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Post by Chris on Nov 4, 2006 11:41:10 GMT -5
Today's word, courtesy of dictionary.com: apocryphal
apocryphal \uh-POK-ruh-fuhl\, adjective: 1. (Bible) Pertaining to the Apocrypha. 2. Not canonical. Hence: Of doubtful authority or authenticity; equivocal; fictitious; spurious; false.
Apocryphal or not, the anecdote contains at least a grain of truth. -- Caroline Fraser, God's Perfect Child
In 1959 he told Walter Gutman that he first started writing when he was three years old, but that his sister threw away all his childhood writings one day when she cleaned out the attic. This sounds apocryphal as it is unlikely that he could read or write at that tender age, and if he could he would certainly have told us. -- Barry Miles, Jack Kerouac King of the Beats
He always told romanticised apocryphal stories of his ancestry, sometimes a bastard grandfather, brought up on the parish, sometimes "a weaver, half poet and half madman." -- Kathleen Jones, A Passionate Sisterhood
Apocryphal ultimately derives from Greek apokruphos, "hidden (hence, spurious)," from apokruptein, "to hide away," from apo-, "away, from" + kruptein, "to hide."
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Post by Chris on Nov 5, 2006 9:10:41 GMT -5
Today's word, courtesy of dictionary.com: harangue
harangue \huh-RANG\, noun: 1. A speech addressed to a large public assembly. 2. A noisy or pompous speech; a rant.
transitive verb: 1. To deliver a harangue to; to address by a harangue.
intransitive verb: 1. To make a harangue; to declaim.
His emissaries, had attended the Priest's convocation of the people, and, without delaying to hear more than the main point of the harangue, hurried back with their intelligence to the rebel camp. -- Wilkie Collins, Iolani: Or, Tahiti as It Was
Wont to harangue the citizenry in public speeches with such lines as "Remember! My father gave you freedom!" Mrs. Gandhi did not take lightly to government officers with an independent turn of mind. -- Gita Mehta, Snakes and Ladders
Mostly, though, he functions as Exhibit A in the playwright's harangue against capitalist exploitation of the workingman. -- Matthew Gurewitsch, "A Country of Lesser Giants", New York Times, April 4, 1999
And Alexander Lebed, a Siberian governor and presidential hopeful, seemed to typify the punchy, touchy national mood when he lost control recently in front of television cameras and harangued a local businessman with bleeped-out expletives. -- Michael R. Gordon, "On Russia's Far-East Fringe, Unrealpolitik", New York Times, February 14, 1999
She was hardly anyone's idea of a good time, but at least she kept her hands to herself and showed him considerable amounts of affection, enough warmth of heart to counterbalance the periods when she nagged him and harangued him and got on his nerves. -- Paul Auster, Timbuktu
Harangue derives from Medieval French arenge, from Old Italian aringa, from aringare, "to speak in public," from aringo, "a public place for horse racing and popular assemblies," ultimately of Germanic origin.
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Post by Chris on Nov 6, 2006 9:52:29 GMT -5
Today's word, courtesy of dictionary.com: copse
copse \KOPS\, noun: A thicket or grove of small trees.
A lit window shone from between the trees below them, then vanished again as the car dipped over a ditch and passed through a copse. -- Kate Bingham, Mummy's Legs
Among the mountains, hills, streams, waterfalls, and little copses, the child rejoiced in "savouring the delights of freedom" that stimulated his boyish dreams and reveries. -- Suheil Bushrui and Joe Jenkins, Kahlil Gibran: Man and Poet
They sang freely in the copses and thickets round Bohain, and in the ruins of the mediaeval castle where he played as a boy. -- Hilary Spurling, The Unknown Matisse
Copse derives from Old French copeiz, "a thicket for cutting," from coper, couper, "to cut." It is related to coupon, at root "the part that is cut off."
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Post by Chris on Nov 7, 2006 10:24:59 GMT -5
Today's word, courtesy of dictionary.com: obfuscate
obfuscate \OB-fuh-skayt\, transitive verb: 1. To darken or render indistinct or dim. 2. To make obscure or difficult to understand or make sense of. 3. To confuse or bewilder.
Yet little has been written of him (he obfuscated details of his life in interviews), and his art is little recalled. -- Gary Giddins, Visions of Jazz
One of Jack Gance's better choices is when he decides not to obfuscate his past in order to protect his success. -- Judith Martin, "No One Stays Clean in Washington.", New York Times, January 1, 1989
It's to be expected that teams' publicity departments do a little spin-doctoring and enhance their players' performances by using numbers that appear to be impressive, so it's up to the commentators to determine if those stats have validity or are meant to obfuscate poor performances. -- Tim McCarver with Danny Peary, Tim Mccarver's Baseball for Brain Surgeons and Other Fans
It will . . . obfuscate and mislead the public. -- Rod Liddle, "Labour's attack on Gilligan is just nit-picking", The Guardian, August 13, 2003
Obfuscate comes from Late Latin obfuscatus, past participle of obfuscare, "to darken," from Latin ob- + fuscare, "to darken," from fuscus, "dark." The noun form is obfuscation.
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Post by Chris on Nov 8, 2006 10:43:49 GMT -5
Today's word, courtesy of dictionary.com: agrestic
agrestic \uh-GRES-tik\, adjective: Pertaining to fields or the country; rural; rustic.
The funniest and most agrestic of all his paintings were, undoubtedly, the cows. -- Robert Hughes, "An Outlaw Who Loved Laws", Time, July 26, 1993
Grass plants possess an agrestic simplicity that probably connects them, at some level of mind, with wholesome grain and the restorative country life. -- George Schen, The Complete Shade Gardener
Agrestic is from agrestis, from ager, "field." It is related to agriculture.
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Post by Chris on Nov 9, 2006 8:09:13 GMT -5
Today's word, courtesy of dictionary.com:
congeries \KON-juh-reez\, noun: A collection; an aggregation.
As the great French historian Fernand Braudel pointed out in his last major work, The Identity of France (1986), it was the railroad that made France into one nation and one culture. It had previously been a congeries of self-contained regions, held together only politically. -- Peter F. Drucker, "Beyond the Information Revolution", Atlantic Monthly, October 1999
William Rothenstein described the Academie as a "congeries of studios crowded with students, the walls thick with palette scrapings, hot, airless and extremely noisy." -- Jeffrey Meyers, Bogart: A Life in Hollywood
More important, he doesn't tell us that the Kennedy Administration was a very uneasy congeries of vastly differing types of Democrats with conflicting foreign-policy agendas. -- James C. Thomson Jr., "Whose Side Were They On?" review of Friends and Enemies: The United States, China, and the Soviet Union, 1948-1972, by Gordon H. Chang, New York Times, July 29, 1990
Congeries is from Latin congeries, "a heap, a mass," from congerere, "to carry together, to bring together, to collect," from com-, "with, together" + gerere, "to carry." It is related to congest, "to overfill or overcrowd," which derives from the past participle of congerere.
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Post by Chris on Nov 10, 2006 9:50:45 GMT -5
Today's word, courtesy of dictionary.com: peripatetic
peripatetic \pair-uh-puh-TET-ik\, adjective: 1. Of or pertaining to walking about or traveling from place to place; itinerant. 2. Of or pertaining to the philosophy taught by Aristotle (who gave his instructions while walking in the Lyceum at Athens), or to his followers.
noun: 1. One who walks about; a pedestrian; an itinerant. 2. A follower of Aristotle; an Aristotelian.
Nevertheless, the attachment which in later life he developed towards Charleston suggests that his peripatetic childhood had left unsatisfied his need for a permanent home. -- Frances Spalding, Duncan Grant: A Biography
I was born in Italy, my sister on the west coast of Canada, because my father was pursuing a peripatetic career as an artist. -- Anna Shapiro, USA Today, July 13, 2000
He would have a long way to go before he would match his peripatetic father. Nick had now moved five times and lived in four states from Kentucky to California. -- Allen Barra, Inventing Wyatt Earp
Peripatetic derives from Greek peripatetikos, from peripatein, "to walk about," from peri-, "around, about" + patein, "to walk."
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Post by Chris on Nov 11, 2006 8:48:26 GMT -5
Today's word, courtesy of dictionary.com: turgid
turgid \TUR-jid\, adjective: 1. Swollen, bloated, puffed up; as, "a turgid limb." 2. Swelling in style or language; bombastic, pompous; as, "a turgid style of speaking."
The famous Faulkner style was more than many could put up with. Its marathon sentences, its peculiar words used peculiarly, its turgid incoherence and its thick viscosity repelled. -- Orville Prescott, "A Literary Personality", New York Times, July 7, 1962
Brown's novels are filled with the rigged episodes of melodrama and the turgid prose that passed for elegance among the literary circles in America before Irving and Hawthorne arrived on the scene. -- "The Battle of the Books", New York Times, July 10, 1988
Many young Libyans prefer to get their news from the Internet rather than the turgid evening news programs filled with slogans and cliches. -- Amany Radwan, "The Weird, Wired World of Colonel Ghaddafi", Time, February 6, 2001
The arm being bound, and the veins made turgid, and the valves prominent, as before, apply the thumb or finger over a vein in the situation of one of the valves in such a way as to compress it, and prevent any blood from passing upwards from the hand. -- William Harvey, On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals
Turgid derives from Latin turgidus, from turgere, to swell.
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Post by Chris on Nov 12, 2006 9:01:49 GMT -5
Today's word, courtesy of dictionary.com: idyll
idyll \EYE-dl\, noun: 1. A simple descriptive work, either in poetry or prose, dealing with simple, rustic life; pastoral scenes; and the like. 2. A narrative poem treating an epic, romantic, or tragic theme. 3. A lighthearted carefree episode or experience. 4. A romantic interlude.
Sheep are not the docile, pleasant creatures of the pastoral idyll. Any countryman will tell you that. They are sly, occasionally vicious, pathologically stupid. -- Joanne Harris, Chocolat
From too much looking back, he was destroyed, . . . trying to re-create an idyll that never truly existed except in his own imagination. -- Gore Vidal, The Essential Gore Vidal
She kept a diary that poignantly captured the sense of youthful gaiety shattered by events suddenly intruding on their teenage idyll. -- James T. Fisher, Dr. America
The Guevaras' honeymoon idyll, such as it was, did not last long. -- Jon Lee Anderson, Che Guevara : A Revolutionary Life
Idyll ultimately derives from Greek eidullion, "a short descriptive poem (usually on pastoral subjects); an idyll," from eidos, "that which is seen; form; shape; figure." The adjective form is idyllic.
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Post by johnsapphire on Nov 13, 2006 18:25:54 GMT -5
I have a theory: [theory]This thread is but to get your post count up[/theory]
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Post by Chris on Nov 14, 2006 16:18:30 GMT -5
I've said before than anybody is welcome to help keep the thread updated, but no one is taking the opportunity, so I'm mostly responsible for it on my own. And I see no advantage in upping my post count, and therefore have no motivation to do so.
Besides, there are certainly easier ways to up post counts than to make a Word of the Day thread. One that comes to mind is to demean other members and their actions at every turn to make me feel a sense of accomplishment.
Hmm. I can't put my finger on it, but I feel like I've seen that done before....
Anyway, today's word, courtesy of dictionary.com: gauche
gauche \GOHSH\, adjective: Lacking social polish; tactless; awkward; clumsy.
He was largely exempted from the formal socializing he said he found so hard to manage, flustered and gauche in polite company as he had always been. -- John Sturrock, "Well on the Way to Paranoia", New York Times, July 28, 1991
He was by nature intellectual, shy, even gauche and he always believed he lacked the common touch. -- "Editor whose legacy was diversity", Irish Times, October 9, 1999
The audience's performance was altogether more gauche, with scores of people in the stalls constantly turning round to gawp at Mick Jagger seated ten rows back. -- Noreen Taylor, "How was it for him?", Times (London), August 3, 2000
Gauche is from the French for left, awkward.
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Post by Chris on Nov 18, 2006 22:06:05 GMT -5
Been away for a while. Sorry about that.
Today's word, courtesy of dictionary.com: bootless (I know, it surprised me too).
bootless \BOOT-lis\, adjective: Unavailing; useless; without advantage or benefit.
I have seen a swan With bootless labour swim against the tide. -- Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part III
A noble intention, a decent attempt to bust bigger heads than their own with their best weapons, but bootless and, ultimately, senseless, too. -- Gordon Monson, "Ute Defense Headlines Bland Game", Salt Lake Tribune, September 1, 2002
A crew of divers was scheduled to start cleaning the seaweed off the net in preparation for winter, although now it seemed like a bootless task, given that Keiko might never come back. -- Susan Orlean, "Where's Willy?", The New Yorker, September 16, 2002
Late in the nineteenth century there had been a bootless competition between Munich and Berlin as to which was more modern, more civilized. -- Peter Gay, My German Question
Bootless is from Old English bot, "advantage, profit" + -less, from Old English from leas, "without.
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Post by Chris on Nov 19, 2006 18:51:42 GMT -5
Today's word, courtesy of dictionary.com: proclivity
proclivity \pro-KLIV-uh-tee\, noun: A natural inclination; predisposition.
New York City is full of people like Mr. O'Neal -- life-long bibliophiles with a proclivity for accumulation, holed up in compact spaces in the intimate company of thousands upon thousands upon thousands of books. -- "For Some, Acquiring Books Has Become a Compulsion", New York Times, July 6, 1997
Those close to Clark from childhood were not surprised at how quickly he recognized the lucrative financial opportunities commercial announcing afforded, for Clark had demonstrated a proclivity for entrepreneurship as a youth. -- John A. Jackson, American Bandstand: Dick Clark and the Making of a Rock 'n' Roll Empire
Proclivity comes from Latin proclivitas, from proclivis, "inclined," from pro-, "forward" + clivus, "a slope."
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Post by Chris on Nov 20, 2006 15:58:57 GMT -5
Today's word, courtesy of dictionary.com: exacerbate
exacerbate \ig-ZAS-ur-bayt\, transitive verb: To render more severe, violent, or bitter; to irritate; to aggravate; to make worse.
To reduce the stress that exacerbates my stuttering, I have meditated, done deep-breathing exercises, and floated under a condition of sensory deprivation in a dark, enclosed isolation tank. -- Marty Jezer, Stuttering: A Life Bound Up in Words
By the 1920s a stubborn agricultural depression . . . badly exacerbated the problems of the countryside. -- David M. Kennedy, Freedom From Fear
But they decided they did not like the San Francisco weather -- it exacerbated Alan's allergies -- and they moved to Florida at the end of 1986. -- Sanford J. Ungar, Fresh Blood: The New American Immigrants
Exacerbate is from Latin exacerbare, "to irritate, to provoke, to aggravate very much," from ex-, intensive prefix + acerbare, "to make bitter, to aggravate," from acerbus, "bitter."
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Post by Chris on Nov 21, 2006 19:29:30 GMT -5
Today's word, courtesy of dictionary.com: subaltern
subaltern \suhb-OL-tuhrn; SUHB-uhl-tuhrn\, adjective: 1. Ranked or ranged below; subordinate; inferior. 2. (Chiefly British) Ranking as a junior officer; being below the rank of captain. 3. (Logic) Asserting only a part of what is asserted in a related proposition.
noun: 1. A person holding a subordinate position. 2. (Chiefly British) A commissioned military officer below the rank of captain. 3. (Logic) A subaltern proposition.
Both the old and new elites, not the subaltern underclass of workers and peasants, superimposed the fever chart of the Russian Revolution on what they assumed to have been the fever chart of the French Revolution with a view to determining the degree to which the temperature curves of the two revolutions diverged from each other. -- Arno J. Mayer, The Furies
The letters are never those of a groveling subaltern to his superior; they are rather like advisories from one soldier to another. -- Christina Vella, Intimate Enemies
One of their officers, a subaltern, observed to me that his soldiers were infants that required constant attendance. -- Paul Leicester Ford, "Dr. Rush and General Washington", The Atlantic, May 1895
Subaltern derives from Late Latin subalternus, "subordinate," from Latin sub-, "under" + Latin alternus, "alternate," from alter, "other."
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