Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 26, 2006 12:26:17 GMT -5
heh. I'll post a new word before you do one day!!!
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Post by Chris on Oct 26, 2006 12:34:03 GMT -5
Feel free to do so. It might even save the thread from the imminent death John's complaining about if the responsibility to keep it updated was shared.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 26, 2006 12:37:23 GMT -5
haha. I think it should be first come first served. And it won't die. new words are fascinating
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Post by Chris on Oct 27, 2006 7:30:44 GMT -5
Well, I guess I'm first come today.
Today's word, courtesy of dictionary.com: inveterate
inveterate \in-VET-uhr-it\, adjective: 1. Firmly established by long persistence; deep-rooted; of long standing. 2. Fixed in habit by long persistence; confirmed; habitual.
In Montpelier, where this prison stands, the inveterate prejudice against prisoners has been swept away. -- Morrison I. Swift, "Humanizing the Prisons", The Atlantic, August 1911
He is an inveterate nibbler, popping nuts and chocolate into his mouth as he talks, leaning forward in his chair to forage in the tins with his right hand. -- Michael Ignatieff, Isaiah Berlin: A Life
I was an inveterate museum-goer from the age of fourteen, when I'd take the trolley to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts after school and wander the halls of Greek antiquities. -- Jane Alexander, Command Performance
Inveterate is from the past participle of Latin inveterari, "to grow old, to endure," from in- + vetus, veter-, "old." It is related to veteran, "one who is long experienced in some activity or capacity; an old soldier of long service; one who has served in the armed forces." The noun form is inveteracy or inveterateness.
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Post by Chris on Oct 28, 2006 12:03:30 GMT -5
Today's Word, courtesy of dictionary.com: virtu
virtu \vuhr-TOO; vir-\, noun: 1. love of or taste for fine objects of art. 2. Productions of art (especially fine antiques). 3. Artistic quality.
The Italian humanist Giovanni Pontano described these objects as "statues, pictures, tapestries, divans, chairs of ivory, cloth interwoven with gems, many-coloured boxes and coffers in the Arabian style, crystal vases and other things of this kind . . . [whose] sight . . . is pleasing and brings prestige to the owner of the house." They all spoke to the wealth, taste and virtu of their owner. -- John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination
Divans, Persian rugs, easy chairs, books, statuary, articles of virtu and bric-a-brac are on every side, and the whole has the appearance of a place where one could dream his life away. -- "Mark Twain's Summer Home", The New York Times, September 10, 1882
Virtu comes from Italian virtù "virtue, excellence," from Latin virtus, "excellence, worth, goodness, virtue."
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Post by Denithar on Oct 29, 2006 11:40:46 GMT -5
Today's word courtesy of The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.
compurgation com•pur•ga•tion
An ancient form of trial in which an accused person could call 11 people to swear to their belief in his innocence.
Etymology: Late Latin
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Post by Chris on Oct 29, 2006 22:57:14 GMT -5
Oh, Den beat me to it. Nice word.
I'll get it tomorrow, though, no doubt.
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Post by Chris on Oct 30, 2006 8:54:30 GMT -5
Today's word, courtesy of dictionary.com: febrile
febrile \FEB-ruhl; FEE-bruhl; -bryl\, adjective: Of or pertaining to fever; indicating fever or derived from it; feverish.
Instead of being weakened by the consumption she contracts in a dank Yankee prison, Adair seems fired from within; she glows -- flushed, febrile and passionate. -- Ann Prichard, "Enemy Women' joins ranks of Civil War epics", USA Today, February 28, 2002
Whether his refusal to quit stemmed from righteous stoicism or mulishness, the Governor-General became trapped in a vortex of lurid claims, political opportunism, public hysteria and febrile op-ed commentary that was sucking the life out of his tenure. -- Tom Dusevic, "Queen's Man In Limbo", Time Pacific, May 19, 2003
Typically, febrile seizures do not cause brain injury or raise the risk of epilepsy; they are simply the brain's response to a sudden rise in temperature. -- Judy Foreman, "On Fever: Sweat It Out Or Treat It", Boston Globe, February 29, 2000
Febrile comes from Late Latin febrilis, from Latin febris, "fever."
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Post by Chris on Oct 31, 2006 9:34:14 GMT -5
Today's word, courtesy of dictionary.com: wan
wan \WAHN\, adjective: 1. Having a pale or sickly hue; pale; pallid. 2. Lacking vitality, as from weariness, illness, or unhappiness; feeble. 3. Lacking in intensity or brightness; dim or feeble.
She was concerned about her grandson's wan appearance. "So skinny," she would say in Yiddish, "such a plucked little owl." -- Herbert G. Goldman, Banjo Eyes
Her pale, pinched lips, sunken eyes and wan, haggard cheeks presented a mournful contrast to her former self. -- Wilkie Collins, Iolani
. . .some wan heroine in a Gothic romance, keening over a faithless lover, trembling before a murderous stalker, falling into the arms of her rescuers. -- Marilyn Stasio, review of Final Jeopardy by Linda Fairstein, New York Times, July 28, 1996
Through the frayed curtain at my window, a wan glow announces the break of day. -- Jean-Dominique Bauby, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Wan is from Old English wann, "gloomy, dark."
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Post by eakyra on Oct 31, 2006 21:20:48 GMT -5
Ooo... compurgation... makes me want to write a short story. ;D
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Post by Chris on Nov 1, 2006 9:44:25 GMT -5
Today's word, courtesy of dictionary.com: prevaricate
prevaricate \prih-VAIR-uh-kayt\, intransitive verb: To depart from or evade the truth; to speak with equivocation.
Journalism has a similar obligation, particularly with men and women suddenly transferred to places of great power, who are often led to exaggerate and prevaricate, all in the name of a supposedly greater good. -- Stephen R. Graubard, "Presidents: The Power and the Mediocrity", New York Times, January 15, 1989
Larkin never prevaricates. He is unhesitant and blunt in his assessment of his contemporaries. -- T.J. Ross, "Getting to know Philip Larkin: the life and letters", The Literary Review, January 1, 1995
The leadership's perennial obsession with secrecy led it to prevaricate about the extent of the disease in the capital for five months. -- Roderick Macfarquhar, "Unhealthy Politics", Newsweek International, May 12, 2003
Prevaricate derives from the past participle of Latin praevaricari, "to pass in front of, or over, by straddling; to walk crookedly; to collude," from prae, "before, in front of" + varicare, "to straddle," from varicus, "straddling," from varus, "bent."
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Post by eakyra on Nov 1, 2006 23:21:24 GMT -5
I betcha im going to get this one...
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Post by Chris on Nov 2, 2006 10:29:49 GMT -5
Today's word, courtesy of dictionary.com: ostracize
ostracize \OS-truh-syz\, transitive verb: 1. To banish or expel from a community or group; to cast out from social, political, or private favor. 2. [Greek Antiquity] To exile by ostracism; to banish by a popular vote, as at Athens.
As for scientists who might be tempted to pursue the theory, he says, they worry that their colleagues might ostracize them for stepping out of line and that their funding could suffer. -- Jon Cohen, "The Hunt for the Origin of AIDS", The Atlantic, October 2000
New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani called Monday on the members of the United Nations to unite in a global effort to eradicate terrorism and to ostracize countries that refuse to join. -- Stevenson Swanson, "Giuliani asks global effort on terrorism", Chicago Tribune, October 2, 2001
Ostracize is from Greek ostrakizein, "to banish by voting with potsherds," from ostrakon, "a piece of earthenware, a potsherd." Ostracism was practiced at Athens to get rid of a citizen whose power was considered too great for the liberty of the state. Each voter wrote on a potsherd the name of a person he wished banished. The man named on the most ostraka was exiled, normally for a period of ten years.
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Post by eakyra on Nov 2, 2006 20:09:41 GMT -5
Or not...
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Post by Chris on Nov 3, 2006 9:47:50 GMT -5
lol. Better luck next time.
Today's word, courtesy of dictionary.com: fillip
fillip \FIL-uhp\, noun: 1. A snap of the finger forced suddenly from the thumb; a smart blow. 2. Something serving to rouse or excite; a stimulus. 3. A trivial addition; an embellishment.
transitive verb: 1. To strike with the nail of the finger, first placed against the ball of the thumb, and forced from that position with a sudden spring; to snap with the finger. 2. To snap; to project quickly. 3. To urge on; to provide a stimulus, by or as if by a fillip.
If any one in Mirgorod gives him a neckerchief or underclothes, he returns thanks; if any one gives him a fillip on the nose--he returns thanks then also. -- Nikolai Gogol, "The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovich"
You may take your coffee of a morning in the little garden in which he wrote finis to his immortal work -- and if the coffee is good enough to administer a fillip to your fancy, perhaps you may yet hear the faint reverberation among the trees of the long, long breath with which he must have laid down his pen. -- Henry James, Collected Travel Writings
Her raspberry cream tart is given an added fillip with bourbon and nutmeg. -- Marian Burros, "Cooking", New York Times, June 3, 1984
The utopian and romantic -- and in the end completely unrealistic -- idea that the building should serve as a mooring post for airships led to the creation of a tower on the tower, giving a final fillip to the design. -- Nathan Glazer, "Miracle on 34th Street", New York Times, December 3, 1995
You fillip me o' the head. -- Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida
Fillip is probably of imitative origin.
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