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This topic comprises 10 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
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Author
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Topic: New Word Of The Day
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 01-24-2006 06:45 AM
Rated G ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
predilection \preh-d'l-EK-shuhn; pree-\, noun:
A predisposition to choose or like; an established preference.
Wilson doesn't see any inconsistency between his socialism and his predilection for the high life.
--Marina Cantacuzino, "On deadly ground," The Guardian, March 13, 2001
. . . youth's predilection for revolt.
--Terry McCarthy, "Lost Generation," Time Asia, October 23, 2000
But for him the first rule of judging was to set aside personal predilection and vote the law and the facts.
--Edwin M. Yoder Jr., "Lewis Powell a Fine Sense of Balance," Washington Post, June 29, 1987
Predilection is literally "a liking before," from Latin prae-, "before" + diligere, "to choose; hence to prefer, to like very well."
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 01-26-2006 04:15 AM
Rated G
grandee \gran-DEE\, noun:
1. A man of elevated rank or station.
2. In Spain or Portugal, a nobleman of the first rank.
Jack Byron still harbored delusions of being a local grandee, attempting to influence district politics; as the final humiliation, in the parliamentary election of 1786 his vote was disallowed.
--Benita Eisler, Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame
Like Bellow, he is at once a snob and a democrat, a voracious brain and a churning gut, a seminar-room grandee and a barroom brawler.
-- A. O. Scott, "Trans-Atlantic Flights," New York Times, January 31, 1999
Seduced by his need to live like a grandee, Coppola can't afford not to work within the system.
--Joseph McBride, "Offers He Should've Refused," New York Times, December 12, 1999
Grandee comes from Spanish grande, from Latin grandis, "great, large, hence important, grand." Related words include grandeur, "the state or quality of being grand"; grandiose, "characterized by affectation of grandeur"; aggrandize, "to make great or greater"; and, of course, grand.
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 01-27-2006 07:12 AM
Rated G
wunderkind \VOON-duhr-kint\, noun;
plural wunderkinder \-kin-duhr\:
1. A child prodigy.
2. One who achieves great success or acclaim at an early age.
It was even written that, at 20, his best days were behind him. He had gone from a wunderkind to an object of sympathy, a hero struggling not to be forgotten.
-- "Owen shines like a beacon amid the wrecks," Times (London), May 29, 2000
In the mid-thirties, he became the youngest and best state director of FDR's National Youth Administration, a Texas wunderkind who at age twenty-eight beat several better known opponents for a south-central Texas congressional seat.
-- Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant
Wunderkind comes from German, from Wunder, "wonder" + Kind, child.
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 01-28-2006 08:02 AM
Rated G
lucre \LOO-kuhr\, noun:
Monetary gain; profit; riches; money; -- often in a bad sense.
His stories began to be published in the American Mercury before he moved to L.A., lured by the dream of Hollywood lucre.
-- Jerome Boyd Maunsell, "Truly madly weepy," Times (London), June 10, 2000
They ought to feel a calling for service rather than lucre
.
-- Sin-Ming Shaw, "It's Time to Get Real," Time Asia, July 1, 2002
But surely there are other motives for writing, and they range from the desire for filthy lucre to the pleasure in doing the thing itself to the impulse to delight readers.
-- Robert Alter, "The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages," New Republic, October 10, 1994
Picture the place where you grew up. Now, imagine it trampled by an avalanche of capital and the stampede of lucre-crazed hordes chasing after it.
-- Katharine Mieszkowski, "I Want to Blow Up Silicon Valley," Salon, July 14, 2000
Lucre comes from Latin lucrum, "gain, profit." It is related to lucrative, "profitable."
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 01-30-2006 02:40 PM
Rated G
sang-froid \sang-FRWAH\, noun;
also sangfroid:
Freedom from agitation or excitement of mind; coolness in trying circumstances; calmness.
The Treasury Secretary's sang-froid in moments of crisis.
-- "Keeping the Boom From Busting," New York Times, July 19, 1998
Both men were mightily impressed by the calmness of the Americans on board, particularly among the women. "I had, during my sojourn in America," Beaumont said later, "a thousand occasions to see the sang-froid of the American."
-- Michael Kammen, "Wrecked on the Fourth of July," New York Times, July 6, 1997
Gaviria knew Alberto as an impulsive but cordial man capable of maintaining his sangfroid under the most stressful circumstances.
-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, News of a Kidnapping
Sang-froid is from the French; it literally means "cold blood" (sang, "blood" + froid, "cold").
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 01-31-2006 08:37 AM
Rated G
consanguineous \kon-san(g)-GWIN-ee-us\, adjective:
Of the same blood; related by birth; descended from the same parent or ancestor.
These Neolithic people practiced agriculture in a settled communal life and are widely supposed to have had consanguineous clans as their basic social grouping.
-- Bruce Cumings, Korea's Place in the Sun
Am not I consanguineous? am I not of her blood?
-- William Shakespeare, Twelfth-Night
Among other preliminary activities, the prospective groom's party formally inquires as to the girl's clan-name; this is a ritualization of the taboo on consanguineous marriage.
-- Mark Laurent Asselin, "The Lu-school reading of 'Guanju' as preserved in an eastern Han fu," Journal of the American Oriental Society, July 1, 1997
Nowhere, not even in Holland, where the correspondence between the real aspects and the little polished canvases is so constant and so exquisite, do art and life seem so interfused and, as it were, so consanguineous.
-- "Noted with Pleasure," New York Times, October 6, 1991
Consanguineous is from Latin consanguineus, from com-, con-, "with, together" + sanguineus, from sanguis, sanguin-, "blood." The noun form is consanguinity, "relationship by blood, or close relation or connection."
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 02-01-2006 09:35 AM
Rated G
malleable \MAL-ee-uh-buhl\, adjective:
1. Capable of being extended or shaped by beating with a hammer, or by the pressure of rollers; -- applied to metals.
2. Capable of being altered or controlled by outside forces; easily influenced.
3. Capable of adjusting to changing circumstances; adaptable.
His image for his own imagination is the acid, the catalyst, that is mixed in to make the gold malleable, and is then wiped away.
-- "Nothing is too wonderful to be true," Times (London), June 7, 2000
The natives proved less malleable and far less innocent than the Europeans imagined, so much so that early colonial history is filled with countless stories of monks who met hideous deaths at the hands of their flocks.
-- Juan Gonzalez, Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America
I think his request was just a vainglorious way of expressing the basic belief of behaviorism: that children are malleable and that it is their environment, not innate qualities such as talent or temperament, that determines their destiny.
-- Judith Rich Harris, The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do
Many current thinkers wish to abandon the idea of a continuous self; novelists have always known that selves are fleeting, malleable, porous.
-- Mary Gordon, "The Fascination Begins in the Mouth," New York Times, June 13, 1993
Those workers aged over 50 were considered too set in their ways, too expensive to keep on and not malleable enough.
-- Jill Sherman Whitehall, "Benefit costs force rethink on retirement," Times (London), April 25, 2000
Malleable comes from Medieval Latin malleabilis, from malleare, "to hammer," from Latin malleus, "hammer."
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 02-02-2006 07:54 AM
Rated G
parlous \PAR-luhs\, adjective:
Attended with peril; fraught with danger; hazardous.
It was a parlous time on the Continent, when Communists and fascists vied brutally for supremacy.
-- Howard Simons, "Shots Seen Round the World," New York Times, September 22, 1985
The Crisis left Indonesia's state finances in such a parlous state that the government is now heavily exposed to future risks.
-- Penny Crisp and Jose Manuel Tesoro, "The Buck Stops Here," Asiaweek, July 7, 2000
Parlous derives from Old French perillous, perilleus, from Latin periculosus, adjective form of periculum, "peril, danger, hazard."
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 02-03-2006 08:07 AM
Rated G
disparate \DIS-puh-rit; dis-PAIR-it\, adjective:
1. Fundamentally different or distinct in quality or kind.
2. Composed of or including markedly dissimilar elements.
Science at its best isolates a common element underlying many seemingly disparate phenomena.
-- John Horgan, The Undiscovered Mind
A Region Not Home," though it encompasses topics as seemingly disparate as Shakespeare, football, suicide, racism and Disneyland, actually has considerable thematic coherence.
-- Phillip Lopate, "Dreaming of Elsewhere," New York Times, February 27, 2000
When a poet's mind is perfectly equipped for its work, it is constantly amalgamating disparate experience; the ordinary man's experience is chaotic, irregular, fragmentary.
-- T.S. Eliot, "The Metaphysical Poets"
Disparate comes from the past participle of Latin disparare, "to separate," from dis-, "apart" + [/b]parare, "to prepare."
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 02-04-2006 08:52 AM
Rated G
sapient \SAY-pee-uhnt\, adjective:
Wise; sage; discerning.
By actual measurement they are the brainiest of birds, and on subjective evidence they seem more sapient than most other living creatures.
-- David Quammen, "Bird Brains," New York Times, August 1, 1999
He also gives much of the book over to the voice and point of view of Wyatt's bright, quirky Aunt Ellen, who functions as a sapient observer of the world of the novel.
-- Lorrie Moore, "God Does Not Love Aunt Ellen," New York Times, February 14, 1993
That he has on his side Lord Jenkins and Lady Williams . . . , that Ming Campbell is backing him, that the trusty and sapient counsellor of previous leaders, Lord Holme, is discreetly installed at his side, might seem to dispose of the notion that Kennedy is not a serious man.
-- "It isn't a one horse race," The Guardian, July 20, 1999
Sapient comes from Latin sapiens, sapient-, present participle of sapere, "to taste, to have sense, to know."
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 02-05-2006 07:21 AM
Rated G
visage \VIZ-ij\, noun:
1. The face, countenance, or look of a person or an animal; -- chiefly applied to the human face.
2. Look; appearance; aspect.
Older than most, and taller -- taller than Perlman, in fact -- she had a long and lean visage that might once have passed for fair but which age had turned more knowing and severe.
-- Brooks Hansen, Perlman's Ordeal
I hadn't shaved in ever so long, either, but the way my whiskers grew I still looked more dirty than bearded to the quick glance I give my visage now and again when kneeling to drink in a stream slow-moving enough to reflect an image.
-- Thomas Berger, The Return of Little Big Man
The first extends from Poltava to the Congress of Vienna in 1814- 15, a period when Russia presents, in the guise of the "enlightened despotism" of Peter I, Catherine II, and the young Alexander I, the most benign visage she has ever displayed to the West.
-- Martin Malia, Russia Under Western Eyes
Visage is from Old French, from vis, "face," from Latin visus, "seeing, sight, hence what is seen, appearance," from the past participle of videre, "to see."
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 02-06-2006 09:48 AM
Rated G
excoriate \ek-SKOR-ee-ayt\, transitive verb:
1. To express strong disapproval of; to denounce.
2. To tear or wear off the skin of.
In his speech to Congress of May 16th -- a speech that France found very insulting -- the President's "rage almost choked his utterance," as he excoriated the French for rejecting his ambassador, urged defensive measures against French dangers from abroad, and warned about French dangers at home.
-- Richard N. Rosenfeld, American Aurora
He constantly excoriated himself for not living up to his own ideals -- for not working hard enough, loving well enough, or having motives that were pure enough.
-- Stephen O'Connor, Orphan Trains
For many months, he had excoriated historians who had "bullied their way into power positions in academia" in order to indoctrinate students with the message that "our country is inherently evil."
-- Gary B. Nash, History on Trial
Excoriate comes from Late Latin excoriatus, past participle of excoriare, "to take the skin or hide off, to flay (literally or figuratively)," from Latin ex-, "off" + corium, "skin, hide."
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 02-07-2006 07:22 AM
Rated G
tendentious \ten-DEN-shuhs\, adjective:
Marked by a strong tendency in favor of a particular point of view.
Most writing about Wagner has been like political pamphleteering--tendentious, one-sided and full of revisionist zeal.
-- Erich Leinsdorf, "The Cruel Face of Genius," New York Times, May 15, 1988
Since I believe all novels are political, I certainly believe that it is possible for a novelist to admix deliberate political purpose and aesthetics, although there is certainly the danger, in the process, of making art that is tendentious . . . and therefore not terribly artistically interesting.
-- Rick Moody, "quoted in Politics and the Novel: A Symposium,"
Los Angeles Times, August 13, 2000
All types of social disagreements seem to be routed almost inexorably into the tendentious jargon and intellectually impoverished categories of legal reasoning, until everyone from Alan Dershowitz to the guy fixing your radiator insists on giving you his opinion about fundamental rights, or presumptions of innocence, or probable cause, or--God help us--"what the Constitution requires."
-- Paul F. Campos, Jurismania: The Madness of American Law
Tendentious comes from Medieval Latin tendentia, from Latin tendens, tendent-, present participle of tendere, "to stretch, to direct one's course to, to be inclined." It is related to tendency.
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 02-08-2006 07:19 AM
Rated G
milieu \meel-YUH; meel-YOO\, noun;
plural milieus or milieux:
Environment; setting.
These were agricultural areas, populated with prosperous farming families and rural artisans -- a completely different milieu from the Monferrands', which was more closed, more cultured, but less affluent.
-- Antoine de Baecque and Serge Toubiana, Truffaut
Half a century later, Zacarías still remembers . . . how they all played together without distinctions or hierarchy, and how easily Ernesto related to people from different social and cultural milieux.
-- Jorge G. Castaneda, Compañero
They write about their milieux, about where they live and work, and it can be fabulous.
-- Leslie Schenk, "Celebrating Mavis Gallant," World Literature Today, Winter 1998
Milieu is from French, from Old French, from mi, "middle" (from Latin medius) + lieu, "place" (from Latin locus).
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