soars as I would sist it ought.
Chalantly then, like any gainly goof,
My digent self is sertive, choate, loof.
Gloss, by David McCord
The Oxford Book of American Light Verse
"My third grade teacher was the master of hell and damnation.
Rumor had it that he had tried to become a Christian Brother
but hadn't made it. The rumor was probably true, because this
man really knew his eschatology."
- Carlos Eire, Waiting for Snow in Havana (2003)
how do you say epicaricacy in German?!
/EP i kar IK i see?/
taking pleasure in other's misfortune: schadenfreude
this word, as defined in Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of
Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words, has generated
lots of discussions on a couple of online forums that
tend to discuss these sorts of things. where in the world
did Mrs. B. find this English word for a concept that
isn't supposed to have a word in English (schadenfreude
being German in origin)? this question has yet to be
answered in full, but I can quote you this from Nathan
Bailey's An Universal Etymological English Dictionary,
which is a very olde dictionary indeed (1721):
Epicharikaky - from the Greek words or roots for
"upon", "joy", and "evil": "A Joy at the Misfortunes
of others".
"And I could understand every word she said," she claimed
with pride, referring to our strained conversation with
the car hire man in Glasgow, and the local in Crianlach
who had tried engaging Bel in conversation about, so far
as either of us could make out, trout-tickling."
- Ian Rankin, Bleeding Hearts (1994) (see guddle)
"The newspapers had the Widdler story, and tied it to Bucher,
Donaldson, and Toms. Rose Marie said that more arrests were
imminent, but the Star Tribune reporter spelled it "eminent"
and the Pioneer Press guy went with "immanent." You should
never, Lucas thought, trust a spell-checker."
- John Sandford, Invisible Prey (2007)
"But the symbolic nature of the fruit (knowledge of good and
evil, which in practice turned out to be knowledge that they
were naked) was enough to turn their scrumping escapade into
the mother and father of all sins."
- Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
"...jawbreakers the size and density of billiard balls, which
were the best value of all as they would last for up to three
months and had multiple strata that turned your tongue
interesting new shades as you doggedly dissolved away one
squamous layer after another."
- Bill Bryson, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
stoush
Aussie slang a brawl or fight, a scrap
"At the end of the lunch, though, I wasn't just muzzy but
absolutely knocked cold by the Madiran. I went back upstairs
and slept for two hours."
- Adam Gopnik, Paris to the Moon (2000)
"That minacious image was buttressed when it was revealed
several years ago that convicted spy Robert Hanssen, the FBI
official who sold intelligence to the Soviet Union and may
have been responsible for the death of at least one American
agent, was a member of Opus Dei."
- Minneapolis Star Tribune, Dec 10, 2005
bibulous laughter; found in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited
of or relating to drink or drinking
I've had cynarctomachy (bear-baiting with a dog) for a long
time and just discovered it is a nonce-word in Butler.
Gadarene poets; found in reading Lawrence's Seven Pillars...
headlong, precipitate
trepidatious (fearful)
and again:
"The Sultan is deposed, fainting into the arms of his chief
eunuch when he is informed that he is to be sent to Salonika,
and his trepidatious, pliable brother is released from thirty
year's house arrest in order to be enthroned in his place."
- Louis de Bernières, Birds Without Wings (2004)
NFL kickers are highly fungible.
interchangeable (of commodities)
pareidolia
Astronomer Philip Plait has two words for the latest
claims of alien objects on Mars. The first is
"garbage." The second and more scientific word is
"pareidolia."
quidnunc
one who seeks to know all the latest news or gossip,
a busybody
trencherman
a hearty eater
I objurgate the centipede,
A bug we do not really need.
-Ogden Nash, The Centipede
floccinaucinihilipilification
the categorizing of something as worthless;
it's what we do here!
deja vu, presque vu, and jamais vu are mentioned in
Joseph Heller's 1961 novel Catch-22 and play a large
role in Kim Stanley Robinson's 1996 novel Blue Mars.
Welcome logophiles and verbivores; here are some
notes and updates to past wwftds. If you're
curious as to what we're about, and to see the
subscription list fine print, see our policy.
---
A critic writes as follows, "the name of your site arguably
serves to make its creator(s) appear ludibrious (that is to
say, the butt of their own joke)." Used in this sense, I
guess I should add ridiculous to the definition of
ludibrious.
---
I was cleaning out all of my extant email venues,
and I discovered this gmail from back in August:
re: today's wwftd is... yclyketed
I think this would be "ee~KLEE~ted", alo[ng] the
same lines as yclept... and it is the ME version
of 'cleated', if I am not mistaken..
Kind regards from planet Solipsis,
Anthony S.
---
With regard to the U.S. phrase root hog or die,
our friend Ann H. notes that "Charles Funk explained
the expression this way, in Heavens to Betsy! & Other
Curious Sayings:
Get to work or suffer the consequences. Although the
earliest printed record of the Americanism so far
exhumed dates only to 1834 ... it probably goes back
to colonial times or, at least, to early frontier
days. And, probably, its origin was literal -- an
admonition to hogs or pigs when crops were scant to
forage for themselves in order to survive. In fact,
the expression sometimes appears as a command as given
to a hog: "root, hog, or die!" The way it appears in
each of the seven stanzas of the folk song under that
title in the Archive of the American Folk Song
Society, Library of Congress, each of which closes
with the line, is:
Oh, I went to Californy in the spring of Seventy-six,
Oh, when I landed there I wuz in a terrible fix,
I didn't have no money my victuals for to buy,
And the only thing for me was to root, hog, or die.
---
Dr. McKay writes: The 'jejunum' is part of the small
intestine and means 'empty', so jejeunosity, (merely a
fancy spelling by NYT Dowds person/journo), should
mean an 'emptiness' or 'lack of content' and then it
carries a much better and more correct meaning!
And Joan B. writes: IF you google Woody Allen and
jejunosity, you'll find many references to Woody
Allen's use of the term in the film Love and Death,
which came out in 1975 -- well ahead of Maureen Dowd's
(misspelled) use of that term on September 3, 2003,
in a NYTimes article.
so I googled:
Boris: Since when is murder a heroic act?
Sonya: Violence is justified in the service of mankind.
Boris: - Who said that?
Sonya: Attila the Hun.
Boris: You're quoting a Hun to me?
Boris: Don't you know that murder carries with it a
moral imperative that transcends any notion of
inherent universal free will?
Sonya: That is incredibly jejune.
Boris: That's jejune?
Sonya: Jejune!
Boris: You have the temerity to say that I'm talking
to you out of jejunosity? I am one of the most
june people in all of the Russias.
---
Jenny writes:
Could [your recent] word, minatory, have any
connection whatever to the [Minotaur which was]
VERY menacing and dangerous?
Minotaur is from (literally) Minos' bull (as in
taurus); the similarity is only serendipity.
---
H. L. Mencken coined the word ecdysiast in 1940, from
the root ecdysis, in response to a request from a
stripper for another word for her job.
---
minion Jim B. writes from Lincoln Univ.: "Regolith!
Ah, now you're in my territory.... I like to tell
my astronomy classes that the regolith of the Moon
is basically pulverized rock and dust resulting from
the heavy bombardment by meteors early in the history
of the solar system (about 4 billion years ago). This
is more colorful than a dry definition. (I'd hate to
have my students memorize phrases like "the unconsol-
idated solid material...") The Earth would be like
this also, but we have an active surface: erosion,
volcanic activity, and crustal movement. Before we
landed on the Moon, some people in NASA feared that
this material in the regolith might be too loose to
support the weight of a large object. Luckily, it was
firm enough that the moon landers, with the astronauts
inside, didn't just sink out of sight. This would have
made for a pretty dismal Tom Hanks movie."
---
regarding tetragrammaton, a happy subscriber writes:
"I must disagree. Not only is [this] word of the day
not worthless, I have actually used it within the past
six months, when teaching my ninth grade students
about the transmission of the Hebrew scriptures. The
scribes were very creative in writing the name of God,
to ensure that no one would in his reading later say
the name aloud, thus breaking the commandment against
blasphemy."
w.m. comments: yes, well that's why we referred to
it as the "ineffable name of God ".
---
Donald Le Messurier writes:
"The gyascutis is commonly known as a "Side-Hill
Lancer". You have greatly enlightened me with the
more proper name for this beast. It may be unknown
to you that it is quite dangerous and fast on its
feet. The only known means of escape is to turn about
and run in the opposite direction, in which case the
longer pair of its 4 legs will be on the upside of the
slope thereby unbalancing him and causing the animal
to fall over and roll down the hill. I learned this
at a very early age whilst spending my summers in
Northern Michigan where this creature was then rather
common. I do not know what the status of their
population is now, but then I was always very cautious
when venturing out in the heavily forested hills. I
should add with pride that none ever came even close
to catching me."
to which John Barry was moved to respond:
"I believe that Mr. Donald Le Messurier has mogued
you. He is likely chuffed, but let me expose the
fallacy of his expostulation... Here is the flaw.
Turning about and running in the other direction would
have no effect on the direction in which the gyascutis
is traveling. The re-orienting to which he refers
could only be achieved by causing the creature to
change direction - something that would require either
the considerably braver action of running past, the
insanely dangerous leap over, or the usually fatal
path under the fell beast."
this appears to be a U.S. coinage with local
variations, meant to be mock Latinate. as such, the
preferred spelling may be gyascutus, as in this
Britannica entry:
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=137899
---
the pyg family, so far:
callipygian
dasypygal
platypygous
pygal
pygalgia
pygephanous
quatopygia
spheropygian
steatopygia
pygophilous
uropygial
----
as to the recent prastuphulic,
rkdillon@_____ writes:
"I believe it's of Welsh origin & means heavyset...
with a hint of slatternly. I have a small Collins
Welsh dictionary & there're some near cognates in it.
I'm not familiar with the book cited but Jensen is
often a Welsh border name."
----
Robert Southey, of some recent citations, was
poet laureate of England in 1813 and also a
noted critic of 19th century Americanisms, all
the while coining (or introducing) odd neologisms
of his own, such as agathokakological, cacodemonize,
gelastics and evangelizationer.
----
as words here cost nothing, the gulping
gobemouche is plentifully supplied
----
anthimeria - the substitution of one part of speech
for another; typically a noun used as a verb -- also
known as (and for example) "verbing a noun"
the worthless word for the day is: exodist
[fr. exodus + -ist] /EK suh dust/
rare one who departs from one place to settle in
another; an emigrant
"Want was the prime foe these hardy exodists had
to fortress themselves against."
- James R. Lowell, The Biglow papers (1848)
"I walked through Chelsea's streets with an
exodist's attentiveness."
- Joseph O'Neill, Netherland (2008)
the worthless word for the day is: inconsonance
[fr. inconsonant, after consonance]
lack of harmony: disagreement
"[W]e are able to judge respecting the consonance
or inconsonance of the means employed."
- Rbt Wilberforce, The doctrine of holy baptism (1849)
"It had turned into a freakishly transparent morning
free of clouds or natural inconsonances of any sort."
- Joseph O'Neill, Netherland (2008)
the worthless word for the day is: tantalism
[fr. Tantal-us + -ism] obs. rare
a teasing or torment like that of Tantalus; tantalization
"Is not such a provision like tantalism to this people?"
- Jos. Quincy {Webster, 1828}
"..longings concerned with horizons and potentials
sighted or hallucinated and in any event lost long ago,
tantalisms that touch on the undoing of losses too
private and reprehensible to be acknowledged to
oneself, let alone to others."
- Joseph O'Neill, Netherland (2008)
the worthless word for the day is: gormlessness
[gormless (stupid) + -ness]
the state of lacking intelligence; foolishness
"The problem with being evil, he'd been forced to
admit, was that demons were not great innovatory
thinkers and really needed the spice of human
ingenuity. And he'd really been looking forward to
Eric Thursley, whose brand of superintelligent
gormlessness was a rare delight."
- Terry Prachett, Eric (2002)
"She was casting us in a screwball comedy, herself
as Hepburn.. me as the professor with his head up
his ass. I looked the part: excessively tall, bespec-
tacled, given to nodding and smiling. I have never
entirely shed the gormlessness of that early role."
- Joseph O'Neill, Netherland (2009)
the worthless word for the day is: aftosa
[Am. Sp., < Sp. fiebre aftosa, aphthous fever]
/af TOE suh/
hoof-and-mouth disease (cf. Hud, Bill Cosby)
"We need a cure for the confusion surrounding
the common name for aftosa."
- William Safire, The Right Word.. (2004)
"hoof-and-mouth is synonymous with foot-and-mouth,
could be regional differences -- or maybe hoof-and-
mouth got a bad reputation from Paul Newman in Hud,
and Bill Cosby.. or maybe we should just call it
aftosa or aphthous fever."
- tsuwm, Wordsmith Talk 03/22/01
back in the days when "Hud" was in first run release,
Cosby was doing stand-up comedy and his take on the
scene in the movie where the cattle were hurtling
towards oblivion went something like this:
cow1: hey man, where we goin?
cow2: goin' to get shot
cow1: shot?! how come?
cow2: we got hoof-and-mouth
cow1: what's that?
cow2: noticed that white stuff 'round your mouth?
cow1: yeah...
cow2: that's hoof-and-mouth
(thanx to anonymous expiscation)
this week: more contributions from our readers
the worthless word for the day is: ceilidh
[Gaelic] /KAY lee/
Irish & Scot. 1) a friendly call: visit
2) a social gathering with traditional music,
dancing, and storytelling
Eating and meeting
Talking and singing
Such is the ceilidh
The joy of my life
- Robert Urquhart
(in The Creaky Traveler, by Warren Rovetch)
"There will be a ceilidh on Saturday evening at
the Spa Ocean room from 8pm to midnight."
- Scarborough Evening News, 16 June 2009
(thanx to Meghan R.)
the worthless word for the day is: amerce
[fr. OF. a merci, at (one's) mercy] /uh MURS/
to punish by a fine, the amount of which is left to
the discretion of the court; broadly to punish
"That the University have power to punish and
amerce all forestallers, regraters.."
- The History of the Univ. of Cambridge (1840)
"The King could not amerce other people's villeins
harshly, although those on his own farms might be
amerced at his discretion."
- William S. McKechnie, Magna Carta (1905)
(thanx to Ray Haupt)
the worthless word for the day is: lustration
[fr. L. lustrare, to purify] /luh STRAY shun/
a purifying ceremony; an act or instance of cleansing
especially by moral or spiritual purification
"There was much to be done: prayers, lustrations, holy
meals-and the sacred scrolls must be taken to the
nearby caves and hidden from the impious enemy."
- Out of the Desert, Time Apr. 15, 1957
"It lasted a long time, this swim which seemed to have
some of the qualities of an esoteric act of lustration."
- Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur (1975)
"Nalyvaychenko described the opening of formerly secret
documents and plans to proceed with prosecutions as
"the launch of a Ukrainian version of lustration.""
- Eurasia Daily Monitor June 5, 2009
(thanx to krambo)
the worthless word for the day is: siffilate
[modif. of F. siffler, to whistle] /SIF uh layt/
rare to whisper
""He's gone," was siffilated above and below,
until it met the ears of even Corporal Van Spitter,
who had it from a marine, who had it from another
marine, who had it from a seaman, who..."
- Frederick Marryat, Snarleyyow (1837)
"The librarian told us that if we felt impelled to
communicate in the library we should either pass
notes or siffilate our words."
- Rod L. Evans, The Gilded Tongue (2006)
the worthless word for the day is: megalonisus
[fr. Gk megalo- great, exagerrated + L. nisus, striving]
/meg ah LON ih sus/?
very rare a tendency to exaggerate {Mrs. Byrne}
"Mrs. Byrne herself suffered from a rare form
of megalonisus."
- anon.
the worthless word for the day is: anamnesis
[Gk < anamimnesko, to remind one] /an am NEE sus/
the recalling of things past; recollection, reminiscence
"It is the familiar, autumnal Auden speaking: student of
fleshly decay, writer of thank-you notes, urbane scold,
expert at anamnesis, a celebrator of the numinous past
that raises nostalgia almost to the level of ritual."
- Timothy Foote, Time Feb. 03, 1975
"Everybody who has heard of Plato has heard of the
doctrine of anamnesis or recollection."
- I. M. Crombie, An Examination of Plato's Doctrines
(1979)
the worthless word for the day is: anhedonia
[NL. fr. Gk an-, without + hedone, pleasure]
/an hE DO nE uh/
Psych. the inability to feel pleasure
"Anhedonia (if I may coin a counter-designation to
analgesia) has been very little studied.. but there
are cases of an insensibility relating to pleasure."
- T. A. Ribot's Psychol. of Emotions (tr. 1897)
"An election straight from Freedonia was an expression
of a national anhedonia, a mass loss of appetite for
mediocrity, artificiality, pandering, meandering and the
rest of the cheap tricks that passed for campaign 2000."
- Maureen Dowd, The N. Y. Times Nov. 12, 2000
the worthless word for the day is: becquerel
[after Antoine H. Becquerel, French physicist]
/bek uh rel/
a unit of radioactivity equal to one nuclear
decay per second
"A dose of a billion becquerels would typically
be fatal in more than half of people, [a
spokesman] said."
- Alex Morales, Bloomberg Dec 6, 2006
this week : more spelling bee words!
the worthless word for the day is: brachylogy
[Gk brachylogia] /bra KIL uh jee/
conciseness of expression; also a condensed expression
""Unless we hold back on hendiadys and ban brachylogy
utterly," Blair's public opinion guru Philip Gould told
the PM in a memo unearthed by a Sun reporter in a dustbin
in Goole, "this party is done for.""
- David McKie, The Guardian February 15, 2001
hendiadys
the worthless word for the day is: beckmesser
[G., after Sixtus Beckmesser, pedantic musical
philistine in Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger]
/BEK mes u(r)/ usu. capitalized
a critic or teacher of music characterized by
timid and excessive reliance upon rules: pedant
""Shall we have," he whispered to Mr. Zander,
"a Beckmesser fiasco to-night, or will it be a
Walter success?""
- Paul Leicester Ford, A House Party (1901)
"Kid Rock was seen leaving the club with a
'beckmesser' on each arm." - The feeble attempt
at a hip response by the Spelling Bee pronouncer
to "can you use it in a sentence?"
- david iserson (blog, May 28 2009)
the worthless word for the day is: Laodicean
the 2009 Scripps spelling bee final word..
[fr. the ancient city of Laodicea]
1) of or relating to Laodicea
2) indifferent or lukewarm esp. in matters of religion
or politics (in reference to Revelation 3:14-16)
"An unfashionable subject in these Laodicean times,
that of a man's struggle with his religious faith."
- Christopher Hart, Sunday Times (UK) Dec 3, 2006
the worthless word for the day is: otiant
[fr. L. otiari, to be at leisure] /OH she unt/
now rare idle; resting; unemployed (cf. otium)
"His existence would be otiant and superfluous."
- North American Review, Apr. 1845
"They who.. relegate the Supreme to the otiant ease
of Epicurus, cut the nerves of moral obligation."
- North American Review, May 1878
the worthless word for the day is: salvific
[L. salvificus] /sal VI fik/
having the intent or power to save or redeem
".. they had carried back down to the four-dimensional
world the memories of the way it had been before
Lepidopt's salvific jump."
- Tim Powers, Three Days to Never (2006)
the worthless word for the day is: pervious
[fr. L. pervius passable, accessible] /PUR vee us/
1) permeable 2) archaic accessible; open-minded
"Pervious concrete -- made of gravel and cement
minus the sand that gives regular concrete its
impenetrable density -- has the porous quality of a
Rice Krispies bar."
- Minneapolis Tribune May 26, 2009
The solid, solid universe Is pervious to Love.
- R. W. Emerson, May-day (in Works, 1867)
the worthless word for the day is: quale
[L., of what kind] /KWA lee/ pl. qualia
a property considered independently from things
having the property
"When I do not know the 'quid' of anything how can
I know the 'quale'?"
- Benjamin Jowett, The dialogues of Plato (tr. 1875)
"Despite our disagreements on qualia, zombies, and
consciousness, we remain good friends."
- Douglas Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop (2007)
the worthless word for the day is: gnathonize
[fr. Gnatho, a parasite in Terrence's The Eunuch]
obs. rare to act the sycophant
to play the smell-feast, to flatter {Blount, 1656}
See how he squares it, takes a private stand,
To Gnathonize, to act it with his hand.
Behold his gesture and his brazen face,
How stoutely he doth manage his disgrace.
Lo ! how he whispers in his masters eare...
- Henry Hutton, Follie's anatomie (1619)
the worthless word for the day is: illecebrous
[fr. L. f. illicere, to entice]
inkhorn term alluring, enticing, attractive
"Hesiodus, in Greek, is more brief than Virgil where
he writeth of husbandry, and doth not rise so high
in philosophy; but is fuller of fables, and therefore
is more illecebrous."
- Sir Thomas Elyot, The value of poetry.. (1531)
"The background music changes to suit the mood as
the program [sc. Alien Empire] celebrates both the
illecebrous and the illaqueable of bugdom."
- Walter Goodman, The New York Times Feb 9, 1995
bonus inkhorn term: illaqueable - capable of being
ensnared [fr. L. laqueare, to snare
the worthless word for the day is: didymous
[fr. Gk didumos, twin] /DID uh mus/
arranged or growing in pairs; twin
"To the Oswego tea furnished by the didymous
monarda and the fermented liqueur extracted from
the dragon tree roots, Cyrus Smith had added a
real beer..."
- Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island (tr. 2002)
[monarda = aromatic plant of the mint family]
"As it happens, we do not live in a didymous world
like Twinwirld, nor do we live in a world where the
existence of relatively clear boundaries between
souls seems imminently threatened by the advent of
extremely high-bandwith interbrain communication..."
- Douglas Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop (2007)
the worthless word for the day is: goropism
[eponymous] see Fletcher quote
"..the culmination coming when Leibniz coined the
term 'goropism' to characterize the practice of
basing historical linguistic relationships on
absurd etymologies."
- William H. Fletcher, Netherlandic Studies (1985)
"[T]heir activity has been referred to as Goropism -
a term coined from the first[sic] name of [Johannes]
Goropius Becanus (d. 1572), who tried to prove that
Dutch was the Ur Sprache of all languages. An example
of "Goropism" was the Celtic Academy founded in France
in 1805. Members were eager to prove that the etymology
of all European languages could be explained with the
help of Irish, Welsh and Breton."
- Societas Celtologica Nordica, 26 May 1990
[cf. Ursprache]
(thanx to zmjezhd)
the worthless word for the day is: hirtellous
[fr. L. hirtus rough, hairy + -ellus (diminutive suffix)]
/hur TEL us/ (also hirsutulous)
finely hirsute thickened hirtellous leaves
"He noted that there were "at least 60 ways* to say that
a plant is not smooth, that it has fuzz, hair, prickles,
or roughness of some sort." Few of these words (such as
bullate, hirtellous, pilosulous, and rugose) were
familiar to the average person."
- Elizabeth Rosenthal, Birdwatcher (2008)
*Eskimos got nothing on Botanists
"That dictum being: "Any noticeable hirsute or even
hirtellous shadings visible upon the represented,
unclothed, female form, anywhere below the eyebrows, say,
is, in the judgment of this Department, sufficient cause
to remove said representation from the category..."
- Frank Yerby, Tobias and the Angel (1975)
the worthless word for the day is: thalassotherapy
[fr. Gk thalassa, sea]
the use of seawater (baths, voyages, etc.) in health
and cosmetic treatment
"Establishments which provide thalassotherapy have been
springing up around the continent of Europe.. to provide
a holiday in which the usual seaside ingredients.. are
supplemented.. by a regime of salt-water treatments."
- Inglis & West, Alternative Health Guide (1983)
"...your choice of therapeutic thermal, krauter bad,
thalassotherapy and aromatherapy mineral baths."
- Orange Coast Magazine, Oct. 1996
the worthless word for the day is: obstupefactive
[L. obstupefacere, to stupefy]
obs. rare obstructing the mental powers; stupifying
{Johnson, 1828}
"Readers today are also asked to contribute in another
way, by tracking down a long list of quotations that the
OED incorporated from Samuel Johnson's 18th century
dictionary but which have not been found and checked in
their original context. Heading the OED's "Appeals List"
is this, purportedly penned by Archbishop Abbot, about
1633: "The force of it is obstupefactive, and no other.""
- Steve King, salon.com Apr 19, 2002
"The force of it [sc. an hearbe] is obstupefactive, and
no other."
- George Abbot, A briefe description of the whole worlde
(1605)
[as from OED DRAFT REVISION Dec. 2008]
this week: more from Johnson's Dictionary
the worthless word for the day is: discalceation
[fr. L. discalceare, to pull off the shoes]
obs. : to put off the shoes {Johnson, 1828}
the act of taking off the shoes, esp. in token of reverence
"We have all Johnson's pedantic words, such as disculceate,
discalceated, discalceation. We know not on what principle
these words, which are never used, can be admitted into a
dictionary, unless upon the principle that every word which
every educated person has introduced into his writings,
should be placed immediately in the dictionaries."
- The Westminster Review, v14 1831
"The classical Biblical allusion to discalceation is,
"Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place
whereon thou standest is holy ground."
- Encyclopedia of Freemasonry (1909)
the worthless word for the day is: vaticide
[fr. L. vates seer, prophet; (trans.) bard, poet]
a murderer of prophets* (Johnson, 1828}
a murderer of poets {Johnson, 1836}
*the modern rendering, in most cases
Then first (if Poets aught of truth declare)
The caitiff Vaticide conceiv'd a prayer.
- Alexander Pope, The Dunciad (1728)
"Vaticide is no crime in the statute-book : but a
crime, and a heavy crime, it is; and the rescue of a
poet from a murderous enemy, although there is no
oaken crown decreed for it, is among the higher virtues."
- Walter S. Landor, Classical Conversations (1882)
"Last week, a committee of the House of Representatives
emerged as the vaticide. The prophet is dead, and the
war over."
- William F. Buckley, Washington Star June 14, 1977
the worthless word for the day is: perpotation
[fr. L. perpotare, to drink heavily]
obs. rare the act of drinking largely {Johnson, 1755}
excessive drinking
"And which insists upon a perpotation, A sort of
liquid loan for instant liquidation."
- Manufacturer and Builder Apr. 1878
"What perpotation and ruinous ebriety!"
- J. E. L. Seneker, Frontier Experience (1906)
bonus word: ebriety
[L. ebrietas] drunkenness {Johnson, 1828}
the worthless word for the day is: smellfeast
[smell + feast] archaic
one that is apt to find and frequent good tables;
an epicure; a parasite {Johnson, 1828}
"Like so many smell-feasts they hankered near
the Altars to enjoy the nidorous fumes."
- Henry More, [The] mystery of iniquity (1664)
The Smell-feasts rouse them at the hint
There's cookery in a certain dwelling-place.
- Robert Browning, The ring and the book (1868)
"He is an outsider, an ingrate, a smell-feast,
and who could possibly see the burgeoning of a
savior in such qualities?"
- Kenneth Burke, Here & Elsewhere (1932)
this week: oddities of all sorts
the worthless word for the day is: ucalegon
[Ucalegon is one of Priam's friends in the Iliad, and
the destruction of his house is referred to in the
Aeneid: jam proximus ardet Ucalegon]
/yoo KAL uh gon/ archaic
a neighbor whose house is on fire or has burned down
"But who is this Ucalegon below, that cries and makes
such a sad moan?"
- Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel (tr. 1694)
"One of them, Peter Chamberlin, was burnt out; but this
Ucalegon lived next door to the Castle, and suffered in
consequence."
- T. F. Kirby, Annals of Winchester College (1892)
"Mingling with the crowd gathered outside the burning
dwelling, the ill-starred lexicographer simply could
not restrain himself; after smugly flaunting the word
ucalegon several dozen times, he was set upon by his
neighbors and cast into the flames."
- Novobatzky & Shea, Depraved and Insulting English
(2002)
the worthless word for the day is: thiotimoline
a fictitious chemical compound conceived by science
fiction author Isaac Asimov (first published in the
March 1948 issue of Astounding Science Fiction)
"The result was that I wrote a pseudo-dissertation
written as stodgily as I could manage about a compound
which dissolved 1.12 seconds before you added the water.
I called it The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated
Thiotimoline."
- Isaac Asimov, I.Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
"It can only be initiated in my continuum, because the
molecules of the activating substance, thiotimoline,
have different properties when they're reversed."
- Spider Robinson, Time Travelers Strictly Cash (1981)
the worthless word for the day is: cereologist
[fr. Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture]
/cee ree AWL uh jist/ (also cerealogist)
one who studies or investigates crop circles
so, cereology
"The growing number of amateur and professional
cereologists may have the last laugh."
- John Vidal, "Cereal Killers" The Guardian,
13 Sept 1991
"Pity the humble cerealogist. Saddled with the
Herculean task of explaining the existence of
crop circles."
- The Observer, 11 July 1993
"The people who had invented the new field (no
pun intended) of "cereology" watched a source of
income turn into a vapor."
- Judith Herbst, Hoaxes (2004)
this week: oddities of all types
the worthless word for the day is: droumy
[origin uncertain, but see Sc. drumlie]
obs. rare troubled; muddy: turbid
"[T]o set on fire and trouble states, to the end to
fish in droumy waters.."
- Francis Bacon,
Of the advancement of learning (1605)
drumlie winter, dark and drear -- Robert Burns
the worthless word for the day is: depertible
[fr. L. dispertire, to distribute, divide
(as if fr. depertire]
obs. capable of being divided into parts; divisible
"[S]ome Bodies have a.. more Depertible Nature than
others.."
- Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum (1626)
"And, as lagniappe, they threw in a list of "spurious
words" the scholars had come upon in dictionaries dead
and extant, which imposters had got into them as the
result of typographical or other errors (sample:
"Depectible, a. Error in Johnson's Dict. and some
later Dicts. for Depertible")..."
- William F. Buckley, The New York Times Dec. 19 1971
(the lengths I go to for latter-day citations..)
the worthless word for the day is: expediate
[fr. L. expedire, to make ready, prepare]
[adj] obs. expeditious
[v] error for expedite (in Cockeram)
"This way.. is more prompt and expediate."
- John Evelyn, The French Gardener (tr. 1658)
Expediate, to dispatch, or make ready.
- Henry Cockeram, The English dictionarie, or
an interpreter of hard English words (1623)
the worthless word for the day is: ush
[back-formation from usher]
U.S. slang to serve as an usher
"The six gentlemanly cow-boys.. swore that whoever
should prove to be the lucky man, the others would
ush for him at the ceremony."
- Harper's Magazine, Dec. 1890
"Man alive, you've crossed half a continent to 'ush'
at that wedding!"
- Margaret Cameron, Tangles (The Forlorn Hope) (1910)
"The ushers ush anyone who needs ushing, including all
the mothers you mention. That is their job."
- vandalfan on February 20, 2009
(thanx to Giles Thomas)
the worthless word for the day is: crastinate
[fr. L. crastinum, tomorrow] obs.
= procrastinate, delay
(so crastination = procrastination)
so why procrastinate? the prefix was added in classical
Latin procrastinare, to put off until the morrow.
crastinate seems to have been just an inkhorn term.
"And try, by pray'rs, and vows, and floods of tears,
To crastinate their sure impending doom."
- Richard Dagley, from Death's Doings (1828)
""I am trying to crastinate, so I can stay here long
enough to find out what is so infernally important
about your quest.""
- Piers Anthony, Swell Foop (2002)
this week: lost positives, or not
the worthless word for the day is: fatigable
[fr. L. fatigare, to fatigue] /FAT uh guh bul/
subject to fatigue; easily tired: defatigable
(where defatigable was truly lost, and then
back-formed from indefatigable; where de- is
used to intensify and in- to negate)
"It is evident that the idea of any kind of play
can only be associated with the idea of an
imperfect, childish, and fatigable nature."
- John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice (1853)
"He was fatigable, and often desperately
fatigued, but he persisted..."
- Hershel Parker, Herman Melville (2005)
"I was always the most defatigable of hacks."
- Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One (1948)
the worthless word for the day is: flappable
[back-formation from unflappable (1968)]
lacking self-assurance and self-control: easily upset
(a lost positive of the 2nd kind: jocular)
"The existence of back-formed words such as flappable
from unflappable. In the word-based hypothesis, this
would have to be formed by the prefixation of un- to
an already existing flappable, which contradicts its
back-formation origin."
- Pavol Stekauer, English Word Formation (2000)
(the theory being that unflappable was formed
out of whole cloth; i.e., un- + flap + -able)
""Now that," said Milo.. "is what I call a shrink.
Unflappable, soft-spoken, analyzing everything."
"I don't qualify?"
"You, my friend, are an aberration."
"Too flappable?""
- Jonathan Kellerman, Therapy (2005)
"I'm the sort of flappable American who leaves
everything until the last minute."
- Benjamin Cheever, Strides (2007)
the worthless word for the day is: sheveled
[by shortening] (also shevelled)
rare, archaic disheveled
"He bowed his tall white head into my shevelled hair."
- Richard Blackmore, Erema (1877)
"After the prisoner was delivered to Lexington the
next day in sheveled and humbled state, the posse was
dismissed..."
- Reese Prescott; The Rockbridge County Gazette,
June 28, 1904
(but)
"She was a descript person, a woman in a state of
total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled,
and she moved in a gainly way."
- Jack Winter; The New Yorker, 25 July 1994
"Is sheveled the opposite of disheveled? Recreational
linguists call these words lost positives."
- Charles Elster, What in the Word? (2005)
___
you never know how a prefix is going to affect things;
some expect that sheveled existed as a positive form
(as happened with couth and kempt), but in this case
the word was formed (as per OED) by aphesis.
the worthless word for the day is: tardigrade
[fr. L. tardigradus, slow-moving] /TAR duh grade/
slow-moving; sluggish
"The steady wash of the rain, the tardigrade
progress, the inexorable attrition."
- T. C. Boyle, Water Music (1981)
"Davis mentions.. two intimately connected char-
acteristics of the Latin American Enlightenment,
namely its tardigrade character and its political
conservatism."
- Mario Saenz, The Identity of Liberation in Latin
American Thought (1999)
this week: some echt descriptive words
the worthless word for the day is: mundivagant
[fr. L. mundus, world + vago, to wander]
/mun DIV uh gant/ rare world-wandering
{wandering through the world - Johnson, 1755}
His chest was ready and well stocked with clothes
Including many things of useless want,
Which had been better left to their repose,
Instead of being made mundivagant.
- Thomas Cadett, Timothy Cotton, a poem (1871)
"..and they saw the cities and manners of many men, to
an extent undreamed-of by Ithaca's mundivagant king."
- James Cabell, The Cream of the Jest (1917)
the worthless word for the day is: tritical
[trite + -ical, after critical]
archaic trite or commonplace in nature
"I don't like it at all; though I own there is a world
of water-landish* knowledge in it; but 'tis all tritical,
and most tritically put together."
- Laurence Sterne, Tristam Shandy (1762)
"Nor in reading good moral observations, or anecdotes
of great men, do I care whether they are in a connected
series, or strung together like Swift's Tritical
Dissertation on the Faculties of the Human Mind."
- A. P. Russell, In a Club Corner (2007)
*nonce-wd characteristic of theologian Daniel Waterland
the worthless word for the day is: entheastic
[fr. Gk entheastikos, inspired] /en the AS tic/
obs. agitated by divine energy; inspired
"It is this that makes them - to use an uncommon but
proper word - entheastic, or having in them the energy
of God."
- Warren Evans, The Divine Law of Cure (1884)
"I thought you should know, because if you're going [to]
tell people you're running an election for a seat in the
Senate of Canada, you should consult a lawyer... You send
me one (1) name, of someone you've elected, and I don't
care if that person is also earnest, elegant, erect,
enchanting, embraceable, electrifying, ebullient, emollient,
enlightened, eager, energetic, earthy, erudite, ecaudate
(having no tail), erotic, exotic, effervescent, effete,
effulgent, egalitarian, enlivening, enlumining, equable,
ethereal, ethical, exuberant, or entheastic." [patiently
explaining that the Senate of Canada is appointed by the
Governor General]
- George Bain, The Gazette (Montreal) Feb 19, 1989
the worthless word for the day is: palterer
[fr. palter (of unknown origin) + -er]
one who palters: a triffer; a huckster, a haggler
"'Was I a preacher?' Pain asked of Anderson, 'no
I was a palterer, and my living was but in paltry,
and I had no mind to mend yet.'" [fr. ca. 1592]
- David Cressy, Agnes Bowker's Cat (2001)
"The circuit from conjurer to palterer runs the gamut
of scepticism about the very idea of specialness."
- International Affairs No.72, 1996
this week: very special people
the worthless word for the day is: morologist
[morology + -ist < Gk moros, foolish]
/moh ROHL uh jist/ obs. rare
1) a boring fool who speaks utter nonsense;
'a foolish talker' {Bailey, 1727}
2) a student of fools or folly
"But then I am a student of fools, a morologist - to
coin a word."
- W. Wilkins & H. Vivian, The Green Bay Tree (1894)
"There is no such thing as applied morology. The
laws of stupidity cannot be translated into
practice... The laws of morology only work when
applied unwittingly."
- Matthijs van Boxsel et al,
The Encyclopædia of Stupidity (2005)
"Everybody has an opinion. Most of them are based on
a morologist mentality."
- bobsayssomejunk.blogspot.com Mar. 6, 2009
the worthless word for the day is: agathist
[fr. Gk agathos, good + -ist; cf. optimist]
/AG ah thist/
rare an adherent of the doctrine that all things
tend toward ultimate good
"The existence of evil compels Dr Miller to substitute
the moderate title of 'Agathist' for that of 'Optimist'."
- Sydney Smith, The Edinburgh Review Oct. 1829
"The agathist is like an optimist, but more rational
and profound. "
- Charles Elster, There's a Word for It (2005)
the worthless word for the day is: pedascule
[fr. pedant]
archaic nonce-word a contemptuous diminutive
of 'pedant', coined (or discovered) by WS
According to Warburton, "He should have said
Didascule [fr. Gk didaskalos; but thinking this too
honourable he coins the word Pedascule, in imita-
tion of it, from pedant." And Stevens opines, "I
believe it is no coinage of Shakepeare's; it is more
probable that it lay in his way and he found it."
How fiery and forward our pedant is!
Now, for my life, the knave doth court my love.
Pedascule, I'll watch you better yet.
- W. Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew, iii. 1
(c. 1590)
No pedascule,
he bears in his visage such spirits and fires...
She will a handmaid be to his desires.
- Ausonius, tr. by David Slavitt (1998)
the worthless word for the day is: intrigante
[F. < intriguer, to intrigue] /in trE gahnt/
a woman who intrigues; a busybody (also intriguante)
"Well, Sir, my mistress was the greatest intriguante of
her party.."
- Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Devereux (1829)
"..the most fascinating woman they had ever known, but
also as an intrigante of dark and winding ways.."
- Gertrude Atherton, Black Oxen (1923)
""'Intrigante' conjures up the idea of lightness which
I refute. I am not an intrigante; I'm a hard worker. It
was vital for me to earn my living," [Miss Dati] said."
- Telegraph (London) 09 Mar 2009
the worthless word for the day is: slughorn
[erroneous use of slughorne, an early form of slogan]
a trumpet
some caught a slughorne and an onsett wounde
- Thomas Chatterton, Battle of Hastings (1770)
I saw them and I knew them all. And yet
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
And blew. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came."
- Robert Browning, Childe Roland... (1855)
"The name "Roland", references to his slughorn (a pseudo-
medieval instrument which only ever existed in the mind of
Thomas Chatterton and Browning himself), general medieval
setting and the title childe (a medieval term not for a
child but for an untested knight) suggest that the
protagonist is the paladin of The Song of Roland..."
- wikipedia
this week: ghost words and fictitious entries - we've
seen others, from dord to zzxjoanw; here come five more
the worthless word for the day is: phantomnation
[misinterpretation of 1725 quot.]
appearance as of a phantom; illusion. (Obs. and rare.) Pope.
{Webster 1864}
Phantomnation
To The Editor Of The Nation:
Sir: Nowhere that I have seen this monstrosity adverted to is anything said
relative to its history.
We find, in Richard Paul Jodrell's Philology on the English Language, published
in 1820: "Phantomnation, n. A multitude ot spectres. These solemn vows
and holy offerings paid To all the phantomnations of the dead.
Pope, Odyssey, b. x., v.'627."
Worcester followed, in 1860, with: "Phantomnation, n. Illusion. Pope."
A few years later, Webster's editors proposed, aiming at an improvement on
Worcester: "Phantomnation, n. Appearance as of a phantom; illusion. [0bs.
and rare.] Pope."
In England and its dependencies, this Brummagem [spurious] gem of lexicography
is known chiefly through the medium of Ogilvle's Dictionary.
If those who have accepted phantomnation as incomplex [simple, uncompounded]
had used their eyes to proper purpose, their recorded treatment of it would
have been impossible. Though "a multitude of spectres" is not one with "a
nation made up of phantoms," Jodrell plainly understood what he essayed to
define. But his definition was passed by unobserved, and so was the very
next article after his phantomnation, namely, phantomprophet, - also credited
to Pope, - explained by "an incorporeal seer." A single glance, other than
the most hasty, at his article on either of those eccentricities would have
sufficed to reveal that he was possessed with a singular caprice. In phantom
we have a substantive passing into an adjective; so that, phantomnation being
no stereotyped combination, either phantom-nation or phantom nation is
permissible, with hardly anything to choose between them. The point is by
no means a nice one.
Worcester, where quoted above, gives no information as to where he learned
that Pope has phantomnation, or as to who first defined it "illusion," or
something similar. It would be curious to know how many of those who, like
him, have appropriated it, were aware of its being in Jodrell. That they
all went astray owing to a coincidence of oscitancy [inattentiveness] is
clearly beyond belief. We must suppose, then, that their miscarriage had
its source in the too frequent practice of their craft in general: whatever
novelty one of them brings forward is spheterized [appropriated] by his
successors in compilation, without scrutiny and without acknowledgment of
indebtedness.
- F. H. Jan 13, 1900
"These solemn vows and holy offerings paid
To all the phantom nations of the dead.."
- Alexander Pope, The Odyssey of Homer (1725)
the worthless word for the day is: kelemenopy
[fr. the alpha sequence klmnop] /kel em en OH pea/
a sequential straight line through the middle of
everything, leading nowhere
<a strictly sequential irrelevance - John Ciardi>
"A good example of the nonce word is kelemenopy,
which John Ciardi invented in a A Browser's Dictionary
(1980) solely to indulge his wish to father a word."
- Jeff Jaske, Storied Words (2004)
"Ted Kennedy's political career is a kelemenopy
through 20th-century American politics."
- John Ciardi, NPR's "On Words"
the worthless word for the day is: abacot
[see OED2 quote]
a corruption of the word bycoket, a kind of cap or
head-dress
"Through a remarkable series of blunders and ignorant
reproductions of error, [bycoket] appears in modern
dictionaries as abacot.. (some of which provide a
picture of the 'abacot'), and even inserted in
dictionaries of English and foreign languages."
- Oxford English Dict. 2nd Ed. (1989)
"Abacot, (ab'-a-kot) The cap of state, used in old
times by our English kings, wrought up in the figure
of two crowns.
- Johnson's Dictionary (1828)
"It came then to his reeling mind that an appropriate
costume for the deed would be the robes and abacot
of a Minor Priest."
- Gelett Burgess, Lady Mechante (1909)
"Murray proved to be an adept ghostbuster, revealing
abacot to be based on an early misprint of bycoket
(a cap or head-dress) after which, bizarrely, it had
taken on an entirely independent life and meaning in
the pages of various dictionaries, being passed down
'like a precious heirloom' from Phillips to Bailey,
Ash and Johnson, as well as to the canonical Webster."
- Lynda Mugglestone, Lost for Words (2005)
the worthless word for the day is: mountweazel
[see quotes]
a bogus entry purposely inserted into a reference
work: a copyright trap
"Turn to page 1,850 of the 1975 edition of the New
Columbia Encyclopedia and you'll find an entry for
Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, a fountain designer
turned photographer.. she never existed."
- Henry Alford, The New Yorker Aug. 29, 2005
"And only publishing insiders know that a Mountweazel
is "a bogus entry purposely inserted in a dictionary
or encyclopedia as a means of protecting copyright.""
- William Safire, N.Y. Times Mag. Dec 3, 2006
(following up on last week's theme, nothing at all
to do with taxidermy 8-)
the worthless word for the day is: obambulate
[fr. L. obambulare, to walk to] /oh BAM byuh late/
archaic to walk about; wander aimlessly
"[T]hey do not obambulate and wander up and down,
but remain in certain places and receptacles of
happiness or unhappiness."
- John Boys, An exposition of the festival.. (1615)
"While we alas ! must still obambulate,
Sequacious of the Court and Courtier's Fate."
- Francis Rabelais, Works (tr. 1653)
"We have often seen noble statesmen obambulating
(as Dr. Johnson would say) the silent engraving-room,
obviously rehearsing their orations."
- The Year's Art (1917)
(nothing at all to do with Japanese or Kenyan surnames)
this week : unexpected connections (or not)
the worthless word for the day is: idiotism
[(1) fr. L. idiotismus, common or vulgar
manner of speaking (2) idiot + -ism]
1) a peculiarity of phrase: idiom
2) a lack of knowledge: ignorance; stupidity
"The expression 'in or with respect' is an
idiotism, a phraseological construction of an
adverbial character, and in its ordinary modern
use it is the equivalent of relatively."
- Edmund Routledge, Every Boy's Annual (1865)
"People get sympathy when they have damaged
themselves by the perpetration of an idiotism.."
- Scotsman, 8 Apr. 1864
"Now, I know that idiotism is highly contagious.
But even I was surprised it can go this far.
- Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Mar. 11, 2009
(best not to use this in connection with idioms)
the worthless word for the day is: sicarian
[fr. L. sicarius < sica, dagger]
rare (relating to) a murderer, esp. an assassin
"In a nation which produced the sicarii, Pilate
had given a fatal precedent of sicarian conduct;
the Assassins had received from their Procurator
an example of the use of political assassination.
- Frederic Farrar, Life of Christ (1874)
"We called the Sicarian - Lujan, our enforcer - it
was taken care of. "
- Thea Devine, Sensation (2004)
(the Sicarii (dagger-men) were the occupiers of
the fortress Masada, taken by the Romans in 74CE)
the worthless word for the day is: cliosophic
[fr. Gk kleiein : to tell of, celebrate + -sophic, of wisdom]
rare in praise of wisdom (usu. capitalized)
"The College of New Jersey had two clubs at this time: the
American Whig Society and the Cliosophic Society. Burr
was unusual because he belonged to both-the Whigs, until
he switched to the Clios."
- Nancy Isenberg, Fallen Founder (2007)
"When Gibson joined the Cliosophic Society [a debating club],
he was given the cognomen Decius."
- Thomas A. Foster, Long Before Stonewall (2007)
(connected to Clio, the Greek muse of history, but little to
do with the annual advertising Clio awards named after her)
the worthless word for the day is: organonymy
[organo- + -onymy] /OR guh NAH nuh me/
1) Anat. obs. rare the nomenclature of the body organs
2) rare the study of the names of musical instruments
"The terms.. are the names of parts, organ-names, or
organonyms, and their consideration constitutes
organonymy."
- Buck's Ref. Handbk. of Med. Sci (1889)
"Organonymy (by analogy with toponymy) would seem to be
an essential part of organology."
- World Archaelogy (1981)
"An essential part of organology is the analytical
classification of instruments from different epochs
and cultures."
- The New Grove Dictionary of Music (1980)
the worthless word for the day is: imborsation
[ad. It. imborsazione] /im bur SAY shun/
an Italian mode of election in which the names of the
candidates were put into a bag to be drawn by lot
"The imborsations are made, and eight hundred names
are put in the purses."
- John Adams, A Defence of the Constitutions.. (1787)
"After this they fortified themselves with new laws and
ordinances, and made a fresh imborsation, substituting
the names of their friends for those of their enemies."
- Niccolò Machiavelli, The Florentine Histories
(tr. 1845)
(this week is all about names)
the worthless word for the day is: micronymy
[micro-, small + -onymy, method of denotation]
obs. nonce word
the use of short terms or names in scientific nomenclature
"Astronomers have set an example in micronymy that
anatomists might well follow."
- Buck's Handbook of Med. Sciences (1889)
"Program content: to explain terminology: onomastics,
toponymy, anthroponymy, micronymy, hydronymy,
urbanonymy, ethnonymy, etc; the subject and methodology
of onomastics research; the toponymy and anthroponymy
of the region; classifications in onomastics; the state
of onomastics research in the region and directions of
development; the specific character of the research;
place and person names of Polish, Belarussian, Ukrainian,
Lithuanian and other origins; the meaning of onomastics
research in the realization of an educational program in
schools..."
- Inst. of East-Slavonic Philology, Belarussian philology
the worthless word for the day is: polyonymosity
[polyonymous + -osity]
rare the use of several different names for the
same person or thing
"In rural polyonymosity it is hailed as sheep-sorrel,
cuckoo-spice, hallelujah, ladies' cakes, [etc]. Need
it be added that it is also St. Patrick's one true
shamrock?"
- Walter De La Mare, Times Lit. Suppl. 3 May 1923
the worthless word for the day is: onomasticon
[fr. Gk onomazein, to name] /ON uh MAE stik on/
a vocabulary or lexicon of proper names or place names
"[The] book ends.. with a Glossary or Onomasticon
interpreting the proper names which have been used..."
- George Saintsbury, History of the French Novel (1917)
"There's the Buffyverse Onomasticon, an online resource
that gives the origins of the names of all the characters
in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
- Michael Quinion, World Wide Words 17 Sep 2005
the worthless word for the day is: disquiparant
[fr. med. L. disquiparantia]
Logic obs. pertaining to the relation of two correlates
which are heteronymous, i.e. denoted by different names,
as father and son, or husband and wife
"There are said, in [Aristotle's] book of Categories, to be
four kinds of opposites. Relative opposites are relate and
correlate of a disquiparant relation. Contrary opposites
are the most unlike species of the same genus, as black and
white, sickness and health. The third kind of opposition is
between a habit and its privation, as sight and blindness.
The fourth kind is between affirmation and negation. This
passage has prevented the word opposite from taking any
definite meaning in philosophy."
- Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology (1902)
the worthless word for the day is: obaceration
[fr. L. obacerare to contradict, interrupt]
/oh BASS uh RAY shun/?
obs. rare the act of shutting someone's mouth
(cf. obacerate, to shut someone's mouth; contradict)
"Obaceration is the action of shutting someone's
mouth -- whether metaphorically or physically is
not clear."
- Erin McKean, AskOxford 14 Apr 2005
(Bird actually had this spelled correctly, but dropped
it for lack of verification; as of Dec. 2008 it has a
definitive headword in OED online, whereas it was
pretty well obscured (under obacerate) in OED2.)
this week I've got obscure words that were at some
point purged from Christopher Bird's Grandiloquent
Dictionary because they couldn't be confirmed by
using various available online resources - in these
instances because they were misspelled! as a
result, the misspellings have some net ubiety.
(e.g., he had abecedarian (the usual spelling)
originally as abcedarian, a nice conceit actually
given as a variant by OED2.)
this all provides support for one of my disclaimers:
You try spell-checking this stuff!
the worthless word for the day is: schrecklichkeit
[G. Schrecklichkeit, a deliberate policy of terrorizing
the enemy (esp. non-combatants) as a military asset]
/SHREK likh kahyt/
frightfulness (in the above sense); also trans. and fig.
"The British frightfulness of 1943 has left the German
Schrecklichkeit of 1915 far behind."
- G. B. Shaw, Everybody's Polit. What's What? (1944)
"I embarked on the quotidian schrecklichkeit of
getting up."
- K. Bonfiglioli, Don't Point that Thing at Me (1972)
(Bird had this misspelled as schrecklichkreit)
the worthless word for the day is: imparlibidinous
[impar, unequal + libidinous] /im PAHR li BID i nus/
very rare relating to an unequal state of desire
between two people (another nonce/inkhorn term?)
"When you ask the woman of your dreams out on a date
and she [mocks] you, and says she would rather couple
with a rhino, simply explain to your friends that the
two of you were imparlibidinous."
- Novobatzky & Shea, Depraved and Insulting English
(2002)
(Bird had this as inparlibidinous.)
the worthless word for the day is: percribrate
[fr. L. percribro, to sift thoroughly < cribrum, sieve]
obs. rare to sift; pass through a sieve
"The extravagated blood.. percribrates and
trickles into the vessells of the vena cava."
- Henry Power, Sloane MS British Mus. (1652)
(the misspelling in C. S. Bird was percribate)
the worthless word for the day is: mutuatitial
[fr. L. mutuatio, a borrowing]
/myoo choo uh TISH ul/
obs. rare [adj] borrowed [n] something borrowed
(heading) "Mutuatitial essais." [essays]
- Robert Vilvain, Enchiridium Epigr. (1654)
(hdng) "The sixth classis or century of mutuatitials."
- Robert Vilvain, Enchiridium Epigr. (1654)
(mutuatitial was misspelled as mutatitial)
the worthless word for the day is: cacestogenous
[fr. Gk kakesto, ill-being + -genous, of or relating
to origin or development] /kak us TOJ un us/?
very rare caused by unfavorable home environment
this is probably a nonce/inkhorn term coined by
someone who used it once and stuck it on a list of
hard words
from time to time folks come to wwftd searching out
really obscure words - imagine my surprise! this week
I'll reveal five more of these. (I have no way of
knowing who exactly does these searches, so I'll just
have to say thanx to all.)
the worthless word for the day is: dartle
[dim. of dart] /DART ul/ (cf. sparkle)
archaic, rare to dart or shoot forth repeatedly
"My star that dartles the red and the blue!"
- Robert Browning, My Star (1855)
"Out from the incandescent heart of the kindling
amethyst begin to dartle and to flash violet..."
- Edward Bulwer Lytton, The Ring of Amasis (1863)
(not to be confused with dottle!)
the worthless word for the day is: illaqueation
[fr. L. laqueare, to snare] /il LAK wi A shon/
obs. the act of entangling in a snare; esp. an
entangling argument
"Secondly, there is a seducement that worketh by the
strength of the impression, and not by the subtlety of
the illaqueation; not so much perplexing the reason as
overruling it by power of the imagination."
- Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning (1605)
the worthless word for the day is: doryphore
[F. doryphore, Colorado beetle (a pest)] /DOR i fo(r)/
(coined by Sir Harold Nicholson) also doriphore
one who gains inordinate pleasure from detecting minor
errors; a pedantic nitpicker
"Conversely the prig, the pedant, or the doriphore
were thought unworthy of the name of gentleman."
- Harold Nicholson, Good Behavior (1956)
"When [the editors].. took me to lunch, they were rigidly
abstemious, lest they fuddle their minds and give hostages
to subsequent doryphores on returning to work."
- New Yorker, 3 Apr 1989
regarding yesterday's garbled Kate Burridge citation, I
received the following note, "you must have missed an n
in commenstaions."
the following quote seems to apply:
"For a doryphore, what is more delightful than a
mistake in a correction?"
- Herb Caen, San Francisco Chronicle (1996)
the worthless word for the day is: deipnetic
[fr. Gk deipnon, the principal meal + -etic]
obs. rare pertaining to dinner; fond of eating
"Of peculiar interest in connection with the present
study is the mimic letter which occurred in the
"deipnetic" or banquet literature of Chaerophon..."
- Reinhard Becker, A War of Fools (1981)
"She was an opsophagist, coenaculous and cuppendous -
pabulous commesations were an ephialtes for the
deipnetic."
- Kate Burridge, Blooming English (2004)
the worthless word for the day is: idiolalia
[NL fr. idio-, private + -lalia, speech]
an idiosyncratic language, one invented and spoken
by only one or a very few people; often the private
language of twins: idioglossia
"Manichaeans who see two Rockets, good and evil,
who speak together in the sacred idiolalia of the
Primal Twins..."
- Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (1973)
the worthless word for the day is: anecdotage
[anecdote + -age] or [anecdote + dotage]
1) anecdotes collectively
2) facetious garrulous old age
Grandfather is in his anecdotage.
"Successive campaign advisers had tried without
success to get him to give briefer answers, but
nothing had stemmed the logorrheic tide, the
tsunami of subordinate clauses and parenthetical
asides, the inexorable mudslide of anecdotage."
- Christopher Buckley, Supreme Courtship (2008)
"When a man fell into his anecdotage it was a
sign for him to retire from the world."
- Benjamin Disraeli, Lothair (1870)
the worthless word for the day is: jactancy
[fr. L. jactare, to throw]
boastfulness; boasting
"He does not strut in innocent pride and open
jactancy and crow like Chanticleer to wake the
world to labor and joy o' the sun."
- Christian Gauss, Why We Went to War (1918)
"There was no need now for jactancy in an
attempt to magnify himself. Sufficiently had
his achievements magnified him."
- Rafael Sabatini, Columbus (2001)
the worthless word for the day is: icosahedron
[Gk eikosaedron] /eye kO suh HEE drun/
a polyhedron having 20 plane faces
"It was an icosahedron. Twenty faces, each of them an
equilateral triangle... Geometers loved icosahedrons,
but so did nature; viruses, spores, and pollens had
all been known to take this shape. So perhaps it was a
space-adapted life form, or a giant crystal that had
grown in a gas cloud."
- Neal Stephenson, Anathem (2008)
the worthless word for the day is: grassation
[fr. L. grassari : to go about, attack, rage against]
obs. an act of attacking violently; a lying in wait
to attack
"He addes with extreame intemperance, that this claime
to that Kingdome was buried a while, but revived againe
by Tyrannicall force, by violent grassation, and by the
robbery of Princes.."
- John Donne, Pseudo-martyr (1610)
"For example, he sneered at Italianate composers,
saying that their "Cassations" should really be called
"Grassations"."
- Mary Sue Morrow, German Music Criticism.. (1997)
the worthless word for the day is: hypotyposis
[Gk hypotyposis sketch, outline] /hy po ty PO sus/
vivid picturesque description
"Simple and suitable language, the effective metaphor,
'the nervous hypotyposis' may be introduced."
- Dublin Review Oct. 1897
"The list could surely go on, and there is nothing
more wonderful than a list, instrument of wondrous
hypotyposis."
- Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose (tr. 1983)
the worthless word for the day is: snaffle
[of obscure origin]
Brit. dialect to steal, purloin; to obtain by
devious means, snatch
" Jack discovered how to extend the TV mosaic image..
seemingly snaffling up just anybody from anywhere."
- Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media (1964)
Hundreds of BBC staff snaffle six-figure pay
- Times Online (headline) Jan 24, 2009
the worthless word for the day is: snaste
[origin unknown] /snAst/
obsolete the wick of a snuffed candle
obs. rare to snuff a candle
"The swiftest in consuming was that with saw-dust;
which first burned fair till some part of the
candle was consumed, and the dust gathered about
the snaste..."
- Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum (1627)
the worthless word for the day is: shonky
[origin unknown]
Austral. informal of poor quality, shoddy; inferior
(thanx to The Pook)
"They are based on shonky science, rubbery data
and green myths."
- The Macleay Argus, Australia Jan 8, 2009
"His drunken friend, his shonky but energetic manager
and his bumbling aristocratic fool of an uncle are
all caught in the whirlpool of his illness."
- The Australian Jan 25, 2009
the worthless word for the day is: shtook
[origin unknown (app. not Yiddish)] /shtook/
also shtuck or schtuck
U.K. informal, esp. in phrase: in (dead) shtook
a problem situation
"If it falls down on any of these points, you
are likely to be in dead shtook."
- Racing Post Jan. 31, 2003
"Do they really believe George W Bush rang up
Tony Blair and said something like: "I'm in dead
shtuck in Ohio. We need a futile gesture. You'll
have to send the Black Watch to Baghdad"?"
- Richard Littlejohn, The Sun (London) Oct 22, 2004
the worthless word for the day is: snarge
[prob. onomatopoia] /snarj/
the Feather Identification Lab at the Smithsonian
Institution has, sometime within this century,
coined this term for the goop that remains of a
bird after it collides with an airplane
(notwithstanding Charles Elster's insistence that
it's really "a person nobody likes; a total jerk")
(thanx to Betsy!)
"Carla Dove(!) and her team at the feather-
identification lab at the Smithsonian Institution's
National Museum of Natural History, study snarge -
that's the bird goo that is wiped off an aircraft
after it hits a bird."
- All Things Considered [NPR], Jan. 16, 2009
"How badly do I want to hear Tamara Taylor say,
"Any word on the snarge?" and/or "There's human
DNA in the snarge"? So. Badly."
- Jamie Frevele, The Huffington Post Jan 21, 2009
the worthless word for the day is: solitarian
[fr. L. solitarius, solitary] a recluse, a hermit
"At the other end of the solitarian spectrum we find
the American monk Thomas Merton, who found monastery
life too gregarious for his eremitical taste..."
- David McKie, The Guardian May 9, 2002
""I've spent most of my life alone. Holidays.
Birthdays. Symposiums. Even football games. You
are dealing with an expert in solitude. I'm an
award-winning solitarian.""
- Jennifer Vanderbes, Easter Island (2003)
the worthless word for the day is: cacozelia
[Gk kakozelia: unhappy imitation; affectation]
/ka ko ZEEL i a/
studied affectation in diction or style, as in a
speech filled with pedantic latinisms and inkhorn
terms (not to be confused with lalochezia?)
""It's not over until it's gone" should be
this nation's watchword.
Until what's gone, you ask, eyes coruscating
with the eager spirit of youth, brow bulging
quaquaversally (pardon my cacozelia)."
- Ben Tripp, counterpunch.org Oct 26, 2004
"[T]he Times may just be engaging in epicaricacy,
but that should not compel us to give ourselves
over to cacozelia."
- James Robbins, nationalreview.com Nov 18, 2008
the worthless word for the day is: balneary
[fr. L. balneum, bath] /BAL nee er ee/
of or relating to a bath, bathing, or a bathroom
(also balneal)
"In fantasy I view and loathe each balneary
station - I have been down at Pebbleton-on-Sea."
- Weekly Westminster Gazette, 29 Aug 1924
""I saw the servants this morning when they were
making the search; they opened the door of the
balneary and took a glance inside, without
investigating.""
- Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose (tr. 1983)
the worthless word for the day is: encomiastic
[fr. Gk enkomiazein, to praise] /en CO mi AS tic/
praising; eulogistic; laudatory
"That the views held by the majority of people on social
questions are formed largely by their environment seems
clearly apparent from the endless encomiastic letters
and editorials in the press regarding Andrew Carnegie
and his library hobby."
- E. B. Swinney, N. Y. Times Mar 31, 1901
"He and Elle.. had spent a tipsy evening extracting
from this critical molehill an encomiastic mountain."
- Reginald Hill, Death Comes for the Fat Man
the worthless word for the day is: fumid
[fr. L. fumus, smoke] (rhymes with humid)
smokey, vaporous; hence, fumidity (smokiness)
"He imagined himself standing on the corner, taking in
the view, smelling the fumid city air mixed with the
stink of stale alcohol and fast food,"
- Val McDermid, The Mermaids Singing (1995)
""Good night," he said, and went out into the rich
fumid air of a Manchester summer evening."
- Reginald Hill, Death Comes for the Fat Man
"Temperatures soar and the humidity thickened in
a syrupy morass that Cam not so cheerfully dubbed
"fumidity."
- Nora Roberts, Rising Tides (1998)
the worthless word for the day is: clemmed
[fr. ME forclemmed, pinched with hunger] /klem'd/
UK dial. hungry; famished
"'All this hanging around's fair clemmed me.'"
- Reginald Hill, Death Comes for the Fat Man (2007)
the worthless word for the day is: rathe
[OE hræth] /rayth/
appearing or ripening early in the year
bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies - John Milton
"Most of these businesses proved as short-lived
as the rathe primrose that forsaken dies..."
- Reginald Hill, Death Comes for the Fat Man (2007)
""Can I help you, Mr. Penn?" said Rye with enough
frost in her voice to blast a rathe primrose."
- Reginald Hill, Dialogues of the Dead (2001)
the worthless word for the day is: simoniac
[fr. LL. simonia, simony] /sy MOE nee ak/
one who practices simony, or the buying and
selling of church offices and preferments
"In any event, he hadn't seen him for a long time,
and Michael's friends hastened to paint the
portrait of that simoniac in the darkest hues."
- Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose (tr. 1986)
the worthless word for the day is: refection
[fr. refect < L. reficere, to refresh]
/rih FEK shun/
1) now rare refreshment of the mind or spirit:
nourishment
2) the taking of food and drink: repast
"The abbot asked him whether he wanted to join the
community for the midday refection, after sext."
- Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
(tr. William Weaver, 1986)
the worthless word for the day is: Nissen hut
[after Peter Nissen, Brit. mining engineer]
a prefabricated shelter with a semicircular arching
roof of corrugated iron sheeting and a concrete floor
cf. Quonset hut
"He found Haydon in a Nissen hut hidden among the trees."
- John Le Carré, Tinker, Tailor.. (1974)
"They got to their barracks, which were Nissen huts
heated by twin pot-bellied stoves, ..."
- Stephen Ambrose, Band of Brothers (2001)
the worthless word for the day is: Oxbridge
[conflation of Oxford + Cambridge]
[n] 1) a fictional university, esp. regarded as a
composite of Oxford and Cambridge 2) the universities
of Oxford and Cambridge regarded together, esp. in
contrast to other British universities
[adj] regarding Oxbridge, often with implication of
superior social or intellectual status
"'Rough and ready, your chum seems,' the Major said.
'Somewhat different from your dandy friends at Oxbridge.'"
- W. M. Thackeray, The History of Pendennis (1850)
"The searchlight was remorselessly on Tessa, the Society
Girl Turned Oxbridge Lawyer, the Princess Diana of the
African Poor..."
- John Le Carré, The Constant Gardener (2000)
the worthless word for the day is: Persil
[Persil is a brand of laundry detergent in the UK]
of no intelligence interest: clean
"..after three years he was graded Persil: investigated
in depth and found to be of no intelligence interest."
- John Le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974)
"Toby Esterhase's lamplighter reports carried no adverse
trace whatever. Both had been investigated, both were
graded Persil: the cleanest category available."
- ibid.
"I'm dirtier than Emmanuele, its' a crud that started
collecting centuries ago, Persil lave plus blanc, it
calls for a Detergent the Father, girl, a cosmic soap."
- Julio Cortazar, Hopscotch (tr. Rabassa, 1966)
the worthless word for the day is: chumbolone
[of uncertain origin, perhaps a comflation of chump and
It. strombolone?]
Italian-American slang a stupid idiot
""I gave him lip service," Doyle said. "I didn't know
what he was talking about. I don't wanna look like a
chumbolone, an idiot, stupid," Doyle said from the
witness stand."
- John Kass, Chicago Tribune August 24, 2007
the worthless word for the day is: doofusistic
[fr. doofus, a stupid, incompetent person]
done by a doofus, or with a doofus, or to a doofus, or
in the name of a doofus, or in lieu of a doofus, or
just with a doofus-like flair
"OK, now you are just being wilfully doofusistic."
- wikipedia, 18 Mar 2005
(another neologism, with thanx to Mark Peters)
the worthless word for the day is: freudenschade
[as opposed to schadenfreude]
dissatisfaction, unhappiness, or pain as the
result of someone else's good fortune
(this week, some neologisms for the nonce)
"..my chief emotion was, to coin a phrase, Freudenschade."
- Erin Korn, Remainders (1989)
"The comment and letter.. on schadenfreude reminded
me that there is no single word to express the feeling
of disappointment at someone else's success. I suggest
'freudenschade' might fill the gap."
- The Observer (London), letter to the editor
Dec 31, 2006
the worthless word for the day is: latration
[fr. L. latrare, to bark]
a barking
"With which attendant indignities?
The unsympathetic indifference of previously amiable
females, the contempt of muscular males, the acceptance
of fragments of bread, the simulated ignorance of casual
acquaintances, the latration of illegitimate unlicensed
vagabond dogs, the infantile discharge of decomposed
vegetable missiles, worth little or nothing or less
than nothing."
- James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)
the worthless word for the day is: borak
[fr. Ab. (Wathawurung) burag] /boraek/
also borac(k), borax
Austral. and NZ slang nonsense, humbug; banter;
esp. in phr. to poke (the) borak, to make or poke
fun (see also, taking the mickey)
The old boy had been poking borak at him about
anthropology... - Herbert (1975)
"Now he takes delight in poking the borax at his
friends who support the northern London powerhouse
club, the Gunners."
- Richard Knowler, Manawatu Standard 13 Jun 2008
the worthless word for the day is: zhoosh
[fr. Romani cant] chiefly UK (gay) slang
to tweak, finesse or improve something (e.g., one's hair)
"If a gay hairdresser in London offers to zhoosh
you, it's safe to accept his titivation even if
you're a straight man."
- Caleb Crain, ibid.
"Mom so loved what Jill did for me that she asked
her to zhoosh her living room. We stole the word
"zhoosh" from Carson Kressley on Queer Eye for the
Straight Guy. It means to style, to shoot your
sleeves, to spruce up."
- D. G. Fulford, Designated Daughter (2008)
the worthless word for the day is: titivation
[titivate + -ion] /TID uh VAY shun/
the action of sprucing up or making small
additions or improvements in appearance
"And I have even, in addition, a dim vague view of
re-introducing, with a good deal of titivation and
cancellation, the too-diffuse but, I somehow feel,
tolerably full and good "Bostonians" of nearly a
quarter of a century ago..."
- Henry James (letter to Wm Howells) 7 Aug 1908
"If a gay hairdresser in London offers to zhoosh
you, it's safe to accept his titivation even if
you're a straight man."
- Caleb Crain, The Nation Dec 10, 2008
the worthless word for the day is: holus-bolus
[prob. reduplication of bolus, a large pill]
/HO lus BO lus/
all at once: altogether
(file bolus under: so that's what that's called)
"With these words, she appeared to lose all command
over herself; and, making a sudden snatch at the heap
of silver, put it back, holus-bolus, in her pocket."
- Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone (1868)
"That scene is stolen, holus bolus, for the remake,
which lards in all the fiery extras that really don't
add much."
- Peter Howell (movie critic), The Toronto Star
Feb 3, 2008
"With your thumb, push the stem rod forward to place
the capsule or bolus into the horse's throat."
- Theo. Landers, Professional Care of the Racehorse
(2006)
the worthless word for the day is: emacity
[fr. L. emacitas, a desire to buy] /ee MAS i tee/
rare a fondness for buying things
"So in matter of this Literatorie chaffer, I.. went on
in my Laudatives, to procure the greater Longing, that
an ardent desire might stir up an emacity, to the
furtherance of my proposed end."
- Sir Thomas Urquhart, Logopandecteision (1653)
"During our trip to Paris, my wife demonstrated her
remarkable emacity."
- The Times (London), Expand Your Vocabulary
August 25, 2007
the worthless word for the day is: agraffe
[F. agrafe < agrafer, to hook onto] /uh GRAF/
1) a kind of hook, which fastens to a ring, used
as a clasp
2) the wire cage holding down the cork in a bottle
of champagne (also, F. muselet)
(file under: so that's what that's called)
"The feather of an ostrich, fastened in her turban
by an agraffe set with brilliants, was another
distinction..."
- Walter Scott, Ivanhoe (1820)
"Audoin's greatest Champagne is, without doubt,
his Cuvée de Prestige, which is sealed in the
18th century style with a waxed-cord agraffe."
- Tom Stevenson, World Encyclopedia of Champagne
(2003)
the worthless word for the day is: bayard
[fr. bayard, a bay-colored horse] /BAY urd/
obs. one who has the self-confidence of ignorance
"..and this he presumes to do, being a bayard,
who never had the soul to know what conversing
means..."
- John Milton, Colasterion (1645)
Bold as blind Bayard..
- ancient proberb
"You are as bold as blind Bayard the horse, who
blunders forth and thinks of no peril.."
- Chaucer, The Canon's Yeoman's Tale (c 1386)
the worthless word for the day is: apricity
[fr. L. apricus, exposed to the sun] obs. rare
warmth in the sun, sunshine {N. Bailey, 1731}
the warmness of the sun in winter {Cockeram, 1623}
see also,
apricate : to bask in the sun; to expose to sunlight
"Prior to becoming inured to a castrensial mode of life,
I very injudiciously submitted to humicubations during
pernoctations; which during the initial part of my
castrametations, and alfresco employment, in connection
with nocturnal irrorations, miasmatic exhalations, and
the dankishness of the atmosphere, generated by a want
of apricity, were extremely febrifacient; causing
tertiary quassation and febriculosity."
- J. E. L. Seneker, Frontier Experience (1906)
(ed. by Thomas Stone)
[Before I became accustomed to a camping lifestyle,
I unwisely passed my nights lying (unprotected) on the
ground, which due to damp and oppressive conditions
fostered by the lack of the warmth of sunshine,
eventually resulted in chills and feverishness.]
the worthless word for the day is: horologist
[fr. horology, concerned with measuring time + -ist]
/huh RAL uh just/
a person skilled in the practice or theory of horology;
a maker of clocks or watches
""A horologist, Jack," she corrected primly... "Not a
whoremonger. Chilton told me that a master horologist
sells timepieces, not trollops.""
- Miranda Jarrett, Buried Treasure (1999)
the worthless word for the day is: extirpate
here's the word you may really want when your
first thought is decimate..
[fr. L. exstirpo, to uproot] /EK stur pate/
1a) to destroy completely: wipe out b) to root out
2) to cut out by surgery
hence, extirpation, the act of extirpating
Which was, that he, in lieu o' the premises
Of homage and I know not how much tribute,
Should presently extirpate me and mine
Out of the dukedom..:
- Wm Shakespeare, The Tempest (1610)
"The "Self-Regenerating Systems" SRS auto-programming
programme is the brainchild of the renowned Pentagon
barmy-boffin bureau, DARPA, where they never saw a
self-aware computer network hellbent on the
extirpation of humanity they didn't like."
- Lewis Page, The Register 13 Nov 2008
the worthless word for the day is: fly-tipping
[fly + tipping] U.K.
the illegal dumping of garbage in an unauthorized place
"A custodial sentence could be appropriate for an
offence of commercial flytipping even where aggravating
features, such as depositing waste of a dangerous or
offensive nature, were not present."
- The Times (London) November 25, 2008
"On the fence was a sign, Fly Tippers Will Be Prosecuted."
- Reginald Hill, The Roar of the Butterflies (2008
the worthless word for the day is: pongy
[origin unknown] /PON gy/
Brit. informal having a strong, usually unpleasant
smell; stinky, smelly
"An 8ft cell replete with pongy latrine and even
pongier cellmate."
- The Times (London), 22 Aug. 2002
"Whatever, it also smelt like a pongy red herring."
- Reginald Hill, The Roar of the Butterflies (2008)
the worthless word for the day is: chuffed
updated:
[orig. northern Eng. dial. meaning proud] /chuft/
1) pleased, delighted; flattered; very excited
2) displeased, disgruntled
"Qualifiers and context may be required to distinguish
usage from the previous sense as 'pleased'. Variants
include 'dischuffed' and 'dead chuffed'." [see below]
- Eric Partridge et al. The New Partridge Dictionary
of Slang and Unconventional English (2006)
"'He'll not be chuffed at you paying off old debts on
company time.' 'He's going to be even less chuffed if
something big did happen and South were sitting
there smugly saying, "Well, we did warn you!"'"
- Reginald Hill, Death's Jest-Book (2004)
"'And I thought that Sir Monty.. would be bum-chuffed
to hear that something bad might be happening...'"
- Reginald Hill, The Roar of the Butterflies (2008)
the worthless word for the day is: incrassate(d)
[fr. L. incrassare to fatten, make thick]
/in CRAS sate/
Botany, Zool. thickened or swollen: inspissated;
also fig.
"..lubricious investiture decommissioned externalized
incondite anastrophe incrassate misinformed.."
- William S. Burroughs, The Job (1969)
My first is in Dog House, though not in demand:
My second's incrassate until it's in hand:
My whole is in Simpson when it isn't in Bland.
- Reginald Hill, Dialogues of the Dead (2002)
the worthless word for the day is: heresiarch
[L.L. haeresiarcha < L.Gk hairesiarches]
/huh REE zee ark/
the founder of a heresy or the leader of a heretical sect
"..and the subtle African heresiarch Sabellius who held
that the Father was Himself His own Son."
- James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)
"I conjectured that this undocumented country and its
anonymous heresiarch were a fiction devised by Bioy's
modesty in order to justify a statement."
- Jorge Luis Borges Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (1940)
(tr. Andrew Hurley)
the worthless word for the day is: pullulation
[fr. L. pullulare, to sprout] /pul yuh LAY shun/
1) germination
2) a rapid and abundant increase
"The approaches to the monorail station were black
with the ant-like pullulation of lower-caste activity."
- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932)
"I felt all about me and within my obscure body an
invisible, intangible pullulation."
- Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden of Forking Paths (1941)
(tr. Andrew Hurley)
the worthless word for the day is: necrological
[necrology, an obituary + -ical] /nek ruh LOJ uh kul/
of, relating to, or having the nature of a necrology
"Herbert Quain died recently in Roscommon. I see with
no great surprise that the Times Literary Supplement
devoted to him a scant half column of necrological
pieties in which there is not a single laudatory
epithet that is not set straight (or firmly
reprimanded) by an adverb."
- Jorge Luis Borges, Collected Fictions (1941)
(tr. Andrew Hurley)
the worthless word for the day is: piste
[F. piste < It pista, track] /peest/
1) a beaten track or trail made by an animal; more
generally, any track or trail
2) a hard packed ski trail or course
"A "lost" track recorded by the band in 1967 and
performed only once in public could finally be released,
Paul McCartney told the BBC in an interview... "I like
it because it's The Beatles free, going off piste.""
- The Observer (UK) Nov 16, 2008
"Graham Anderson's family holiday to exclusive Puy St
Vincent ended in appalling tragedy when he skied off
piste with his ski school, lost control and slammed
into a tree."
- Plymouth Evening Herald (UK) Nov 14, 2008
the worthless word for the day is: cunctatory
[fr. L. cunctari, to delay] /KUNK tuh tuh ri/
(not so) rare : delaying
"When Marie tries to get a visa to go back to France,
the vicious (and often murderous) commissar Pirogov
merely tears up her passport. Aleksei, partly out of
love for the motherland, partly out of necessity,
pursues a cunctatory course, playing along with the
authorities while hoping for some future amelioration."
- John Simon, National Review, May 22 2000
"As minister, Speer had been stripped of his power to
forbid scorched-earth measures. His cunctatory tactics,
doubletalk and delay, were patent defiance of Hitler's
orders."
- James P. O'donnell, The Bunker (2001)
(thanx to rkdillon)
the worthless word for the day is: flabbergastation
[fr. flabbergast, to confound]
the state of being flabbergasted
"We scarcely remember to have ever seen any respectable
party in a greater state of flabbergastation."
- Punch (London), 13 Dec. 1856
"To the complete flabbergastation of all present, he
easily read exactly what each of the five had written
on their scraps of papers."
- Newton Newkirk, Boston Post (1920)
"Just when we thought we had heard everything from the
financial shenanigans of some of our federal agencies,
along comes this "flabbergastation"."
- Washington Post (letter to the editor) Apr 17, 1995
the worthless word for the day is: vauntless
[fr. vaunt, boasting or bragging + -less]
not bragging or boasting
"Vigorous, vauntless, straightforward, this man is as
eminent and respected a teacher of men as might well
be found today..."
- Time magazine Oct. 13, 1924
"His tongue is true, he is vauntless, and tauntless."
- Daniel Sargent (of G. M. Hopkins),
Four Independents (1977)
the worthless word for the day is: preponderate
[fr. L. praeponderare to exceed in weight or influence]
/pri PON duh rate/
1) to exceed in weight: turn the scale
2) to exceed in influence, power, importance or numbers;
predominate
"And in balancing his faults with his perfections, the
latter seemed rather to preponderate."
- Henry Fielding, Tom Jones (1749)
"All these matters, no doubt, will be duly considered by
Congress, and a decision had on whichever side the
advantages preponderate."
- George Washington (to Henry Lee), 20 July 1786
the worthless word for the day is: delation
[fr. L. delatio, an accusation, denunciation]
accusation, denouncement
"[H]e was sure that Wield wouldn't have engaged in
a deliberate act of delation over his researches
into ex-Sergeant Roote's background."
- Reginald Hill, Death's Jest-Book (2003)
"Mirabeau himself announced that 'delation is the
most important of our new virtues!'"
- Friedrich Sieburg, Robespierre the Incorruptible
(2007)
the worthless word for the day is: caliginosity
[fr. L. caliginosus: see caliginous and -ity]
/kuh lij uh nos i tee]
archaic dimness of sight; darkness
"I dare not ask the oracles: I prefer a cheerful
caliginosity, as Sir Thomas Browne might say."
- George Eliot, Daniel Deronda (1876)
"While he stops the camera from recording and
begins disassembling it, I swallow and walk out
into the whispering caliginosity."
- Jason Hornsby, Every Sigh, the End (2007)
the worthless word for the day is: mafflard
[maffle, to mumble or stammer + -ard] /MAFF lard/
obs. a stammering or blundering fool
"As his book, Reading the Oxford English Dictionary,
makes clear, Mr Shea's feat failed to make him a
better person, improve his conversation or make him
appear more intelligent. Rather it turned him into a
mafflard, bedevilled by onomatomania. "
- Ben Hoyle, The Times Oct. 4, 2008
this week: Reading the OED with Ammon Shea
the worthless word for the day is: onomatomania
[NL] /AHN uh MAD uh MANE ea/
uncontrollable obsession with words or names or
their meanings or sounds; esp.: a mania for
repeating certain words or sounds
"Time and again he returned to the subject of
Mrs. Van Alstyne as persistently as though he
were afflicted with onomatomania and her name
was his particular obsession."
- William R. Hereford, The Demagog (1909)
"I'm waiting for the next flashing.. name to
feed my onomatomania and induce reckless,
cackling giggles."
- Courier-Mail, 13 Sept. 1996
the worthless word for the day is: Sitzfleisch
[G., sitting flesh] /ZITS flaish/
the ability to endure or persist in some activity
"They simply hadn't enough Sitzfleisch to squat
under a bho-tree and get to Nirvana by contemplating
anything, least of all their own navel."
- D. H. Lawrence, Things (1928)
"There are the ghosts of governors past: Hiram Johnson
and populist uprisings; Pat Brown and build, build,
build; even Jerry Brown, ca. 1975, with his high-
decibel environmentalism, a California space program,
a string of new governmental agencies, contempt for
civil servants and not much Sitzfleisch for the daily
chores of governing."
- Peter Schrag, McClatchy - Tribune Business News
Nov 14, 2007
"I am always careful to pack a can of sitzfleisch
whenever I have to go to the post office or visit a
friend who wants to show me his entire collection of
baby pictures."
- Ammon Shea, Reading the OED (2008)
the worthless word for the day is: vocabularian
[vocabulary + -ian]
one who gives much or undue attention to words
"..the one thing that isn't contestable.. is the
last thing that left our venerable vocabularian's
mouth prior to his expiration: "Love one another,
push the perimeter of this glorious language.
Lastly, please show proper courtesy; open not your
neighbor's mail."
- Mark Dunn, Ella Minnow Pea (2001)
"Passionate vocabularians often plunge into the
unabridged dictionaries, which average 450,000
entries and offer quantities of information not
available in desk versions."
- Richard Lederer, A Man of My Words (2003)
the worthless word for the day is: anthropophagous
[L. anthropophagus] /ænthruhPOHfagus/
man-eating; feeding on human flesh
"'However domesticated your academic may look, he is
by instinct and training anthropophagous. Whatever
else is on the menu, you certainly are!'"
- Reginald Hill, Death's Jest-Book (2003)
this week: a glance at Reginald Hill
the worthless word for the day is: (to go) pear-shaped
[fr. earlier senses, shaped like a pear; rich, mellow]
chiefly Brit. colloq. to go badly wrong, to go awry
""Because as you well know, Wieldy, the last time I
asked them for help, things went a bit pear-shaped.""
- Reginald Hill, Dialogues of the Dead (2002)
"Everything went pear shaped, then banana shaped, then
no shape at all. Then I seemed to be drifting in and
out of these weird dreams."
- Reginald Hill, Good Morning Midnight (2004)
the worthless word for the day is: plonker
[fr. plonk, to set down heavily or carelessly]
Brit. informal a foolish or inept person
""Any road, I didn't say he were a useless plonker.
And if Pozzo says we ought to listen to him, then
mebbe we should.""
- Reginald Hill, Dialogues of the Dead (2002)
""I'm being a plonker, but everyone's entitled this
time of year.""
- Reginald Hill, Death's Jest-Book (2003)
the worthless word for the day is: halitotic
[ad L. halitus, breath] /HAL uh TOT ic/?
(characterized by) having bad breath
"Minus her police ally, Jax was delighted to have whatever
high-level support she could hang on to in Mid-Yorkshire
and she let the halitotic councillor rabbit on for ten
minutes or so before cutting him off with a promise to
keep him up to speed."
- Reginal Hill, Dialogues of the Dead (2002)
[commenting on the forthcoming end of Prohibition, he said]
"we have cast off the cursed yoke imposed by a parcel of
umbrella-brandishing halitotic harridans who forced the
standards of Goosetown and Waterville, Ohio upon New York,
Chicago and Union Hill, New Jersey."
- Marion Elizabeth Rodgers, Mencken (2005)
the worthless word for the day is: contortuplicate
[ad. L. contortuplicat-us < contortus, twisted together
+ plicatus, folded]
Bot. twisted back upon itself; also in extended use
""But it's all a bit... convoluted, isn't it, sir?"
"Convoluted?" echoed Dalziel. "It's [eff]ing contortuplicated!"
That sounded like a Dalziel original, but Pascoe had been
caught out before and made a note to look it up before making
comment."
- Reginald Hill, Dialogues of the Dead (2002)
the worthless word for the day is: metastasize
[fr. NL metastasis] /muh TAS tuh size/
Pathol. to spread to other parts of the body by
metastasis; in extended use, to change form or matter;
to transform
"And the possibility was also there to be considered that
what happened between the judge and his associate wasn't
seductive flirtation but something misinterpreted as
such, growing grotesque in the imagination, sufficient
to metastasize as an inclination to bestiality."
- William F. Buckley, On the Right
this week: interesting usages
the worthless word for the day is: soubrette
[F. coy, reserved] /soo BRET/
1) Theatr. a) a lady's maid in comedies who acts the
part of an intrigante : a coquettish maidservant or
frivolous young woman -- compare ingenue b) an actress
who plays such a part; in extended use, a woman playing
a role or roles in light entertainment
2) a lady's maid; a maidservant
"Although ostensibly a male - she played the wisecracking,
cigar-smoking soubrette - Holt alone wore flesh-colored
tights."
- Darryl Brock, If I Never Get Back (2007)
this week: interesting usages
(this use seems very extended)
the worthless word for the day is: luxated
[fr. L. luxare < luxus, dislocated]
put out of joint; dislocated
"[T]here's not even a recognizable human being in here.
And this isn't just because of clunky prose or luxated
structure. The book is inanimate because it communicates
no real feeling and so gives us no sense of a conscious
person."
- David Foster Wallace,
Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays (2005)
this week: interesting usages
the worthless word for the day is: perseverating
[fr. L. perseverare, to persevere] /pe(r) SEV uh rating/
repeating something insistently or redundantly
"Hoffman realizes, belatedly, the television is
perseverating, obsessively and dramatically dispensing
CNN news. His father waves irritably at the television
and gropes for the remote to shut it off."
- Kathleen George, Afterimage (2007)
the worthless word for the day is: demegoric
[fr. Gk demegoros, popular orator] /dee muh GAW rik/
of or pertaining to public speaking
"Aristotle devides rhetoric into three parts. These
are the dicanic or forensic, a speech delivered in
court; the symbouleutic or demegoric, a speech
delivered in front of a political assembly; and
finally, the epideictic, a speech concerned with
praise and blame, delivered without explicit
political or judicial function."
- Benjamin Todd Lee, Apuleius' Florida (2003)
the worthless word for the day is: gelastic
[fr. Gk gelastos, laughable] /juh LAS tik/
serving the function of laughter, risible
"The members [of the Tuesday Club] adopted what they
called the "gelastic" law: "That if any Subject of
what nature soever be discussed, which levels at
party matters, or the administration of the Government
of this province, or be disagreeable to the Club...
the Society shall laugh at the member offending, in
order to divert the discourse."
- Elaine G. Breslaw, The William and Mary Quarterly
Apr., 1975
"Personally, I want to know the kind of guy or gal
who describes a situation as "droll" or "gelastic."
But those who opt for the LOL? I kind of want to
punch them in the jimmies."
- Jen Lancaster, Bright Lights, Big Ass (2007)
the worthless word for the day is: spruntly
[origin unknown] obs.
1) vigorously; youthfully
2) smartly; gaily; neatly
"How do I look to-day? Am I not drest Spruntly?"
- Ben Jonson, The Devil is an Ass (1616)
"But he does full justice to Jonson's linguistic
zaniness. The comic high-point comes when Sheila
Steafel's Lady Tailbush ("Am I not dressed spruntly?")
begs Douglas Henshall's dragged-up Wittipol to
discourse on Spanish fucuses (cosmetics) and, advised
of some diabolical concoction to "keep it in your
gallipot well gliddered", solemnly repeats the line
as if it were a Delia Smith recipe."
- Michael Billington, The Guardian Apr 6, 1995
gallipot - a small usually ceramic pot, for medicines
gliddered - glazed over
the worthless word for the day is: sinisterity
[fr. L. sinisteritas awkwardness, untowardness, perversity]
now rare (opposed to dexterity)
1) sinister character; perversity; dishonesty
2) lack of skill or dexterity; clumsiness, awkwardness
3) use of the left hand; skill in this
"Snarling wasn't a form of communication that came easily
to him, and attempting to keep his upper teeth bared while
emitting the plosive P produced a sound effect which was
melodramatically Oriental with little of the concomitant
sinisterity."
- Reginald Hill, Dialogues of the Dead (2001)
"We might wisely keep that word [desterity] for what the
hand does at the mind's bidding; and use an opposite
word - sinisterity, - for what it does at its own."
- John Ruskin, Ariadne Florentina (1874)
"The Latin thief's - I may not say dexterity of hand without
exposing myself to the charge of making a bull - but if you
will allow me to say the Latin thief's sinisterity of hand,
became proverbial."
- R. Shilleto, in The [Cambr.] Journal of Philology (1877)
the worthless word for the day is: paronomania
[coined by Reginald Hill, after paronomasia]
a clinical obsession with word games
sometimes a person will go to great lengths in coining a
new word; take this word, for instance — on the flyleaf
of Dialogues of the Dead, Reginald Hill provided the
following fiction of an OED entry, complete with quotes
from Lyttelton, Byron and Hal Dillinger:
paronomania [Factitious word derived from a conflation
of PARONOMASIA [L. a. Gr. paronomasia] Word-play
+ MANIA (see quot. 1823)]
1. A clinical obsession with word games.
2. The proprietary name of a board game for two players
using tiles imprinted with letters to form words.
OED (2nd Edition)
"And was his attempt to read something significant into
these name changes merely a symptom of his own personal
paronomania?"
- Reginald Hill, Dialogues of the Dead (2001)
"Anthropophagous. Charley loves such words. We still
play Paronomania, you know, despite the painful memories
it must bring him."
- Reginald Hill, Death's Jest-Book (2003)
the worthless word for the day is: nimrod
[fr. Nimrod, a mighty hunter]
1) not capitalized : a hunter
2) N. Amer. slang : a stupid or contemptible person;
an idiot
"Towns such as Eagle, Glenwood Springs.. and Gunnison
throw out the welcome mat for this horde of nimrods."
- Denver Post, Oct. 1994
"The Lord doesn't give a damn what a chicken does on the
Sabbath, you nimrod! It's a chicken."
- Christopher Moore, The Gospel According to Biff (2003)
this week: words you might not expect to find in
OED and W3, but there they are
the worthless word for the day is: snarf
[prob. blend of scarf + snack]
orig. U.S. slang to consume quickly or greedily
snarfed down some pizza
"Tradition has it that way back in the day, you could
snarf up more free stuff at the State Fair than you
could carry off - I still treasure a little Heinz
pickle pin I got there when I was a kid - and that
the giveaways, in these lean times, have gone away."
- Jacquielynn Floyd, Dallas Morning News (blog)
Oct 01, 2008
the worthless word for the day is: diddly-squat
[prob. euphemistic, cf. doodly-squat]
U.S. slang the least amount: nothing (in negative
constructions, anything)
if everyone ignores it, it won't be worth diddly-squat
-- Andrew Tobias
"On the subject of managerial philosophy, Ozzie Guillen
is something of an agnostic. He believes, with his
requisite fervor, that managers account for diddly-squat
of a team's success, which is interesting, because he
gets paid more than $1 million to manage the Chicago
White Sox."
- Jeff Passan, Yahoo! Sports Sep 25, 2008
---
J. Hill writes to exclaim:
How appropriate! I have a great usage example;
Yesterday I had a nice 401k package of company stock,
today it's worth diddly-squat.
the worthless word for the day is: bushwa
[probably a euphemism for BS] also bushwah
rubbish, nonsense
there it was again: the bushwa, the sloganeering,
being poured out to him with no regard for the
truth -- David Driscoll
"If you're a detective, what was all that bushwa
about Hollywood and Sunset Boulevard?"
- Ross Macdonald, The Galton Case (1959)
the worthless word for the day is: renegacy
the action of renouncing: renegation(?)
I have not been able to find renegacy in any dictionary,
but it is in wide evidence as applied to former leftists
who have reneged their views. Prof. Martin, cited below,
answered my query thusly: "It is likely a term of art
used by the far left. Very often, extremists develop
their own language to talk to each other. The far right
does the same [sort of] thing."
"One would have to write a whole pamphlet to enumerate
the gems of renegacy of that despicable renegade Kautsky."
- V. I. Lenin, Pravda No. 219 11 October, 1918
"The Marxist-Leninist Party has persevered in steadfast
revolutionary struggle, while the opportunists, as fair-
weather "revolutionaries," are reveling in despondency
and renegacy, are denouncing the revolutionary
traditions from the mass upsurge that reached its height
in the 1960s and early 1970s, and are cowering behind
the liberals, labor bureaucrats and any bourgeois who
is willing to throw them a crumb."
- Communiqué on the Second Congress of the Marxist-
Leninist Party, USA Fall 1983 (as quoted by Prof. Gus
Martin, Essentials of Terrorism (2007))
"There are a number of factors in such renegacy. Money,
adulation and that creeping conservatism known as
growing old play a part, as does the apparent collapse
of an alternative to capitalism."
- Terry Eagleton, The Guardian July 07 2007
the worthless word for the day is: exuviate
[fr. L. exuere, to take off]
to shed (a skin or similar outer covering): molt;
to free oneself from: change
"Dictionary compilers at Collins have decided that the
word list for the forthcoming edition of its largest
volume is embrangled with words so obscure that they are
linguistic recrement. Such words, they say, must be
exuviated abstergently to make room for modern
additions..."
- The Times September 22, 2008
"The young crayfish exuviate two or three times in the
course of the first year."
- Thomas Huxley, The Crayfish (1880)
"..Wagner's observable behaviour indicated that his
intellect had yet to fully exuviate the bender's
incapacitating effects."
- Geoffrey Verdegast, Of Staves and Sigmas (2007)
bonus word: abstergent - cleansing or scouring
(thanx to B.J. Herbison)
the worthless word for the day is: snootitude
[fr. snoot, a snob; after attitude] /SNOOT uh tude/
the state of mind of a snoot; esp. in regards to the
usage of American English
(coined by David Foster Wallace?)
"Maybe it's a combination of my SNOOTitude and the
fact that I end up having to read a lot of it for my job,
but I'm afraid I regard Academic English not as a
dialectal variation but as a grotesque debasement of
SWE [Standard Written English], and loathe it even more
than the stilted incoherences of Presidential English
("This is the best and only way to uncover, destroy, and
prevent Iraq from reengineering weapons of mass
destruction") or the mangled pieties of BusinessSpeak
("Our Mission: to proactively search and provide the
optimum networking skills and resources to meet the needs
of your growing business"); and in support of this utter
contempt and intolerance I cite no less an authority than
Mr. G. Orwell, who 50 years ago had AE pegged as a
"mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence" in which
"it is normal to come across long passages which are
almost completely lacking in meaning.""
- David F. Wallace, Harper's Magazine April, 2001
but (note date),
"Palm Beach, mother ship of the insufferably wealthy, has
a track record of above-it-all snootitude that defies
reality for us in the trade classes. It was in deference
to the high-born, finely bred, princess-and-the-pea
sensitivities of Palm Beach residents that shirtless
jogging was barred from that city's streets a few years
back.I was surprised to learn they allowed pedestrianism
there at all."
- Don Addis, St. Petersburg Times Jan 15, 1989
"Snootitude is a fine coinage, but I have always wondered
what the criteria are by which certain neologisms are
silently accepted while others are not."
- Jim Bisso, Wordsmith Talk, 07/28/08
(thanx, Jim)
the worthless word for the day is: term of art
a word or phrase used in a precise sense in a
particular subject or field; a technical term
"Or will you have the goodness to supply us with
a few thumping, blustering terms of art..."
- Walter Scott, The Antiquary (1816)
""Business model" is one of those terms of art
that were central to the Internet boom: it
glorified all manner of half-baked plans."
- Michael Lewis, The New New Thing (2000)
the worthless word for the day is: presenteeism
[after absenteeism] /prez un TEE iz um /
the fact or condition of being present, esp. at work;
(a) the practice of working more hours than is required
by one's terms of employment, or of continuing to work
without regard to one's health, esp. because of perceived
job insecurity; (b) the practice of attending a job but
not working at full capacity, esp. because of illness or
stress (usually opposed to absenteeism) {OED Online}
"'Presenteeism' in War Plants Sought in Manpower Measures"
- Christian Science Monitor (header) Jan 12, 1945
"A new CIGNA survey of U.S. workers shows the flip
side of low absenteeism is "presenteeism" - coming to
work sick or distracted by personal problems, which can
lower productivity."
- Hartford Courant Sep 13, 2008
the worthless word for the day is: chaogenous
[Gk chaos + genos, born] /kay OJ en us/
arising out of (born amidst) chaos
"Then soon chaogenous dreams of revenge were fuming
in his serpent brain, the last of his sanity burned
out, and he called her to him."
- John Gardner, Jason and Medeia (1973)
"And after a time, the boiling sea of blood and all the
lopped and all the hacked-up humanity that swam within
it drained from mah head, and from it rose a pillar of
chaogenous calculus, cold and hard. And some serious
weighing up of terms ensued. Yes, there, supine beneath
a bold and brazen sun, ah struggled with some pretty
eternal, some pretty adult problems. Listen."
- Nick Cave, And the Ass Saw the Angel (1989)
the worthless word for the day is: dysnomy
[fr. Gk dys, bad + nomos, law] /DIS noh mee/
rare bad legislation; the enactment of bad laws {Cockeram}
"The state of 'eunomy' and good order which that
constitution [sc. Lycurgus'] brought about..."
- George Grote, A History of Greece (1846)
"And though our elected officials usually claim they are
committed to eunomy (like you know me), the enactment of
good laws that promote the welfare of the people, all the
wheeling and dealing of government often results in
dysnomy, the enactment of flawed legislation that
generates further difficulties and discontent."
- Charles H. Elster, There's a Word for It (2005)
the worthless word for the day is: spifflicated
[a fanciful conflation] /SPIFF likatid/
slang intoxicated, drunk
(also spiflicated)
"They forced his teeth open, and, while a couple of
them sat on his chest, they poured about a quart of
corn liquor into his system. He was so spifflicated
before they let him up that they had to lift him
bodily and plant him in a seat."
- Washington Post, July 1904
""He's spifflicated," said Andy. "We gotta keep him
quiet.""
- Darryl Brock, If I Never Get Back (1990)
"Not surprisingly, many of these terms begin with
the letter "sh" ... er ... "s": "stewed," "soused,"
"stiffed," "stinking," "snuffy," "sozzled,"
"spiflicated," "shellacked," "sloshed," "smashed,"
"schnockered," "sauced" -- and those are just the
ones we can print in the newspaper."
- Rob Kyff, Hartford Courant Jul 11, 2001
the worthless word for the day is: fedifraction
[fr. L. foedus, compact + fractionem, a breaking]
/feh di FRAK shun/? (see also fedifragous)
obs. rare a breach of faith or covenant
"I.. shall be allowed the full benefit of all the..
plenipotentialities and fedifractions that I.. can
devise."
- Nathaniel Ward (as 'B.'), Discolliminium (1650)
"And let great Jove heare thus, whose thunders great
Do truces tie, fright the fedifragous."
- Virgil's Æneid (1632, Vicars tr.)
the worthless word for the day is: perquisquilian
[fr. L. quisquiliae, trifles, rubbish] (cf. quisquilious)
obs. nonce-word thoroughly worthless
"It is a most unworthy thing for men that have bones in
them, to spend their lives in making fiddle cases for
futilous women's fancies: which are the very pettitoes
of infirmity, the giblets of perquisquilian toys."
- N. Ward, The Simple Cobler of Aggawam (1647)
but..
"Efficient primality routines blinking retribution and
incalescent divinity without the avoidance of cachinnatory
hysterics. Avoid the perquisquilian planets that hatch
pseudo magic lanterns."
- Jason Earls, Red Zen (2007)
the worthless word for the day is: mentimutation
[fr. L. mens, mind + mutation] /men ti myoo TAY tion/
obs. rare a change of mind
the exceedingly rare mentimutations of
a major league umpire - David Grambs
" I.. shall be allowed the full benefit of all the..
illaqueations, extrications,..mentimutations,
rementimutations,.. that I.. can devise."
- Nathaniel Ward (as 'B.'), Discolliminium (1650)
"[T]he arrival on the scene of Perot the Spoiler has
made his mentimutation more pronounced."
- Billy Porterfield, Austin American Statesman
Jun 24, 1992
"In fact, there may not even be total consistency in
what I say. This stems less from constant mentimutation,
than from my not knowing what position might be most
valid and useful for research purposes."
- E. Quarantelli, What is a Disaster? (1998)
the worthless word for the day is: mundicidious
[fr. L. mundus, world + -cidious (-cida, killer)]
/mun di SID ee us/ (cf. homicidious, also rare)
obs. rare likely or able to destroy the world
"[T]hese are Exorbitancies: which is a formidable
word: a vacuum and an exorbitancy, are mundicidious
evils, Concerning Novelties of opinions..."
- N. Ward, The Simple Cobler of Aggawam (1647)
the worthless word for the day is: waldo
[fr. the name of Waldo F. Jones, the inventor of such
gadgets in a science-fiction story by Robert Heinlein]
a device for handling or manipulating objects by remote
control
"Even the..humanoid gadgets known universally as 'waldoes'..
passed through several generations of development.. in
Waldo's machine shop before he redesigned them for mass
production. The first of them.. had been designed to enable
Waldo to operate a metal lathe."
- Robert A. Heinlein, Waldo (1942)
"Teleoperation on a massive scale. A kind of spiritual
waldo."
- Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars (1993)
the worthless word for the day is: uplift
[fr. earlier sense, to lift up or elevate]
to engineer a species (usually genetically) to make
them intelligent; also, the act of uplifting
"A young man on the left, wrapped in silver sateen
from the throat to toe, held up a placard that said,
'Mankind Was Uplifted Too: let our E.T. Cousins Out!'"
- David Brin, Sundiver (1980)
"[E]ver since their uplift, these species had all grown
more decadent, temperamental, and culturally sterile..
particularly those uplifted for the longest period."
- James Gardner, Ascending (2001)
the worthless word for the day is: tanstaafl
[acronym, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch]
/tans toffle/
intj. asserting that there is a cost, hidden or otherwise,
to everything
"Oh, 'tanstaafl.' Means 'There ain't no such thing as a
free lunch.' And isn't," I added, pointing to a FREE
LUNCH sign across room, "or these drinks would cost half
as much. Was reminding her that anything free costs twice
as much in long run or turns out worthless.""
- Robert Heinlein, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress (1966)
"'Tanstaafl. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
We both know that I was brought here for a reason. If we
could get down to business.'"
- Lance Parkin, The Infinity Doctors (1985)
""I noticed she had a large lapel button that said
TANSTAAFL, which I took to be some Scandinavian name.""
- Dr Helen Thomas, Thanks for the Memories, Mr. President
(2003)
the worthless word for the day is: elsewhen
[else + when] obs. at another time, at other times
but used by Robert A. Heinlein in 1941 as a novella title;
so now (in time-travel situations) at another point in time
"Her husband willed her to go to the church, which she both
then and elsewhen refused to do."
- John Foxe, The Book of Martyrs (1563)
"I appear in John Baird's apartment and set down the bag. I
look at the empty chair in front of the old typewriter, the
green beer bottle sweating cold next to it, and John Baird
appears, looking dazed, and I have business elsewhere,
elsewhen. A train to catch. I'll come back for the bag in
twelve minutes or a few millennia..."
- Joe Haldeman, The Hemingway Hoax (1990)
the worthless word for the day is: computronium
[coined by physicists Morgolus and Toffoli, for programmable
matter(?)] hypothetical material engineered to maximize its
use as a computing substrate
""The AI could have digested the entire Earth and spun its
atoms into a Dyson sphere made of pure computronium,"
Hugh told us."
- Damien Broderick & Rory Barnes, The Hunger of Time (2003)
"Planetary Elimination (example: post-Singularity beings
disassemble planet to make computronium)"
- Jamais Cascio, An Eschatological Taxonomy
(December 31, 2006)
the worthless word for the day is: feck
/fek/
feck has several vernacular meanings and variations..
[n] Scots 1) efficacy; force; value (whence, feckless)
2) (large) amount/quantity
3) greater or larger part (used with definite article)
[v] Irish Eng. 1) to steal 2) to throw
3) to leave hastily
[intj] chiefly Irish as an expletive, without sexual
connotation; as in: damn, blast
"He had a feck o' books wi' him—mair than had ever
been seen before in a' that presbytery..."
- R. L. Stevenson, Thrawn Janet (1881)
"I hae been a Devil the feck o' my life..."
- Robert Burns, Kellyburn Braes (1792)
"Because they had fecked cash out of the rector's room."
- James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist (1916)
"Our perceived reluctance to leave the timelessness
of the struck chord has earned ukulele players our
reputation as feckless, clownlike children who will
not grow up."
- Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day (2007)
this week: I may have previously failed to gloss these
the worthless word for the day is: refractory
[fr. L. refragor, to oppose] /ri FRAK t(u)ree/
1) resistant to control or authority: stubborn,
unmanageable
2) resistent to treatment; unresponsive; immune
3) capable of enduring high temperature
(not to be confused with refactory)
"I must object to Oxford's dubbing resistentialism
a "mock philosophy." There is nothing mock or sham
about it, as anyone who has ever had to call a
plumber on a Sunday morning to unclog a refractory
toilet will attest."
- Charles Elster,
Resistentialism: Things that go totally awry
Refractory Husbands (short stories)
- Mary Stewart (Doubleday) Cutting (1913)
the worthless word for the day is: autological
[fr. Gk autos, self + logos, word]
self-descriptive, self-referential
used to refer to words such as polysyllabic,
English, pronounceable, common, olde, noun, word
(compare heterological)
"If it seems questionable to include hyphenated
words, we can use two terms invented specially for
this paradox: autological (="self-descriptive"),
and heterological (= "non-self-descriptive")."
- Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach (1979)
"The question is: Is the word "heterological" auto-
logical or heterological? If it's autological, then
it's heterological. If it's heterological, then it's
autological. Ha! Ha!"
- Cathcart & Klein,
Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar (2007)
the worthless word for the day is: procerity
[fr. L. proceritas height, tallness] /pro SER udi/
now rare tallness, loftiness, height
"When he met a tall woman, he immediately commanded
one of his Titanian retinue to marry her, that they
might propagate procerity."
- Samuel Johnson, Memoirs of the King of Prussia (1756)
"You see, I'm one of those who has been blessed in the
old elevation department. If it's height, tallness,
stature, procerity or prominence you're after, then I'm
your man."
- Bob Shields, Daily Record (Scotland), 15 Jan. 2000
the worthless word for the day is: aproneer
[fr. OF. naperon + Eng. -eer]
UK, obs. a shopkeeper or tradesman
"He is scared with the menaces of some prating
Sequestrator or some surly Aproneer."
- Bp. John Gauden,
Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ suspiria (1659)
Three quid for just one pint of beer?
The price is an outrage-too dear!
This gouging must stop!
Who's in charge of this shop?
I'll have words with the head aproneer.
- Len Farano, OEDILF
this week: let's see.. describing folks, with an 'a'
the worthless word for the day is: apolaustic
[Gk apolaustikos, devoted to enjoyment]
/ap uh LOS tik/
devoted to seeking enjoyment; self-indulgent
"The lordly, apolaustic, and haughty undergraduate.."
- Saturday Review (London) (1880)
"In France President Jacques Chirac observed his 73rd
birthday with the lowest approval rating in the history
of the Fifth Republic but with the prospect that when
his term ends in 18 months he can have an apolaustic
position in that Russian-German pipeline, possibly in
its oil-for-Food program."
- The American Spectator, Feb. 2006
the worthless word for the day is: archimage
[Gk archimagos] (also archimagus) /AR kuh maje/
a great magician, wizard, or enchanter
“No, no, Rashleigh,” said Miss Vernon; “dismiss from
your company the false archimage Dissimulation, and it
will better ensure your free access to our classical
consultations.”
- Walter Scott, Rob Roy (1817)
"Of these, many had application and a few some talent,
but only that floricultural archimage Sebastian Marco
was a Merlin, and over the best gardens in town he
held an inviolate suzerainty..."
- Michael Malone, Dingley Falls (2002)
the worthless word for the day is: antiscian
[fr. Gk anti, opposite + skia, shadow] /an TISH iun/
pertaining to those who live on the same meridian, but
on the opposite side of the equator, so that their
shadows at noon fall in opposite directions
"Those who live north of the equator are antiscians to
those on the south, and vice versa; the shadows on one
side being cast towards the north; those on the other,
towards the south."
- Webster's Dictionary (1828)
Southern brother, it's most odd to see
That your shadow's behind, as with me.
North and south-what a riddle-
The sun's in the middle.
We're antiscians, don't you agree?
- Robert (Bob) Hogg, OEDILF
this is (mis)defined on some word lists as 'someone
who lives on the exact opposite side of the world'
the worthless word for the day is: fidging
[fr. Sc. fidge, to move about restlessly]
Scot. restless, fidgety; in phr. fidgin' fain,
eager and twitching with excitement
"A fidging Mare should be well girded."
- James Kelly, Scottish Proverbs (1721)
Wha will mak me fidgin' fain?
Wha will kiss me o'er again?
The rantin' dog, the daddie o't.
- Robert Burns, The Rantin' Dog (1786)
this week: the Scots are comin'
the worthless word for the day is: forfoughten
[fr. archaic form of fought] /for FAUT un/
also forfoughen
Scot. worn out (from fighting); exhausted
""I propose that this good little gentleman, that seems
sair forfoughen, as I may say, in this tuilzie, shall
send for a tass o' brandy and I'll pay for another...""
- Walter Scott, Rob Roy (1817)
""I ha'e fear Ise ta'en a strong grippit o' death. I am
sair forfoughten, but never fear, mon, but wha' the
auld Sir Peter will e'er present a heckle to his foes.""
- Zane Grey, George Washington, Frontiersman (1994)
the worthless word for the day is: ettle
[fr. ON ætla, to think, purpose] /ET'l/
Scot. 1) aim, intent, purpose 2) chance, opportunity
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie prest,
And flew at Tam wi furious ettle..
- Robert Burns, Tam o' Shanter (1790)
But fainness to be hame, that burnt my breast,
Made me to tak the ettle when it keest.
- Alexander Ross, Helenore (1768)
the worthless word for the day is: heidyin
[usu. in the phrase high heidyins] /hi heed yins/
Scot. (high) head one(s)
"Had the Chief Super been rapped over the knuckles
by the high heidyins themselves?"
- Ian Rankin, Strip Jack (1992)
"The roll-call sounds like a branch meeting of the
'republique des professeurs' combined with the
'high heidyins' of (mostly academic) Scottish
society."
- Sian Reynolds,
Paris-Edinburgh Cultural Connections (2007)
the worthless word for the day is: muffism
[fr. muff, an oaf + -ism] /MUF izm/
UK colloq. obs. the action characteristic of a
muff or incompetent person; foolishness
"[T]he muffism of walking down St. James's Street, on
a gusty day in September, in a rough, and somewhat
shabby, pilot coat."
- Lady Bulwer-Lytton, Behind the Scenes (1854)
"A feeling grew up in their minds that there was a
possibility of picking up a suitable husband just on
the borders of muffism."
- William Chambers, Ailie Gilroy (1872)
the worthless word for the day is: psilology
[alteration of philology; fr. Gk psilo- mere, bare]
/psi LOL o gy/
obs. nonce-word (love of) empty talk
"Schools of psilology (the love of empty noise)
and misosophy are here out of the question."
- Samuel T. Coleridge, Literary Remains (1838)
bonus word misosophy - the hatred of wisdom
the worthless word for the day is: bizarrerie
[F.] /buh ZAR uh REE/
1) bizarre quality 2) something bizarre
"It was a freak of fancy in my friend to be enamored
of the Night for her own sake; and into this bizarrerie,
as into all his others, I quietly fell; giving myself
up to his wild whims with a perfect abandon."
- E. A. Poe, The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)
"Even the pictures illustrate only one or two phases of
its infinite bizarrerie, endless variety, preternatural
massiveness, and utterly alien exoticism."
- H. P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness (1931)
(thanx to Meghan R. of the Scripps spelling bee..)
the worthless word for the day is: vindictivolence
[fr. L. vindicta vengeance, after malevolence]
nonce-word the desire of revenging oneself or of
taking vengeance
"Ill-will is perhaps always a form or mode of
vindictivolence, i.e. is connected with a feeling
of ourselves as somehow wronged."
- John Grote, A treatise on the moral ideals (1876)
the worthless word for the day is: ignotism
[fr. L. ignot-us, unknown]
obs. a mistake due to ignorance
"It has 92 Errors or Ignotisms in it."
- The Gentleman's Magazine (1737)
"Quite dead.. is old "ignotism," "a mistake due to
ignorance." God rest his soul, we could have used him."
- Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, N.Y. Times Oct. 13, 1971
the worthless word for the day is: overegg
[Yorkshire, 'we mustn't over-egg the pudding']
fig., orig. Eng. regional to embellish or supply
to excess, to overexaggerate
"The bank was anxious however, not to overegg
investor expectations for the current year."
- The Evening Standard, 15 May 2002
"But even that was refreshing, coming from a conductor
so often accused of overegging the pudding."
- Times Online, UK - Jul 10, 2008
the worthless word for the day is: carrefour
[F. fr. L. quadrifurcus, having four forks] /kah ruh FUR/
1) a crossroads, a carfax 2) a public square, plaza
"They'd follow those aristocrats' high-stepping
chargers out through the city gates, there at the
carrefours where the meaner sorts of criminals
dangled unconscious from the whipping-posts, and
they would come into St. Germain des Pres..."
- Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver (2003)
"A horseback statue of McClellan stands in a carrefour
in Washington overlooked by the windows of an apartment
house largely occupied by retired generals and their
families."
- A. J. Liebling, World War II Writings (2008)
the worthless word for the day is: brumous
[fr. F. brume, fog] /BREW mus/
foggy, misty
"..the entire building seems to be speeding
massively through the brumous air, going nowhere."
- John Banville, Prague Pictures (2003)
"..it seemed to him, self-critical in the brumous
October gloaming and the outskirts of London, that
only his boots had shone throughout their two-hour
companionship."
- John Galsworthy, The Forsyte Saga (1922)
this week: more words from my reading
the worthless word for the day is: proprioception
[fr. L. proprius, one's own + (per)ception]
/PRO pree oh SEP shun/
the unconscious perception of movement and spatial
orientation arising from stimuli within the body itself
"She continues to feel, with the continuing loss
of proprioception, that her body is dead, not-real,
not-hers -- she cannot appropriate it to herself."
- Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
(1998)
the worthless word for the day is: memorous
[fr. L. memorosus memorable, mindful]
obs. rare memorable
"How many of the following words, all of them em-
ployed by writers of English in earlier times, do
you recognize, much less use yourself? memorous..
memorious.. memoried.. memorist.. mnemotechny..
mnemonize.. mnemonicon... The contemporary rarity of
such terms, terms once familiar to ordinary speakers
of English, should give us pause. Where have all the
words for memory gone?"
- Edward S. Casey, Remembering (2000)
"I am the pain of young men memorous
Of beauty that they never knew, and loss
They never suffered."
- Archibald MacLeish, Tower of Ivory (2004)
this week: more words from the gang at Wordsmith Talk
the worthless word for the day is: chiack
[prob. alter. of cheek] /CHAHY uhk/ (also chyack)
Australia to jeer at; tease; deride
"[M]y mates begin to chiack me vociferously for acting
like a bloody drongo and my teachers afterwards rebuke
me for my rudeness to the regal personage and demand
to know the reason why."
- Roger Milliss, Serpent's Tooth (1984)
"Just think how you can chyack those stay-at-homes in
Sydney and Melbourne."
- Thomas Wood, Cobbers (1934)
bonus word: drongo Australasian slang
a simpleton; a stupid, worthless person
the worthless word for the day is: blooter
[origin uncertain]
UK, Scot.
[n] 1) a hard and usu. wild kick of a ball; also fig.
2) a fool, an oaf, a bumbler; a babbler
[v] to do something to excess; to blunder or babble
e.g., to hit with force; to smash, to kick a football
extremely hard or wildly; to drink heavily
"Jock nodded. 'The minute the wind dropped - came
into the boiler house there - said he was away to
blooter them.'"
- Peter Kerr, The Mallorca Connection (2007)
"Admittedly, a few weeks ago, I lulled my wife into a
false sense of security by not saying anything when the
last Rangers blooter was greeted with her cry of relief:
"Thank God that's football over for another season!" I
didn't tell her that the Euros were coming up hard and
fast."
- Aidan Smith, Scotland on Sunday, 8 June 2008
"Women go into pubs.. to enjoy a quiet drink with
friends. And any halitosis-ridden, hand-wandering
blooter who thinks otherwise could find himself stuck
up his own optic."
- The Daily Record (Glasgow), 23 July 1999
the worthless word for the day is: geis
[Irish] /gesh?/ (also gaysh, geas; pl. geasa)
Irish folklore a solemn injunction, prohibition, or
taboo; a moral obligation
"Some geasa were connected with totem animals, some
with certain aspects of hospitality, some with journeys
and traveling but, whatever the geis concerned, should
a person wittingly or unwittingly break it, then
certain doom would follow."
- Steve Blamires, Celtic Tree Mysteries (1997)
"In a sense which most Irish people will know, this put
Fallon under a geas, a moral compulsion, to say his bit."
- The New Statesman, 23 July 1965
(thanx to zmjezhd)
the worthless word for the day is: horrent
[fr. L. horrere to stand on end, bristle] /HOR unt/
archaic 1) bristled 2) bristling
"[S]uddenly I see him, as if he were before me here,
Joe somebody, a hulking, big-boned fellow with jug
ears and horrent hair."
- John Banville, op cit
this week: a touch of Banville
(thanx to Anthony Stevens)
the worthless word for the day is: marmoreal
[fr. L. marmoreus < marmor, marble] /mar MOR ee ul/
resembling marble, as in smoothness, whiteness, or
hardness
"The thought of all that tensed and tensely quivering
naked flesh, untrammelled save by the marmoreal folds
of a robe or a wisp of gauze fortuitously placed..
glutted my inexperienced but already overheating
imagination..."
- John Banville, op cit
the worthless word for the day is: glutinous
[fr. L. glutinosus < gluten, glue] /GLOOT (e)n us/
of the nature of or resembling glue; sticky
"The spring she had dreaded had come and gone, and
she had been too ill to mind its agitations, and now
it was a damply hot, glutinous summer."
- John Banville, The Sea (2005)
the worthless word for the day is: flocculent
[fr. L. flocculus + English -ent] /FLOCK yu lunt/
1) of the character of wool: woolly, flocky
<flocculent cloud masses>
2) made up of loosely aggregated particles or
soft flakes <a flocculent white precipitate>
"In the flocculent hush of the Golf Hotel we
seemed, my daughter and I, to be the only patrons."
- John Banville, The Sea (2005)
this week: a touch of John Banville
the worthless word for the day is: velutinous
[fr. L. velutum, velvet] /vuh LUT uh nus/
covered with dense, silky hairs: velvety
"I seemed to inhabit a twilit netherworld in which
it was scarcely possible to distinguish dream from
waking, since both waking and dreaming had the
same penetrable, darkly velutinous texture..."
- John Banville, The Sea (2005)
the worthless word for the day is: hooplehead
[origin uncertain, but see Quinion]
a foolish, ridiculous or worthless person
"He hated to think it, but his daughter was a hoople-
head. Every one else was moving out, and here she'd
moved back in."
- Mary Anne Kelly, The Cordelia Squad (2003)
"Hooplehead - Al Swearengen's designation for a
member of the largely unthinking, easily manipulated
masses. Presumably refers to the city of Hoople,
North Dakota."
- David Lavery, Reading Deadwood (2006)
the worthless word for the day is: altercate
[fr. L. altercari, to dispute or wrangle] /ALL tur kate/
to dispute with zeal: wrangle
"[I]t becomes us not.. to altercate on the
localities of the battle."
- Edward Bulwer-Lytton,
Athens: Its Rise and Fall (1837)
"People altercated over questions of identity,
particularly with respect to the older bones
that had long turned brown."
- Louis de Bernières, Birds Without Wings (2004)
the worthless word for the day is: extravagate
[fr. Med. L. extravagari, to wander]
archaic 1) to wander widely 2) to exceed proper limits
"Out of the bowels of those very schemes
In which his youth did first extravagate;
These spread like day, and something in the shape
Of these will live till man shall be no more."
- William Wordsworth, The Prelude (1805)
" In statement, it is true, he could extravagate
like a master."
- Bradford Torrey, The Atlantic Nov 1, 1899
the worthless word for the day is: stravage (or stravaige)
[prob. by shortening and alteration fr. extravagate]
/struh VAIG/
chiefly Scot. saunter, stroll, wander
"[F]or ten years [I] had stravaiged the world like a
tinker, never doing a hand's turn of work."
- John Banville, The Book of Evidence (1989)
"I stravage along behind them, beckoning a cabana boy
who doesn't exist to bring a latte that never comes."
- E . S. Schwarzer, Motherhood Is Not for Wimps (2006)
the worthless word for the day is: guerdon
[Middle F.] /GER dun/
something that one has earned or gained: reward
the ultimate, and rather easy, word from the 2008
National Spelling Bee, confirming the result of
the previous round
"William the Conqueror had to promise a generous
guerdon for people who fought for him."
- from the Scripps judge
"And Rosaline they call her: ask for her;
And to her white hand see thou do commend
This seal'd-up counsel. There's thy guerdon; go."
Giving him a shilling
- Wm Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost (1598)
the worthless word for the day is: esclandre
[F.] /esk la(n)dr(eh)/
an incident that arouses unpleasant talk or gives
rise to scandal: scene
this week: interesting words from the 2008 National
Spelling Bee (today's word was the penultimate
(and winning) word from round 15 -- the other
semifinalist got prosopopoeia wrong, omitting the 'i')
"Threatening to make an eslcandre and leave the chateau."
- as used in a sentence by the Scripps judge
(Charles Greville, The G. memoirs - 1832)
"Fostered by feverish play, cheating at cards in France
has soared to heights unknown before. At even the most
select and aristocratic, the most legitimate clubs, much
foul play may occur, as was clearly disclosed by the
recent esclandre in the Cerole de la Rue Royale."
- The New York Times March 28, 1886
the worthless word for the day is: Kulturkampf
[G. fr. Kultur + Kampf, conflict] /kul TUR kam(p)f/
broadly a conflict between cultures or value systems
this week: interesting words from the 2008 National
Spelling Bee (today's word is also from round 13; in
round 14 one of the two finalists correctly spelt
introuvable, which is *not autological!)
"The 1920's proved to be the focal decade in the
Kulturkampf of American Protestantism."
- Richard Hofstadter,
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1962)
"Great moments in the drug war Kulturkampf"
- Reason Magazine [banner], Jun 2008
the worthless word for the day is: opificer
[fr. L. opifex: craftsman, artisan + -er] /uh PIF uh ser/
obs. an artificer; a workman; one who creates something
this week: interesting words from the 2008 National
Spelling Bee (today's word is from round 13 and
eliminated one of the three semifinalists, who took
the initial schwa as an 'e' — roots, roots, roots!)
"If you respect either Artificers or Opificers,
all Nations have been benefited thereby."
- as proffered by Scripps judge (5/31/08)
"So many playwrights, and opificers of chit chat have
ever since been working upon.. my uncle Toby's pattern."
- Laurence Sterne, The Life.. of Tristram Shandy (1761)
the worthless word for the day is: aptyalism
[fr. a- + Gk ptuelismos, salivation] /A TIE uh liz um/
absence of or deficiency in secretion of saliva
(cf. ptyalism for excessive flow)
this week: interesting words from the 2008 National
Spelling Bee (today's word is from round 12)
"Just look at those kids on that stage - their cheeks
a bright nacarat, their mouths suffering from aptyalism,
and yet still standing tall like the bogatyr of forgotten
history."
- Seattle Post Intelligencer - May 31, 2008
bonus: bogatyr - a medieval Russian heroic warrior,
akin to Western European knight errant
"Aptyalism can result from dehydration such as with
fever or disease of the kidneys."
- The Times Recorder (Zanesville, OH) - Jun 20, 1960
the worthless word for the day is: pleionosis
[fr. Gk pleos, filled + L. nos, us (ego)]
/PLAY oh NO sis/ obs. rare
the exaggeration of one's own importance
(cf. nosism, egotism)
"The only disorder universal to humankind."
- Peter Bowler, The Superior Person's Second Book
of Weird and Wondrous Words (1992)
"I confess that one word I had never heard of seems
to define one of my traits: That's pleionosis, the
exaggeration of one's own importance."
- Jack Smith, Los Angeles Times Jan18, 1993
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- P. B. Shelley, Ozymandias (1818)
the worthless word for the day is: timber-head
[timber + head] also, timbernonce(?)
Melville's slang usage a blockhead
"Don't you see, you timber-head, that no harm can
come to the holder of the rod, unless the mast is
first struck?"
- Herman Melville, Moby Dick (1851)
"Timbernonce number three... Eleftherios Venizelos,
Prime Minister of Greece, prodigiously overendowed
with Big Ideas."
- Louis de Bernières, Birds Without Wings (2004)
this week: jobbernowls and other blockheads
the worthless word for the day is: clodpoll
[clod + poll, head] /CLOD poll/
a stupid person: blockhead, clodpate
"Therefore this letter, being so excellently
ignorant, will breed no terror in the youth.
He will find it comes from a clodpoll."
- Wm Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (1601)
"Clodpoll number two, the Greek people again...
for thinking that just because the civilization
here [Smyrna] used to be approximately Greek in
the distant past and is now partially Greek, it
should be forced into political union with old
Greece."
- Louis de Bernières, Birds Without Wings (2004)
the worthless word for the day is: lackwit
[lack + wit] /LACK wit/
a dull or witless person: blockhead, fool
yahoo, thickwit, dope, nitwit, dimwit, half-wit
""Lackwit? In what musty drawer of some dead English
professor's dust-covered desk did you find that word?
I assure you that never in my worst nightmares did I
ever suppose that I was a lackwit.""
- Orson Scott Card, Shadow Puppets (2002)
"I will tell you who the rattlebrains are, beginning
at the top. Actually, there is not a top, because
there are so many contestants for the lackwit
championships that all come in equal first."
- Louis de Bernières, Birds Without Wings (2004)
the worthless word for the day is: domnoddy
[origin uncertain] /DOM noddy/
fool, ninny, nincompoop, simpleton
(also, noddypoll, noddy)
""You idiot! You cabbageheaded domnoddy! If you've
hurt my horse, I'll have your skin!""
- Gerald Morris, The Squire's Tales (1999)
"But it can be a miserable, lonely existence for a
subordinate who yearns to be productive and get
things done, but is caught in a strangle hold by
an unqualified and incapable domnoddy. Incompetent
managers rely heavily on rules, policies, and
procedures."
- Jim Weaver, How Did You Manage That? (2002)
"What bothers me is that I am dying (albeit quite
pleasantly) because of the most gignatic f[oul]-up,
brought about by domnoddies, nincompoops and ninny-
hammers of the first order who happened to find
themselves in charge of f[oul]ing everything up."
- Louis de Bernières, Birds Without Wings (2004)
the worthless word for the day is: palinoia
[fr. Gk pali-n, again + -noia, thought] /pal ih NOI uh/
the compulsive repetition of an act as a way to master
its performance
"It started at that Easter Egg Hunt when we all lined
up in a row, like civil war warriors set to wage brash
attacks upon the yolk of hardboiled phlegmatism.
Poached palinoia."
- Mark Axelrod, Capital Castles (2000)
"This neologism became widely known after it was
used as part of a credit for an episode of the 1990s
US animated television comedy Pinky and the Brain."
- Christopher Foyle, Foyle's Philavery (2008)
the worthless word for the day is: fabulist
[F. fabuliste, fr. L fabula, fable] /FAB yuh list/
1) a creator or writer of fables
2) a teller of tales; a liar
"To quote another American fabulist [Mark Twain],
Denial ain't just a river in Egypt."
- Lila Shapiro, TPM May 4, 2008
"Had it been Hillary Clinton or Al Gore who made all
these errors, we would have heard by now that the
candidate was a fabulist."
- Jennifer Rubin, Commentary 05.27.2008
the worthless word for the day is: onomastic
[Gk onomastikos, fr. onomazein to name] /ah nuh MAS tik/
of, relating to, or consisting of a name or names;
relating to onomastics
""I was thinking more along an onomastic line. Proper
names. Place names. Nicknames. You know, nickname itself
is an interesting word. It comes from ekename, which-""
- David Carkeet, Double Negative (1980)
the worthless word for the day is: exeleutherostomize
(also exeleutherostomise)
[fr. Gk ex-, out + eleutherostom-os, free-spoken] /?/
nonce-word to speak out freely
"The heroes of the Iliad—shall we hide it to live, or
exeleutherostomize it and die?-are for the most part
boors."
- Charles Badham, Prose Halieutics (1854)
"The offices of a General Manager of one of the few
national banks is not the place to exeleutherostomise."
- B.S. Johnson, Christie Malry's Own Double-entry (1985)
bonus word: halieutics - the art or practice of fishing;
a treatise on fishing [fr. Gk halieutikos, of fishing]
the worthless word for the day is: antejentacular
[fr. L. ante-, before + jentacul-um, breakfast]
archaic before breakfast
(compare postprandial)
"Not one poor visit in the antejentacular perambulations."
- Jeremy Bentham, correspondence (1843)
"You will learn that the holder for a handleless coffeecup
is called a zarf (if you didn't already know it); that the
antonym for postprandial (afterdinner) is antejentacular
(before breakfast), while the antonym of wealth may well
be illth..."
- Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, NY Times Aug 9, 1982
the worthless word for the day is: malnoia
[fr. mal- : ill, wrong + Gk nous, mind] /mal NOI ah/
a vague feeling of mental discomfort
"At last—the word we all wanted, to describe the
way we feel five minutes after waking up in the
morning when we realize that we are about to
recall yesterday's unresolved problems."
- Peter Bowler, The Superior Person's Second Book
of Weird and Wondrous Words (1992)
the worthless word for the day is: misocainea
[fr. Gk misos, hatred + kainos, new] /miso KINE eah/
an abnormal aversion to new things or ideas
(cf. misoneism)
"Although I agree with the majority that no appellate
court has yet held an insurer liable absent a premium
payment, it may be nothing more than appellate judges
suffering from a case of misocainea!"
- Arizona Business Gazette (Phoenix) Nov 11, 1993
"A crucial objective of our program is to remove any
innate misocainea.. and replace it with the entrepre-
neurial principle of 'change is an opportunity to
create competitive advantage.'"
- Scientific Computing & Instrumentation, 01 Jan 05
the worthless word for the day is: nephelococcygia
[first used in the play The Birds written in 414
B.C. by the Greek comic poet Aristophanes, this was
to be a city in the clouds; fr. nephele, cloud +
kokkyx, cuckoo] /ne fê lê kak SI jee yê/
1) capitalized cloud cuckooland
2) the act of finding shapes in clouds
"Without flying to Nephelococcygia or to the Court
of Queen Mab, we can meet with sharpers, bullies,
hard-hearted impudent debauchees, and women worthy
of such paramours."
- Thomas Macaulay, Comic Dramatists (1840)
"Finding shapes in clouds is an old endeavor. There's
even a word for it: nephelococcygia, literally "cloud
cuckooland," from the Aristophanes play The Birds.
Thoreau practiced it, describing a sunset in which he
saw a "phantom city." About a hundred years later
cartoonist Charles Schulz created a Peanuts comic
strip in which Linus gazed at the clouds and spied
the outline of British Honduras, the profile of artist
Thomas Eakins, and a group of forms reminding him of
the biblical stoning of Stephen. "I was going to say
I saw a ducky and a horsie," Charlie Brown responded,
"but I changed my mind."
- Chris Dodge, Utne Reader Jan/Feb 2007
the worthless word for the day is: jeopardous
[Middle English jupartous, fr. jupartie + -ous]
fraught with risk or danger; hazardous, perilous
"In such snow he'd have led us into all sorts of
thrilling and jeopardous traps..."
- Leif Enger, Peace Like a River (2002)
"Had the man not opted for a late soak my brother's
career might've ended on the spot, but wet feet and
wood floors make jeopardous allies..."
- ibid
the worthless word for the day is: grue
[Scot., akin to OHG ingruen, to shiver, shudder] /gru/
[v] to shiver or shudder especially with fear or cold
[n] 1) a shiver 2) a gruesome quality or effect
"I begin to grue at the sound of it."
- R. L. Stevenson, Catriona: a sequel (1893)
"[T]he sound of wind in the rigging still gave him
the chills and the grues when he heard it."
- R. B. Robertson, Of Whales and Men (1954)
"As a tale of grue it was badly timed; Waltzer, too,
had spoken of cannibalism, and in fact it seemed a
thing he might practice without remorse."
- Leif Enger, Peace Like a River (2001)
the worthless word for the day is: ogry
[from ogre, presumably]
resembling, or pertaining to, an ogre(?)
"Opvarts and at ham, or this ogry Osler
will oxmaul us all..."
- James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (1939)
(thanx to Cécile)
the worthless word for the day is: nephology
[fr. Gk nephos, cloud + -ology] /neh FOL eh jee/
the scientific study of clouds, the branch of
meteorology that deals with clouds (also, nephologist)
"This is the life! Things seen resemble images in a
thaumatrope. (Squinting up at the washing on the line):
I must take up nephology some day."
- Mark Lemon (ed.), Punch (1841)
"Conrad accepted every invitation to lecture Alden
about nephology or aviation."
- Maria Flook, Lux (2004)
"If I put this ad in the paper — nephologist seeks
eidolon — would you answer?"
- Marcus E. Ryan, Two Diaries (2003)
the worthless word for the day is: unau
[Port. < Tuni uná, lazy] /YOO now/
Zool. the South American two-toed sloth
"There are two species of this animal, viz. the Unau
and the Ai."
- The Family Magazine (1843)
"The Ai is more indolent in his habits than the Unau..."
- Arthur Mangin, The Desert World (1872)
the worthless word for the day is: vigneron
[F. < vigne, vine] /VEEN yuh RO(n)E/
winegrower, viticulturist
(an assist to Barry MacDonald on this)
"Wine lovers have garnered the image of the passionate
vigneron into an almost spiritual figure, one who
translates the mysteries of the soil into wine."
- Artvoice Apr 23, 2008
"Away from her roles as actress and guru, she (sc.
Kerry Armstrong) is a vigneron, pressing grapes at
her property near Eltham and bottling a fine drop
that is sometimes finer than others."
- The Age (Australia) May 4, 2008
the worthless word for the day is: bahookie
[alteration of behind(?)] /buh HOO kee/
Scot. colloq., humorous the buttocks
"'Stop staring at my bahookie, nancyboy,' Barry
heard him mutter."
- Michael Gerber, Barry Trotter and the Unnecessary
Sequel (2003)
"'Mm-hmm, and that little tub of his'll go like a
greased dolphin with a Roman candle up its bahookie!'"
- Peter Kerr, The Mallorca Connection (2006)
the worthless word for the day is: bardo
[Tibetan, literally, between two] /BAR dO/
Lamaism the intermediate or astral state of the soul
after death and before rebirth
"Sometimes I felt I was already dead, wandering in some
Hades or Tibetan bardo zone where the shades repressed
the disquieting thought that they were no longer alive
by engaging in a make-believe danse macabre of frantic
activity."
- Daniel Pinchbeck, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl
the worthless word for the day is: disintermediate
[originally a banking term, now more broadly used]
Econ. to withdraw one's money from intermediate
institutions for direct investment; to eliminate
the middleman
"This growth in Euro commercial paper tends to
disintermediate commercial banks in the short-term
market just as Euronotes have replaced medium-term
syndicated credits."
- J. Peter Williamson,
The Investment Banking Handbook (1988)
""One of the reasons you see press releases ranked
higher in Web measurement surveys is that an increasing
number of releases are written not for the press, or
even for consumers, but for search engines.. many PR
pros just decided to leverage the Internet medium
and disintermediate the journalist entirely -- the
intersection of direct marketing and PR, if you will.""
- Rick Sharga (marketing consultant),
via c/net news.com Apr 18, 2008
the worthless word for the day is: thirlable
[fr. OE thirl: hole, perforation]
obs. rare that may be thirled or pierced; penetrable
"Say no more old chap-your logic is unthirlable."
- Peter Bowler, The Superior Person's Second Book of
Weird and Wondrous Words (1992)
yesterday's word: stylite
this week: more hogwash (and other) words
the worthless word for the day is: stylite
let's play hogwash®.. choose one:
a) unadorned stone tracery forming the structural
border of a stained glass window
b) a type of ripstop nylon of extra light nature
mainly used for making kites, banners, etc.
c) a Christian ascetic living atop a pillar
d) a Greek slave used as a soldier
e) fossilized swine excrement
(answer tomorrow)
the worthless word for the day is: sabrage
[F. sabrer] /sah BRAHDZH/
the act of opening a bottle, usu. champagne, with a sabre
"You might think the result will be lots of broken glass
and mess, but the skill of sabrage lies in hitting the
bottle hard just at the bottom edge of the annulus, the
glass ring at the top of the neck. The blow breaks the
neck off cleanly, complete with cork."
- Michael Quinion, World Wide Words, 15 Jul 2006
"With a deft and decisive blow, he relieves the bubbly
of its cork with one foul swoop and the top of the bottle,
glass and all, flies to the bricks below. A rush of
pent-up, foamy champagne gushes from the beheaded bottle.
Bonaparte would be proud. After all, it was his mounted
artillery officers who perfected the "art of sabrage,"
albeit back in the early 1800s, the beheading was usually
done on live victims following bloody crusades."
- Rick VanSickle, Calgary Sun August 6, 2006
the worthless word for the day is: thrapple (thropple)
[origin obscure] /THRAPul/
Scot. [n] the throat, windpipe
[v] to throttle, strangle
But now she fetches at the thrapple,
An' fights for breath :
Haste, gie her name up in the chapel,
Near unto death!
- Robert Burns, to John Goldie (1785)
"Sorrow be in your thrapple then!"
- Walter Scott, Guy Mannering (1815)
"I could thrapple ye whaur ye staun'."
- James Strang, A Lass of Lennox (1899)
the worthless word for the day is: plagosity
[fr. L. plagosus, given to blows, fond of flogging]
obs. rare the inclination or tendency to beat or flog
people
"Thus Nicholas Udall's accidental propensity to theatricals
led to Eton being the birthplace of English Comedy, and the
'plagosity' of William Malim led to the composition of one
of the masterpieces of English prose." [Roger Ascham's
famous treatise on 'The Scholemaster']
- Lionel Cust, A History of Eton College (1899)
the worthless word for the day is: elenctic
[Gk elenktikos, fr. elenktos] /ee LENC tic/
variants elenchtic, elenctical, elenchtical
serving to refute; refutative (used of indirect modes
of proof)
opposed to deictic, showing or pointing out directly
"His duty is elenchtic."
- Blackwood's Magazine, v. XXXIII (1833)
"Because he has spent so much of his life in elenctic
argument, we are sometimes tempted to infer that Socrates
knows more than he is letting on about the subject matter
at hand."
- Brickhouse & Smith, Plato's Socrates (1994)
the worthless word for the day is: conviciatory
[fr. L. conviciari, to revile, rail at]
(also spelt convitiatory)
obs. wrangling, railing; reproachful
also conviciate,
obs. to revile, reproach, slander, rail at
"This expression [a dog] is the favourite term of
reproach with the Greeks, whose convitiatory language
is most violent and abusive."
- John C. Hobhouse, A Journey through Albania (1813)
"[I]t is an easy thing for men so resolved to
conviciate, instead of accusing..."
- William Laud, The Autobiography of.. (1839)
the worthless word for the day is: fucivorous
[fr. L. fucus, rock-lichen + -vorus, devouring]
/few SIV ur us/
eating or subsisting on seaweed
hence fucivore, one who eats seaweed
"The pancreas in carnivorous Terrapins (Emys) is more
bulky and compact in form than in the fucivorous
Turtles (Chelone)."
- Richard Owen, On the Anatomy of Vertebrates (1866)
this word would probably be totally unknown, but for
its dictionary neighbors...
"The word before the word in question in the dictionary
is 'fucivorous'. Someone who eats meat is a carnivore,
someone who eats plants is a herbivore and someone who
eats seaweed is a fucivore. Sadly, as I've never met
anyone who dines solely at a Chinese restaurant with an
incredibly limited menu, it is a word I'll never get to
use."
- Chris Lloyd, Northern Echo Sept. 27, 2003
the worthless word for the day is: nubivagant
[fr. classical L. nubivagus, wandering among the clouds]
obs. rare passing through the clouds
"[Y]et it would be better for a collineomaniac to think,
now and then, of the desolation he is bringing down upon
happy nests; of how many little broods he may cause to
starve; of how many robbed mates he will send, nubivagant,
whistling and singing tremulous love notes through the air,
vainly searching and calling for their lost spouses, never,
never to return!"
- H. W. Herbert, Sporting Scenes and Sundry Sketches (1842)
bonus word: collineomaniac, a hunter
the worthless word for the day is: pieriansipist
[Perian + sip + -ist]
a dabbler in learning: one who learns a little about
many subjects, or 'sips' from the Pierian spring (a
source of knowledge and inspiration from the Muses)
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring;
For shallow draughts intoxicate the brain
And drinking largely sobers us again.
- Alexander Pope, Essay on Criticism
What's a pieriansipist?
this week: more neologisms
the worthless word for the day is: retrogenesis
[fr. retro- backward + -genesis, origin]
/ret troh JEN uh sis/
the loss of mental abilities in old age in the opposite
order in which they are gained in childhood, esp. as
exhibited by Alzheimer's patients
"[Dr Barry] Reisberg and others say that retrogenesis is
more than just a newfangled academic term to explain an
age-old human condition."
- John Fauber, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel June 23, 2002
"It made her feel good, the counting down, and she did
it sometimes in the day's familiar drift, walking down a
street, riding in a taxi. It was her form of lyric verse,
subjective and unrhymed, a little songlike but with a
rigor, a tradition of fixed order, only backwards, to
test the presence of another kind of reversal, which a
doctor nicely named retrogenesis."
- Don DeLillo, Falling Man (2007)
the worthless word for the day is: keming
[fr. misreading kerning] /KEM ing/
the result of improper kerning
(a new typography term)
kerning - the addition or removal of space between
individual characters in a piece of typeset text to
improve its appearance or alter its fit
here are some examples where Book Search software
falls prey to this exact mistake
"Bad keming is rampant in all those twisty groovy
captcha phrases." - anon.
"Spum Bad Keming" - anon.
the worthless word for the day is: nihilartikel
[fr. L. nihil, nothing + G. artikel] /NI hil AR ti kul/
a deliberately erroneous entry in a dictionary or other
reference book (cf. esquivalience, for instance)
also see fictitious entry
"Because we have no English word for the concept, some
English writers have used what looks like a German word,
Nihilartikel, for such deliberately invalid entries...
There's some doubt whether this is a genuine German word,
or one formed in English as a joke and unknowingly copied.
Others have used Mountweazel, which derives from the false
entry for Lillian Virginia Mountweazel that appeared in
the 1975 edition of the New Columbia Encyclopedia."
- Michael Quinion, World Wide Words, 1 Oct. 2005
"No self-respecting reader will overlook such glaring
errors as describing the DJ's favourite Technics SL-1200
turntable as 'belt driven'. Boy, I hope somebody got
fired for that blunder. Sadly the authors resisted
inserting a proper nihilartikel, the alleged German word
for an item invented to catch out the unwary plagiarist."
(from a review of The Rock Snob's Dictionary)
- Steve Jelbert, The Independent June 26, 2005
the worthless word for the day is: infovore
[info- + L. vorus, devouring] /IN fo vore/
(introduced as a scientific term by neuroscientists
Irving Biederman and Edward Vessel, after carnivore,
omnivore, etc.)
a person who indulges in and desires information
gathering and interpretation
"I'm an infovore. I consume and excrete interesting
factoids for a living."
- Cory Doctorow, A Place So Foreign (2003)
"Why are you reading this article when you could be
watching paint dry instead? It's all because of our
innate hunger for information. Humans, it turns out,
are infovores."
- New Scientist, 22 July 2006
"You might call us 'infovores.'"
- The Wall Street Journal March 12, 2008
the opposite of infovore is ignotarian, a person who
avoids or limits the acquisition of (new) information
the worthless word for the day is: multivious
[L. multivius, having many ways] /mul TI vi us/
now rare having many ways or roads; going in
many directions
"The sinner is often perplexed amidst the multivious
and conflicting directions that are given."
- David Thomas, The Crisis of Being (1850)
"A "plea bargain" may take many forms; it is multivious
in nature."
- Court of Special Appeals of Maryland Mar 9, 1981
"The history of World War II has been told in such
multivious detail that its simplest lessons are
easily obscured."
- Wayne Biddle, Barons of the Sky (2001)
___
for those who feel that most of these words are
just *too obscure, to the point of being mostly
unusable, this week I offer up some words that
I've actually used recently, albeit online.
the worthless word for the day is: opioid
[opi(um) + -oid] /OH pee oid/
n. an opium-like substance produced naturally in the brain
adj. possessing some properties characteristic of opiate
narcotics but not derived from opium
"When he hooked up volunteers to a brain-scanning machine,
the preferred pictures were shown to generate much more
brain activity than the unpreferred shots. While researchers
don't yet know what exactly these brain scans signify, a
likely possibility involves increased production of the
brain's pleasure-enhancing neurotransmitters called opioids."
- Lee Gomes, The Wall Street Journal March 12, 2008
"When you find new information, you get an opioid hit, and
we are junkies for those. You might call us 'infovores.'"
- ibid
the worthless word for the day is: disfluency
[dis-, apart or away + fluency] /dis FLOO un see/
1) Pathol. impairment of the ability to produce smooth,
fluent speech; stammering
2) an interruption in the smooth flow of speech, as by a
pause or the repetition of a word or syllable; lack
of skillfulness in speaking
also, dysfluency
"People doubt the believability of a message when these
delivery factors are present: (a) weak eye contact,
looking at people infrequently; (b) frequent disfluencies
(e.g., "uhs," "uhms"); (c) the use of abnormal hand or
arm movements associated with fidgeting; and (d) overuse
of hand gestures."
- W. T. Coombs, Ongoing Crisis Communication (2007)
"I have cleaned up some minor dysfluencies in Clinton's
testimony."
- Steven Pinker, The Stuff of Thought [note] (2007)
the worthless word for the day is: outmantle
[out- + mantle, to cover] /out MAN tel/
obs. rare to excel in dress or ornament
Spend all the powers
Of rant and rhapsody in virtue's praise;
Be most sublimely good, verbosely grand,
And with poetic trappings grace thy prose
Till it outmantle all the pride of verse.
- William Cowper, The Task (1784)
"[I've been] outmantled."
- anon
the worthless word for the day is: prepensely
[by extension from prepense, which is usu. seen
postpositionally] (as, malice prepense)
with premeditation: deliberately, purposely
"Whether Jennings changed my wording prepensely or
merely in the folk-speech way, I do not know, and
the point is of little consequence."
- William Ritter, American Journal of Sociology,
Jan. 1929
"To the Socialist a house, a knife, a cup, a steam
engine, or what not, anything, I repeat, that is
made by man and has form, must either be a work of
art or destructive to art. The Commercialist, on
the other hand, divides `manufactured articles'
into those which are prepensely works of art, and
are offered for sale in the market as such, and
those which have no pretense and could have no
pretense to artistic qualities."
- William Morris, Monthly Review, Jan. 1997
the worthless word for the day is: fornication
[fr. L fornix, an arch or vault]
a vaulting or arching: vaulted construction
(as of a cloister)
so how did we get from here to the more common usage
of today? below the streets of Rome were subterranean
vaults that served as dwellings for vagrants, criminals
and low-class prostitutes, who often conducted business
beneath an arch or vault. fornix became synonymous with
what we would call a brothel. (cf. vaulting-house)
"Fornication is, in fact, a surviving term in architecture."
- John Ciardi, A Second Browser's Dictionary (1993)
"If an architect uses the term fornication, he or she is
probably talking about a curved roof covering..."
- Debrah K. Dietsch, Architecture for Dummies (2002)
the worthless word for the day is: pendulate
[NL pendulum + -ate] /PEN jul ate/
1) to swing as a pendulum
2) fig. fluctuate, undulate
"But why does the pendulum vibrate, or
pendulate, to coin a necessary verb?"
- Scientific Monthly, 1922 v. 15
"The American electorate for some decades has
pendulated between liberalism and conservatism."
- J. L. Collier,
The Rise of Selfishness in America (1991)
the worthless word for the day is: glottogony
[fr. Gk glossa, tongue + gonikos, of the seed]
/glo TOG uh nee/
the study of the (putative) origin of language
hence, glottogonic /glot oh GON ik/
relating to the origin of language
"The origin of words is a question that now falls
within the chapter of "glottogony", resurrected
after decades of inactivity."
- Werner Winter, On Languages and Language (1995)
"Reduplication, in early glottogonic periods of
language, cannot have represented anything more
than an attempt to make an idea tarry."
- M. Bloomfield, American Journal of Philology,
v. XVI 1895
(thanx to zmjezhd)
the worthless word for the day is: patulous
[L. patulus, from patere to be open] /PACH ul us/
1) Zool. and Med. expanded; gaping; also fig.
<a wound with patulous margins>
2) Bot. spreading out
<an old tree with patulous branches>
(also, rarely, patulent; not to be confused with petulent)
"The weave [of the cleansing cloth] is designed to remove
material from patulous pores common on the central face."
- Dermatology Times, v. 23, 2002
"Meagan Lawrence, a small young woman with large, patulous
eyes and large, sweetly eccentric voice and manner, is
excellent as the lost Sally Bowles."
- Vincent Canby, New York Times Sep. 20, 1995
"It is said he found the baby under a patulous basil
plant in his garden."
- Times of India 24 Dec. 2000
the worthless word for the day is: frondescent
[fr. L. frondere, to put forth leaves] /fron DES unt/
springing into leaf; leafy; expanding into fronds
"In the spring, when all Nature was frondescent, that
gaunt, strange man, that fellow of a million whimsies
and thrice ten thousand charms, passed away."
- The Smart Set, ed. by George J. Nathan (1930)
"I have given a curious instance of the influence of
light on the colours of a frondescent incrustation,
deposited by the surf on the coast-rocks of Ascension,
and formed by the solution of triturated sea-shells."
- Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man (1888)
""In parks, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Salvadorans play
dominoes under the frondescent shade of coconut
palms.."
Hold it. Are we in Broward or Dade County? There may
be some Hispanics playing dominoes around here but if
they're doing it under the frondescent shade of palm
trees, every one of them will die of sunstroke."
- Steve Weller, Sun Sentinel, Jun 20, 1989
spring, at last!
the worthless word for the day is: impulregafize
[Urquhart's nonce-word, evidently coined to one-up
Rebelais, who coined emburelucocquer for the nonce]
to strain(?)
"Ha, for favour sake, I beseech you, never emberlucock
or inpulregafize your spirits with these vain thoughts
and idle conceits; for I tell you, it is not impossible
with God, and, if he pleased, all women henceforth
should bring forth their children at the ear."
- Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel (ca. 1532)
(tr. by Sir Thomas Urquhart, 1653)
the worthless word for the day is: scobberlotcher
[related to scopperloit, also of obscure origin] /?/
an idler (also scobolotcher)
""What! not abroad yet, thou bed-worm, thou scobberlotcher!""
- Cecil Day Lewis, Dick Willoughby (1933)
"A scobolotcher, said Mr. Moore, was an undergraduate walking
around a quadrangle hands in pockets and deep in thought."
- Bournemouth Daily Echo 21 Apr. 1956
the worthless word for the day is: equanimous
[fr. L. æquanimis, having an even mind]
/EE kwa nuh mus/
possessing or displaying equanimity: even-tempered
"They are equally equanimous in prescribing the
remedy by which this happy effect is to be produced."
- The Federalist, Hamilton, Madison, Jay (1788)
"French Eric, who has thought long and hard about these
things, says that emotional control is the key to winning
poker... With about 4,500 chips left, the once-equanimous
burly man raised the next pot to 800. The woman beside
him, who only played premium cards, promptly reraised,
putting him all-in. He called, showing his 75 of spades
against her QQ. The board didn't improve his hand and he
rolled, cursing, away from the table, having gone from
tournament leader to oblivion in the space of six minutes
and three hands. French Eric was right."
- Sunday Telegraph (London) Nov 18, 2007
the worthless word for the day is: axiopisty
[fr. Gk axio-pistos < axios, worthy + pistos,
to be trusted] /aks ee AH pih stee/
obs. rare : the quality that makes something
believable: trustworthiness
"She does not only attribute to their sacred authors
the axiopisty, a credibility fully merited, but also
the autopisty; that is to say a right to be believed
independently of their circumstances or of their
personal qualities..."
- Louis Gaussen, Theopneusty (1844)
"How can you not suspect the axiopisty of someone
who has been convicted of a white-collar crime?"
- New Straits Times (Kuala Lumpur), July 1, 1996
bonus words:
autopisty - self-authentication
theopneusty - divine inspiration
the worthless word for the day is: urgrund
[G. fr. ur- primal + grund, ground] /UR grunt/
a primal cause or ultimate cosmic principle
"Bude's argument makes concealment into a kind
of primal foundation for the history of the
Federal Republic of Germany, its shadowy Urgrund."
- Dagmar Reese, Dissent Winter, 2007
"Claire was eliminated in the seventh round
after putting a "t" on the end of "urgrund.""
- Los Angeles Times, June 1, 2007
the worthless word for the day is: expergefaction
[fr. L. expergefacere < expergere, to awake]
/ek spurj uh fak shun/ archaic
the act of rousing; the condition of being aroused
also, expergefactor : someone or something that
awakens: an awakener; e.g., an alarm clock
"[H]aving rubbed my eyes, distended my limbs, and
returned to a full expergefaction, I began to call
myself to account..."
- The Harleian Miscellany: A Winter Dream (1810)
"The newly invented Hydraulic Expergefactor rings
a bell at the time when a person wishes to rise."
- Mechanic's Magazine, 1823, no. 7
the worthless word for the day is: fefnicute
[origin unknown] Lancashire dialect
a hypocrite; a parasite, a hanger-on; a sneak
"It is fate's promiscuous kiss, especially for
the American writer who--ever since the unhappy
pea-and-thimble tricks of Benjamin Franklin,
that shifty-eyed fefnicute who tried to transmute
thrift into worship, greed into sanctity--might
suffer the delusion he can legitimately serve
both God and Mammon."
- Alexander Theroux, Three Wogs (1972)
the worthless word for the day is: comperendinate
[fr. L. comperendinare, to defer (a trial)]
/kom per EN di nate/
obs. rare to delay, to postpone {Johnson, 1805};
hence, comperendination
<I vow not to comperendinate until tomorrow>
I've been meaning to announce that this is
National Procrastination Week...
the worthless word for the day is: priscianist
and speaking of grammarians..
[fr. Priscian, a celebrated Roman grammarian]
arch. rare a grammarian; (in extended use) a
person who uses grammar cleverly in dissembling
(not to be confused with precisian/precisianist)
"He had a little beggarly and course latin, so
much as a Priscianist may have."
- Thomas Coryate, Coryate's Crudities (1611)
"It may be said [Stanyhurst] went somewhat further
than some of the Priscianists in his devotion to
quantity." - George Smith (ed.),
Elizabethan critical essays (1904)
the worthless word for the day is: grammaticaster
[med. L. < grammatic-us + -aster, expressing
incomplete resemblance] /gram MAT i CAS ter/
contemptuous a petty or inferior grammarian
yes, today is National Grammar Day
"He tells thee true, my noble Neophyte; my little
Grammaticaster, he does..."
- Ben Jonson, Poetaster (1616)
"But Jonson undoubtedly did much to popularize the
suffix -aster and [poetaster] itself.
Grammaticaster is apparently his."
- Joshua H. Neumann,
Notes on Ben Jonson's English (1939)
"And should Kerry, noting one of Bush's many verbal
blunders, accuse him of being no less than a wantwit,
the president could quickly respond by calling his
assailant an ineffectual grammaticaster."
- Bill Ott, The Booklist April 1, 2004
the worthless word for the day is: vapulation
[fr. L. vapulare, to be beaten] (also vapulate)
obs. a beating or flogging
file under corporal punishment
(cf bastinado, lapidation, etc.)
"The defendant, however, not minding whether the battery
he had inflicted on the plaintiff was severe or light,
still threatened him with further vapulation."
- The Times, Aug. 7, 1824
"Still used by judges to avoid public outcry when they
sentence prisoners to "three months jail and ten
vapulations.""
- Toxic Custardpedia
the worthless word for the day is: metemptosis
[fr. Gk meta- + emptosis, falling]
/met emp TOE sis/
Astron. obs. the suppression of a (leap) day in
the calendar to prevent the date of the new moon
being set a day too late, or the suppression of the
bissextile day once in 134 years (the opposite to
this is the proemptosis, or the addition of a day
every 330 years, and another every 2,400 years)
"Metemptosis.. a term in chronology, expressing the
solar equation, necessary to prevent the new moon
from happening a day too late."
- Encycl. Britannica, Vol. XI (1797)
"[The] modern system is only superior to that of the
ancient Mexicans by the metemptosis, or omission of
the 29th of February once in every 134 years, in
order to equalize the excess of time created by
[their] innovation."
- T. H. Lambert,
Journal of the Am. Geog. Soc. of NY (1883)
the worthless word for the day is: verbificent
[as if fr. L. verbificus, making or generating
words (see Hobbes)] /ver BIF i cent/
1) extremely liberal in making new words
2) using high-sounding or fabricated words
where common ones would do
3) wordy
coined by Jeffry Henning
or was it...
"[Norman Douglas] knew Lorenzo [D. H. Lawrence] the
Verbificent before his marriage; was apparently a
sub-editor in the office of the The English Review,
to which Lawrence contributed redundant articles
that had to be cut down."
- Edward Kingsbury, New York Times May 7, 1933
They call me Magnificent,
My songs are beneficent
And also verbificent
- Aggro Me (blog) Feb. 10, 2006
the worthless word for the day is: monomyth
[mono- single, one + myth]
an archetypal myth; a theme that underlies a number
of superficially different myths: the hero's journey
evidently coined by Joyce as a throwaway, Campbell
borrowed it and ensconced it forever in his seminal
marriage of comparative mythology and cosmogony
"And then and too the trivials! And their bivouac!
And his monomyth! Ah ho! Say no more about it!"
- James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (1939)
"The changes rung on the simple scale of the monomyth
defy description." - Joseph Campbell,
The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)
the worthless word for the day is: peevology
[peeve + -ology] also, peevologist
1) the collecting and public airing of language peeves
2) the study of such peevish behavior
this very recent coinage was adapted by language blogger
Mr. Verb from Jan Freeman's phrase in the Boston Globe,
"Connoisseurs of peeve-ology," (July 8, 2007) which she
applied to the second sense given above. Mr. Verb went
on to widely apply it primarily in the first sense, as
have others...
"National Grammar Day. Nominally interesting -- if only
people really were interested in grammar -- but in fact
it's just a peevology fest. (Stop harassing people about
apostrophe[']s already, for heaven's sake.)"
- Mike Pope, (blog) 29 January 2008
"The liturgical core of peevology is the ritual
lamentation of lost causes."
- Mark Liberman, Language Log, Feb. 12, 2008
"Such polysemy is endemic to our linguistic ecology, so
it's fitting that the neologism peevology should develop
its own polysemous behavior right out of the gate."
- Benjamin Zimmer (commenting on the dual senses)
Language Log, July 26, 2007
links:
Jan Freeman
Benjamin Zimmer
Mark Liberman
the worthless word for the day is: spaghettified
[by extension] hence, spaghettification
1) heavily Italianized; fig. incomprehensible
2) Physics stretched into a long thin shape, or
torn apart by the tidal forces of a strong gravity
field such as a black hole
"Lurking inside the open door is a husky puller-in; and
he dashes out and grabs hold of you and will not let go,
begging you in spaghettified English to come and examine
his unapproachable assortment of bargains."
- Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb, Europe Revised (1914)
"It is high time to recognize that action, and action
alone, will be the agent that transmutes the flowery
barrier of unutterability into an arbitrary but sacred
iota of purposefulness, which cannot help but penetrate
into an otherwise nameless and universally spaghettified
lack of meaning, which smears and beclouds the crab-lit
hopes of half-beings begging for deliverance from their
own private, yet strangely tuberculine maelstroms that
begat, and begotten were from, a howling sea of ribosomal
plagiarism."
- Y. Serm Clacoxia, The Illusions of Alacrity
(as from Douglas Hofstadter, Metamagical Themas, 1985)
"Soon my body gives way, and I become "spaghettified"
(to use a technical term coined by John Wheeler)."
- Kip Thorne, The Future of Spacetime (2002)
"Those last three minutes will be very uncomfortable;
in practice, spaghettification will kill the hapless
individual long before the singularity is reached."
- P.C.W. Davies, The Last Three Minutes (1994)
neologisms are great fun, and even useful when struck
for the purpose of of capturing new thoughts in a word;
spaghettified was first coined as a humorous nonce-word
in 1914, but was then re-coined by the physicist John
Wheeler in 1957.
the worthless word for the day is: meracious
[L. meracus, fr. merus pure, unmixed] /meh RAY shus/
obs. rare 'Strong; racy.' {Sheridan, 1797}
pure, unadulturated; hence, strong, racy
"We are glad to see this theme,-superstitious as it
is,-made the subject of a poem, by an American; and
confidently predict, that the bold meracious style,
which dignifies this first attempt, is sure to be
followed by some brighter wreath of Poesy."
- The Southern Quarterly Review (1842)
Matchless, meracious, overwhelming, reprieving,
Inscrutable, piquant, microdont, relieving..
- The Fat Knight (1896)
bonus word: microdont
having relatively small teeth(?)
"But the oddest things of all are to be found in the
dictionaries. Why they are all kept there no one knows;
but what man in his senses would use such words as
zythepsary for a brewhouse, and zumologist for a brewer;
would talk of a stormy day as procellous and himself as
madefied; of his long-legged son as increasing in
procerity but sadly inarcid, of having met wilh much
procacity from such a one; of a bore as a macrologist;
of an aged horse as macrobiolic; of important business
as moliminous, and his daughter's necklace as moniliform;
of some one's talk as meracious, and lament, his last
night's nimiety of wine at that dapatical feast, whence
he was taken by ereption?"
- Charles Dickens (ed.), All the Year Round (1861)
this week: from Dickens' dictionary(s)
the worthless word for the day is: ereption
[L. ereptio, fr. eripere, to snatch away] /e REP tion/
obs. 'A taking away.' {Cockeram, 1623}
"[T]he recovery of the civil inheritance by hereditatis
petitio might be rendered unavailing by ablation or
ereption for Indignitas."
- Gaius, Elements of Roman Law (tr. by E. Poste, 1875)
"Do not confuse with ereptation (creeping forth).
Snuggling up to your beloved at the drive-in, you say,
"I think I sense an ereption coming on," and suddenly
snatch the M&Ms from her lap. If it transpires that she
has put the M&Ms somewhere else, you will be compelled
to perform an ereptation."
- Peter Bowler,
The Superior Person's Book of Words (1985)
bonus word: ereptation
[L. ereptare, to creep forth]
obs. 'A creeping forth' {Bailey, 1736}
the worthless word for the day is: dapatical
[L. dapaticus, magnificent (of a feast) < dapis, feast]
obs. sumptuous in cheer {Bailey}
"Let us then turn our thoughts to the dinner table
and its scents of saffron and spices of the evening's
dapatical banquet."
- Sextus Propertius, Propertius in Love (ca. 25BCE)
(tr. David R. Slavitt, 2002)
Dapatical, fathomless, gorgeous, expanding,
Enthymematic, fertile, commanding
- The Fat Knight (1896)
the worthless word for the day is: procellous
[L. procellosus, stormy < procella, a storm]
/pro CEL lous/
rare, now literary tempestuous, stormy {Bailey}
"But I recall that in it I likened myself to a sailor
navigating shoals and besought the pharos of Giuliana's
eyes to bring me safely through, besought her to anoint
me with her glance and so hearten me to brave the
dangers of that procellous sea."
- Rafael Sabatini, The Strolling Saint (1913)
"It was a Stygian and procellous night.
Peter Mark Roget, a Scottish physician with a French
name, was sitting alone in his study indulging in his
favorite hobby (avocation, pastime)."
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 8 Aug. 1992
the worthless word for the day is: zumologist
[fr. Gk zume, to ferment + -ologist]
"One who is skilled in the fermentation of liquors."
- Noah Webster 1828
now, zymologist
one skilled in the science of fermentation
""I'm a zymologist, if you don't mind."
"What's the difference?"
Clousarr looked lofty. "A chemist is a soup-pusher,
a stink-operator. A zymologist is a man who helps
keep a few billion people alive. I'm a yeast-culture
specialist.""
- Isaac Asimov, The Caves of Steel (1962)
the worthless word for the day is: delphically
[< Delphic pronouncements; i.e., obscurely prophetic]
ambiguously, obscurely
"The pressure was direct: it was time for "moves" to
be made; "your cheapest commodity available is money,"
Hunt delphically said."
- Stanley Kutler, Wars of Watergate (1990)
""[F]or mine own part, it was Greek to me.".. Yet it
is not difficult to find out what Cicero said. In
Suetonius's Life of Julius Caesar, in the context of
a possible bid for the monarchy on Caesar's part,
Cicero delphically quotes a couple of lines from the
Phoenissae of Euripides."
- A. D. Nuttall, Shakespeare the Thinker (2007)
the worthless word for the day is: presagition
[fr. L. praesagere, to forebode, portend]
obs. an omen, a prognostication;
(also) foresight, prevision
"It shall nott bee labor loste if wee shall
reherce a presagition and token..."
- Polydore Vergil's English History (1550)
"Those indications which physicians receive, and
those presagitions which they give for death or
recovery in the patient, they receive, and they
give, out of the grounds and rules of their art."
- John Donne, Sermons: Death's Duel (Feb. 1630)
[his last, given a few days before his own death.]
the worthless word for the day is: pythonic
[fr. Gk python, spirit of divination]
A.1) of or relating to divination; prophetic, oracular
2) of, relating to or like a python; huge, monstrous
[Python, monstrous serpent killed by Apollo at Delphi]
B) of or relating to the Monty Python comedy group
C) of or relating to the Python programming language
"The blue glitter of Mr. Kelly's eyes in the uttermost
depths of their orbits became fixed, then veiled by the
classical pythonic glaze."
- Samuel Beckett, Murphy (1938)
"Graham Chapman died in 1989, leaving the remaining
five to eke out a post Pythonic existence."
- Sunday Times (London) Feb 26, 2006
the worthless word for the day is: theomancy
[fr. Gk theos, god + -mancy, divination]
divination by the responses of oracles supposed
to be divinely inspired
"Exactly what advantage there may be in knowing the
result six hours before it is declared it is hard to
say, unless one is about to se up as an oracle and
practise theomancy oneself."
- Punch, 1841
"Every one, I presume, knows the distinction between
oracular divination and theomancy. The pythia could
only be inspired in the temple of Apollo, and at
certain times; while the theomantics, after the
performance of certain rites, might be inspired at
any time, and in any place."
- The Primitive Church Mag., v. viii (1851)
bonus word:
pythia [fr. Gk pythein, to rot]
the priestess of Apollo at Delphi
(not to be confused with theomachy)
the worthless word for the day is: vomitacious
[vomit + -acious] (see also vomitous)
vomit-inducing; nauseating
this strikingly graphic word hasn't found its way
into dictionaries yet, but can be found in several
print sources, such as:
"Another piece that the Goodmans salvaged is the
circa-1880 "fainting couch," in the master bedroom:
"It was upholstered in a vomitacious red-and-gold-
velour bordello look. We saved it by re-covering
it."" - Providence Journal Nov 26, 1989
"We did some research and discovered the cinquain
was invented around the turn of the century by one
Adelaide Crapsey, a humongously sensitive Vassar
grad who died young of consumption and general
weepiness. We have here in front of us several books
of cinquains by Miss Crapsey, a hugely tragic figure,
and we must say these are the most effete and
vomitacious versifications, poems so ickily precious
and pretentious they make haiku look like Kipling."
- The Washington Post May 26, 1996
"As for Ms Jenkins and Jupiter, I kept hoping through-
out that the god, in retaliation, would despatch a
thunderbolt to carry her off in a puff of smoke. The
great soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf once coined a word
that sums up perfectly the sheer awfulness of this
bathetic rubbish: vomitacious."
- David Mellor, (London) Mail on Sunday May 6, 2007
the worthless word for the day is: symphoric
[fr. Gk sumphora, mishap, calamity] /sim FOR ik/
accident prone, clumsy
<elderly and increasingly symphoric - D. Grambs>
"Who would have endured in this place to have seen
two such words as the phthano-paranomic or crime-
preventing, and the phthano-symphoric or calamity-
preventing, branches of the police?"
- Jeremy Bentham, Principles of Morals
and Legislation (1781)
"Just unhook it and come on down. It's very simple
I assure you, old fellow. And perfectly safe unless
you are symphoric perhaps."
- K.K. Stevens, Moonspins and Widdershins (2005)
the worthless word for the day is: wouldingness
[fr. woulding (desiring) + -ness]
obs. nonce-word desire, inclination
"And whatsoever you do, you do, first against one
velleity (or wouldingness) or other; and secondly,
with some mixture of the contrary."
- Henry Hammond, A practical catechism (1645)
"VELLEITY, s. A term (Locke) used to signify—The lowest
degree of desire. Hammond calls it a wouldingness."
- Charles Richardson,
A new dictionary of the English language (1839)
the worthless word for the day is: crapulosity
[fr. L. crapulosus, crapulous] /crap yu LOS ity/
A) an inclination to drunkenness or gluttony
B) by transf. something which is complete rubbish
"Of vanities under the sun, Pride seized me at
last as concupiscence first, Crapulosity ever."
- Robert Browning, Fust & his Friends (1887)
"Just a few years ago you couldn't buy condoms
legally in Ireland, nor could you get a divorce,
though buckets of beer were easily available and
unruly crapulosities a national curse."
- Paul Theroux, The New York Times Dec. 15, 2005
"What?" said George.. vigorously erasing all that
he had just written, scattering erasure crumbs
across the pages. "Crap. Crap crap crap. Who wrote
this crapulosity?"
- Katharine Weber, Triangle (2006)
the worthless word for the day is: writative
[write + -ative] /WRITE uh tiv/
inclined to much writing (after talkative)
"Increase of years makes men more talkative
but less writative."
- Alexander Pope, letter to Swift (1736)
"[Y]ou know I am a little talkative.. but alas I
am not at all writative, at least not in English."
- Patrick O'Brian, Treason's Harbour (1994)
the worthless word for the day is: pro tanto
[late L., for so much]
[adv] to that extent; accordingly
[adj] commensurate, resultant
"It should not surprise us that the propensity to
consume is highest among the unemployed. But
it is discouraging to be told that reduced income
taxes do not result, pro tanto, in increased
consumer spending."
- W. F. Buckley, New Republic Jan. 19, 2008
"So far as these emergencies can be met from
reserves there is a pro tanto saving in the cost of
capital, and a corresponding benefit to the consumer.
- Times, 8 May 1934
this week: punditocracy; subtext: semantic change
the worthless word for the day is: forensic
[fr. L. forensis] /feh REN sik/
A. pertaining to, connected with, or used in courts of law
B. ellipt. use, colloq. a forensic science department or
laboratory
"On the witness stand I argued that the word "jig" could
be used other than as animadversion. The feverish lawyer
grabbed a book from his table and slammed it down on
the arm of my chair. "Have you ever heard of a dictionary?"
he asked scornfully, as if he had put the smoking gun in
my lap. I examined the American Heritage College Dictionary
and said yes, I was familiar with it. "In fact," I was
able to say, opening the book, "I wrote the introduction
to this edition." That was the high moment of my forensic
life."
- W. F. Buckley, National Review May 19, 2006
"When a police officer hisses in my ear in court, 'Are
you from forensic?' I no longer protest. I just weakly
nod my head." - Guardian 2 Sept. 1983
the worthless word for the day is: sacerdotal
[fr. L. sacerdos, one who offers sacrifices]
1) relating to priests or priesthood: priestly
2) relating to undue emphasis on a need for
the authority of a priesthood or of priests
"That's a sacerdotal thought, And not a soldier's."
- G. Byron, Sardanapalus (1821)
"She had all the brains of the Partisan Review
crew but none of the sacerdotal sureness."
- Leon Wieseltier, The New Republic Dec. 31, 2007
the worthless word for the day is: punditocracy
[pundit + -ocracy] /pun dih TOK ruh see/
a group of pundits who wield great political influence
"This analysis comes from.. the Washington punditocracy,
including leading conservative sages whose concern for
the health of the Democratic Party is, let us say,
problematic."
- M. Kinsley, Wall Street Journal Sept. 10, 1987
"Meanwhile, an unprecedented number of Americans
are typing and hyping their opinions about the contest:
the barricades are down, the punditocracy is dead,
the technology has killed it, the people are their own
commentators."
- Leon Wieseltier, The New Republic Dec. 31, 2007
this week: the punditocracy speaks
the worthless word for the day is: litherness
[fr. lither < G. liederlich, lewd + -ness]
obs. 1) wickedness 2) laziness, sloth
"slouthfulnes, idlenes"
- Robert Cawdrey, A Table Alphabeticall
"Things lost by much lethernesse must be
recovered againe by great diligence."
- Sir T. Wilson, Demosthenes (1570)
this week: inkhorn terms from Cawdrey's list of
Hard Words, credited with being the first English
dictionary.
the worthless word for the day is: pinguidity
[fr. post-classical L. pinguidus fatty, greasy]
/pin GWID ity/ now rare
fatty, greasy, or oily matter; fatness, obesity
"fatnes, or greasinesse"
- Robert Cawdrey, A Table Alphabeticall
"She was a plain, sensible girl, and was rather
corpulent than otherwise; and as is usual with most
of the human race blessed with pinguidity, she was
very sweetly tempered."
- Southern Literary Messenger (1838)
"Jennifer and Clarissa, dripping with pinguidity..,
arrive at Aldershot to prepare a nosh-up."
- Sydney Morning Herald, 27 Jan. 1999
the worthless word for the day is: preterlapsed
[classical L. praeterlapsus] /pre ter LAPST/
now rare past, bygone; ended, over with
"passed, or gone past"
- Robert Cawdrey, A Table Alphabeticall
"We look with a superstitious reverence upon the
accounts of præterlapsed ages."
- J. Glanvill, The Vanity of Dogmatizing (1661)
"The following table shows the time preterlapsed
between the light and report, as observed at
Zevenboompjes."
- Annals of Philosophy (1825)
the worthless word for the day is: sophister
[fr. OF sophistre, ad. L. sophista]
one who makes use of fallacious arguments;
a specious reasoner: sophist
(also, Hist an upperclassman at Cambridge (or Oxford,
or Harvard or Dartmouth, or Trinity College, Dublin))
"cauiller, or craftie disputer"
- Robert Cawdrey, A Table Alphabeticall
"The pompous high-placed imbecile, mouthing his
platitudes, the wordy sophister with his oven full of
half-baked thoughts, the ill-bred rhetorician with his
tawdry aphorisms, the heartless hate-producing satirist,
would have gone down before his sword and spear."
[of Cardinal Newman]
- Augustine Birrell, Res Judicatae (1892)
the worthless word for the day is: vivificent
[ad. L. vivus, alive] obs. living
"liuely, or full of strength"
- Robert Cawdrey, A Table Alphabeticall (1604)
"It is necessarye that the vivificent parte drive
from it the mortified, or else the mortifiede allso
cause mortificatione in the vivificent partes."
- A. M. Dort, tr. of Guillemeau's Fr. Chirurg. (1597)
the worthless word for the day is: naffin
[origin uncertain, but see It. gnaffa, a dreary man]
Brit. colloq. one who is almost an idiot
"When the word idiot is a little too strong for the
occasion, try naffin instead."
- Novobatzky & Shea, Insulting English (2001)
this week: random insults
the worthless word for the day is: fogram
[origin unknown] also fogrum /FOE gruhm/
[n] an antiquated or old-fashioned person: fogy
[adj] obs. antiquated, old-fashioned
""Only his reputation. You must be dreadfully
behind times if you don't know it yourself."
"Well," said Whitehouse, "I suppose I am. An
old fogram like me.""
- John Griesemer, Signal and Noise (2003)
"Burney, perhaps, was a link between the world
of ton and the world of fogrum."
- Virginia Woolf, Dr Burney's Evening Party (1932)
bonus word: ton - [F.] the fashion, vogue or mode
the worthless word for the day is: wordanista
[coined by Steven Colbert, after fashionista, etc.;
-ista has been given a pejorative twist in English]
/word uh NEE sta/
someone who tells others what is or is not a word,
based on what they have read in books
"Truthiness. Now I'm sure some of the Word Police, the
wordanistas over at Webster's, are gonna say, "Hey,
that's not a word." Well, anybody who knows me knows
that I'm no fan of dictionaries or reference books.
They're elitist. Constantly telling us what is or isn't
true, or what did or didn't happen. Who's Britannica to
tell me the Panama Canal was finished in 1914? If I
wanna say it happened in 1941, that's my right. I don't
trust books. They're all fact, no heart."
- Steven Colbert, The Colbert Report
"Turns out I underestimated those wordanistas."
- Steven Colbert, The Colbert Report
the worthless word for the day is: woodpusher
[blend of wood + pusher]
slang a poor chess player; a patzer
(or, if you prefer, Urban Dictionary gives "a term
used by rollerbladers to define skateboarders")
""This is a revelation of unsuspected depths," Holmes
said, gazing at me quizzically. "Watson a woodpusher!"
Somewhat stung, I replied, "Not quite a dub. While I
was convalescing there from my wounds, I won the
championship of the base hospital at Peshawur.""
- Fritz Leiber, The Moriarty Gambit (1962)
"So I sent my mind on a tour of my friends, such as
they were. The woodpushers I whipped routinely at
chess, the card sharps who just as routinely trimmed
me at poker."
- Laurence Block, Burglars Can't be Choosers (1977)
the worthless word for the day is: xylocephalous
[fr. Gk xulo- < xulon, wood + kephale, head]
/zy lo suh FAL us/ (also perh. xylocephalic)
wooden-headed
My dribbling chuckleheads
My marmalade morons
My zany April-fools
My yokel boobies and bubbly-jocks
My xylocephalous clods
My witless driplets
- Paul West, Caliban's Filibuster (1971)
"Sir, you are an apogenous, bovaristic..
wlatsome, xylocephalous, yirning zoophyte."
- Peter Bowler, cf. an abecedarian insult
"Hulga Vanders - a xylocephalic ogress, deep
disgruntled furrows carved carved upon her face,
great arms folded across her vast bosom..."
- Nick Cave, And the Ass Saw the Angel (2003)
the worthless word for the day is: rudery
[fr. L. rudis, rough, unwrought] /RUE duh ree/
rudeness; a rude remark, comment, practical joke, etc.
"I have, as a rule, been averse to including such obvious
rudery in my letters to you, but the sight of your crazy
supplement (thank you for it), has quelled my aversion."
- Dylan Thomas, Dec. 1933 letter
"Some of them walked in pairs, smoking, exchanging
good-humored ruderies."
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, August 1914 (trans. 1989)
this week: from the writings of Dylan Thomas.
the worthless word for the day is: platitudinary
[fr. platitude, after e.g. latitudinary]
rare characterized by or tending to use platitudes
(usually seen in the form platitudinarian)
"It is no mean gift being able to turn a piece of
news into a nice, platitudinary set of verses,
made to please relatives and poet-tasters alike."
- Dylan Thomas, Early Prose Writings
"Wordsworth was a tea-time bore, the great Frost
of literature, the verbose, the humourless, the
platitudinary reporter of Nature in her dullest
moods. Open him at any page: and there lies the
English language not, as George Moore said of
Pater, in a glass coffin, but in a large, sultry
and unhygienic box. Degutted and desouled."
- D. Thomas, Sept. 1933 letter (he was 18)
the worthless word for the day is: prodnose
[fr. the name Prodnose, a pedantic and interfering
character in the humorous columns of J.B. Morton]
[v] rare to pry, to be inquisitive
(more commonly found used in Britain as a colloq.
noun or adj. used to refer to the British public)
"What can I say.. that can interest anyone save,
vaguely, myself, and of course my guardian angel,
a failed psychoanalyst in this life who is even
now prodnosing in the air above me, casebook in
claw, a lilttle seedy and down-at-winged-heel, in
the guttural consulting-rooms of space?"
- Dylan Thomas, Quite Early One Morning (1954)
"Shiner was bitter about what he called "prodnosed
bureaucrats" who interfere with his artistic
freedom as a chef."
- Michael Green, The Art of Coarse Drinking (2001)
the worthless word for the day is: dogdayed
[f. dog-days, the hottest, sultriest days of summer]
poetic nonce-word of or relating to the dog-days
There from their hearts the dogdayed pulse
Of love and light bursts in their throats.
O see the pulse of summer in the ice.
- Dylan Thomas, I see the boys of summer (1934)
Out of these seathumbed leaves
That will fly and fall
Like leaves of trees and as soon
Crumble and undie
Into the dogdayed night.
- Dylan Thomas, Prologue (1952)
the worthless word for the day is: vibrissa
[L. vibrissae, nostril hairs] /vie BRIS uh/ pl. vibrissae
one of the long stiff hairs that project from the snout or
brow of most mammals, as the whiskers of a cat
(also transf. somewhat speciously)
(file under: so that's what that's called)
"She simply looks around, makes a pass at the leg of the
dining table with her vibrissa, then saunters over to the
exact spot on the floor where the sun is streaming through
the window and collapses in a heap of drowsy fur. I
think she has [AD/HD]. I've a good mind to spike her
food with Ritalin."
- Smith & Sipress, Your Cat's Just Not That Into You (2005)
"Excepting for Darcy and his father, who favoured each
other both in swarthiness and in stature, no two shared a
duality. That is, of course, if one discounted the predis-
position to adiposity, vibrassa, and wattles..."
- Linda Berdoll, Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife (2004)
the worthless word for the day is: ingravescent
[L., to become worse] /in gra VES ent/
Medical growing worse or more severe; also transf.
"The Original Dixieland Strutters have to be given
credit for braving the elements in seemingly
ingravescent circumstances."
- John McKay, Richmond Times Oct 5, 1987
"To Americans who worry that their country is going
the way of ancient Rome, only faster, two of the most
alarming trends are the ingravescent influence of money
in politics and the exponential growth of gambling."
- Martin Dyckman, St. Petersburg Times Jul 8, 1997
the worthless word for the day is: adoxography
[fr. Gk adoxos, inglorious + -graphy, writing]
/ad ok SOG ra fee/
fine writing on a trivial or base subject
"[T]he country would enter an age of adoxography, when
good writing on base or meaningless subjects would
emerge from the primal ooze of the politically
correct - to be followed.. by an aeonian of
philosophical re-examination."
- Ralph de Toledano, Insight on the News May 7, 2001
"Montaigne's praise of Sparta belongs unmistakably to
the rhetorical tradition repudiated by his Spartan
heroes. Within that tradition, he cultivates especially
the epideictic genre, and within that genre he shows a
predilection for what is known as "adoxography" or
paradoxical praise, which has been recognized as a
precursor of the literary essay."
- Eric MacPhail, Rhetorica (spring 2002)
""Elizabethan schoolboys," Mr. Kadri writes, "were
commonly taught adoxography, the art of eruditely
praising worthless things.... The first English
treatise on the subject appeared in 1593 and contained
essays celebrating deformity, ugliness, poverty,
blindness, drunkenness, sterility, and stupidity. Its
preface claimed that it would be particularly useful
to lawyers.""
- Walter Olson, Wall Street Journal Sep 8, 2005
the worthless word for the day is: mesopygion
[fr. Gk meso-, middle + pyge, the rump + -ion]
rare the cleavage of the buttocks
(in the middle of the pyg family)
"Even if they have the mesopygion of Ganymedes,
the eye of Narkissos, the ankle of Hyakinthos,
O cow-eyed Io! they steal your time, your rest,
your attention. Be gone away!"
- Guy Davenport, Eclogues (1981)
"And precisely as he was trying not to think that
little is as arousing as the [shadow] of a woman's
veiled mesopygion, he was jolted by the belligerent
epiphany that the day had been narrowing in complicity
with his foreknowledge into the corner of the room..."
- Rick Harsch, The Sleep of the Aborigines (2002)
the worthless word for the day is: mesonoxian
[fr. Gk meso-, middle + L. nox, night]
/mezz uh NOCK see un/?
obs. rare of or belonging to midnight {Cockeram}
"What are your mesonoxian plans?" sounds so much
better on Dec. 31 than "Hey, whatcha doin' tonight?"
- as from Erin McKean
(author of More Weird and Wonderful Words)
"What's your favorite jazz song?"
"That's easy. Thelonius Monk's 'Round Mesonoxian."
- The Booklist March 1, 2007
[perhaps better would have been 'Round Mesonoxia]
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