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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 02-09-2006 07:13 AM
Rated G ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
deus ex machina \DAY-uhs-eks-MAH-kuh-nuh; -nah; -MAK-uh-nuh\, noun:
1. In ancient Greek and Roman drama, a god introduced by means of a crane to unravel and resolve the plot.
2. Any active agent who appears unexpectedly to solve an apparently insoluble difficulty.
In times of affluence and peace, with technology that always seems to arrive like a deus ex machina to solve any problem, it becomes easy to believe that life is perfectible.
-- Stephanie Gutmann, The Kinder, Gentler Military
But we also need the possibility of cataclysm, so that, when situations seem hopeless, and beyond the power of any natural force to amend, we may still anticipate salvation from a messiah, a conquering hero, a deus ex machina, or some other agent with power to fracture the unsupportable and institute the unobtainable.
-- Stephen Jay Gould, Questioning the Millennium
Deus ex machina is New Latin for "god from the machine"; it is a translation of the Greek theos ek mekhanes.
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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 02-10-2006 07:11 AM
Rated G
autodidact \aw-toh-DY-dakt\, noun:
One who is self-taught.
He is our ultimate autodidact, a man who made himself from nothing into a lawyer, a legislator -- a president.
-- Kevin Baker, "Log Cabin Values," New York Times, April 2, 2000
Consider the autodidact in Sartre's Nausea, who is somewhat unbelievably working his way alphabetically through an entire library.
-- James Wood, "Human, All Too Inhuman," New Republic, July 24, 2000
Buck's prose is a lot better than you'd expect from a high-school dropout, but he turns out to be a reader and autodidact.
-- Jonathan Yardley, "review of North Star over My Shoulder:
A Flying Life, by Bob Buck," Washington Post, April 7, 2000
Autodidact is from Greek autodidaktos, "self-taught," from auto-, "self" + didaktos, "taught," from didaskein, "to teach."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for autodidact.
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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 02-11-2006 08:45 AM
Rated G
stertorous \STUR-tuh-ruhs\, adjective:
Characterized by a heavy snoring or gasping sound; hoarsely breathing.
In the cinder-block motel room he set the alarm, but his own stertorous breathing woke him before it rang.
-- E. Annie Proulx, "The Half-Skinned Steer," The Atlantic, November 1997
As pianist Dezso Ranki pounds and weaves at the keys, his breathing is at times so stertorous one could swear that someone in the audience is snoring.
-- Josie Glausiusz, "Joining Hands," Discover, July 2000
Stertorous derives from Latin stertere, "to snore."
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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 02-12-2006 07:39 AM
Rated G
eleemosynary \el-uh-MOS-uh-ner-ee\, adjective:
1. Of or for charity; charitable; as, "an eleemosynary institution."
2. Given in charity or alms; having the nature of alms; as, "eleemosynary assistance."
3. Supported by charity; as, "eleemosynary poor."
We also need to revive the great eleemosynary institutions through which compassionate people serve those in need with both greater flexibility and discipline than government agencies are capable.
-- Clifford F. Thies, "Bring back the bridewell," The World & I, September 1, 1995
An author ought to consider himself, not as a gentleman who keeps a private or eleemosynary treat, but rather as one who keeps a public ordinary, at which all persons are welcome for their money.
-- Henry Fielding, Tom Jones
Like Hilda's "eleemosynary doves," these birds depend upon the Author's charity, require mothering, just as Hilda finds solace in the Virgin--"a child, lifting its tear-stained face to seek comfort from a Mother."
-- John Dolis, "Domesticating Hawthorne: Home Is for the Birds," Criticism, Winter 2001
The source of eleemosynary is Medieval Latin eleemosynarius, from Late Latin eleemosyna, "alms," from Greek eleemosyne, from eleemon, "pitiful," from eleos, "pity."
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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 02-13-2006 06:37 AM
Rated G
concupiscence \kon-KYOO-puh-suhn(t)s; kuhn-\, noun:
Strong desire, especially sexual desire; lust.
The "Tretis" is an argument in favor of chastity and contrasts the "Wise Virgins" who devote themselves to God with the "Foolish Virgins" who taste "the fruits of forbidden concupiscence" and, of course, pay for it.
-- Michael Gorra, "Loved for his Diphthongs," New York Times, November 27, 1983
Within three years Rorik's queen was dead, taking with her into silence her midnight cries of release from that captivity of concupiscence which Eve's curious sin has laid upon mankind.
-- John Updike, Gertrude and Claudius
Concupiscence is from Late Latin concupiscentia, from the present participle of Latin concupiscere, "to desire eagerly," from com-, intensive prefix + cupere, "to desire." The adjective form is concupiscent. The name of the ancient Roman god of love, Cupid, comes from the same root.
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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 02-14-2006 09:12 AM
Rated G
spoony \SPOO-nee\, adjective:
1. Foolish; silly; excessively sentimental.
2. Foolishly or sentimentally in love.
Nevertheless, because we're spoony old things at heart, we like to believe that some showbiz marriages are different.
-- Julie Burchill, "Cut!," The Guardian, February 7, 2001
So when your fervor cools, you think that this suddenly familiar and lusterless partner couldn't possibly be the one you're destined to be with; otherwise you'd still be all spoony, lovey-dovey and bewitched.
-- John Dufresne, "What's So Hot About Passion?," Washington Post, February 9, 2003
We know they aren't doing it for love, otherwise it wouldn't take $50 million to sucker them into getting spoony for a construction worker.
-- "Say it isn't so 'Joe'," USA Today, December 30, 2002
Spoony is from the slang term spoon, meaning "a simpleton or a silly person."
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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 02-15-2006 07:56 AM
Rated G
circumambient \sur-kuhm-AM-bee-uhnt\, adjective:
Surrounding; being on all sides; encompassing.
The self owes its form and perhaps its very existence to the circumambient social order.
-- Rom Harre, Personal Being: A Theory for Individual Psychology
Facing reality, then, implies accepting one's essential powerlessness, yielding or adjusting to circumambient forces, taking solace in some local pattern or order that one has created and to which one has become habituated.
-- Yi-Fu Tuan, Escapism
It's a voice that does something physical to me, that jumps out of the circumambient air and seizes hold of me like a thing that lives off the blood of other things.
-- T.C. Boyle, A Friend of the Earth
Romantic love . . . rarefies lust into an angelic standoff, a fruitless longing without which our energizing circumambient dreamland of song, film and fiction would be bereft of its main topic.
-- John Updike, "The Deadly Sins/Lust," New York Times, June 20, 1993
Circumambient is from Latin circum[/v], "around, round about, on all sides" + ambire, "to go around, to surround," from [b]amb-, "on both sides, around" + ire, "to go."
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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 02-17-2006 12:16 PM
Rated G
imbue \im-BYOO\, transitive verb:
1. To tinge or dye deeply; to cause to absorb thoroughly; as, "clothes thoroughly imbued with black."
2. To instill profoundly; to cause to become impressed or penetrated.
Beauty is equal parts flesh and imagination: we imbue it with our dreams, saturate it with our longings.
-- Nancy Etcoff, Survival of the Prettiest
Along with the rest of us he would certainly applaud attempts to imbue the young with the spirit of fair play.
-- John Bryant, "Football should heed the Corinthian spirit," Times (London), February 17, 2000
He wanted to remake American cinema into a positive force for good, to imbue it with a transcendent sense of virtue and order.
-- Thomas Doherty, Pre-Code Hollywood
Imbue comes from Latin imbuere, "to wet, to steep, to saturate."
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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 02-18-2006 07:24 AM
Rated G
canard \kuh-NAHRD\, noun:
1. An unfounded, false, or fabricated report or story.
2. A horizontal control and stabilizing surface mounted forward of the main wing of an aircraft.
3. An aircraft whose horizontal stabilizer is mounted forward of the main wing.
This is just a canard that is assumed to be true because it has been repeated so often.
-- Bruce Bartlett, "Lower Taxes Higher Revenue?," National Review, March 13, 2003
Loath as I am to resurrect the old canard accusing writers or critics who dislike a popular work of art of being jealous, in Byatt's case, it might be true.
-- Charles Taylor, "quoted in Rowling books 'for people with stunted imaginations," The Guardian, July 11, 2003
Several students say they still believe the canard that no Americans died in Bali -- in fact, six did.
-- Phil Zabriskie, "Did You Hear...?," Time Asia, February 1, 2003
Whether this was true (which seems improbable) or was one of Lawrence's numerous canards (which seems very possible), it appears that Father did intend to strike camp at some time.
-- Douglas Botting, Gerald Durrell: The Authorized Biography
In French canard means "duck" or "false news; hoax." The latter sense of the word probably comes from the phrase vendre un canard à moitié, "to half-sell a duck" -- which is to say, not to sell it at all, hence "to take in, to make a fool of."
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
|
posted 02-20-2006 06:24 AM
Rated G
titivate \TIT-uh-vayt\, transitive and intransitive verb:
To smarten up; to spruce up.
It's easy to laugh at a book in which the heroine's husband says to her, "You look beautiful," and then adds, "So stop titivating yourself."
-- Joyce Cohen, "review of To Be the Best, by Barbara Taylor Bradford," New York Times, July 31, 1988
In The Idle Class, when Chaplin is titivating in a hotel room, the cloth on his dressing table rides up and down, caught in the same furious gusts.
-- Peter Conrad, Modern Times, Modern Places
Titivate is perhaps from tidy + the quasi-Latin ending -vate. When the word originally came into the language, it was written tidivate or tiddivate. The noun form is titivation.
[ 02-21-2006, 08:07 AM: Message edited by: Bob Maar ]
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Bob Maar
(Maar stands for Maartini)
Posts: 28608
From: New York City & Newport, RI
Registered: Feb 2001
|
posted 02-21-2006 08:10 AM
Rated G
jovial \JOH-vee-uhl\, adjective:
Merry; joyous; jolly; characterized by mirth or jollity.
One pupil of the sixteen-year-old Custer remembered him as "socially inclined," jovial, and full of life.
-- Louise Barnett, Touched by Fire
The Puritans took a dim view of the jovial, amiable cleric who liked to have a pot of ale at one of Purleigh's pubs.
-- Willard Sterne Randall, George Washington: A Life
He smiled, joked and at times seemed downright jovial.
-- "Piazza Booed Again (Till He Homers)," New York Times, August 22, 1998
Jovial ultimately derives from the Latin jovialis, "of or pertaining to Jupiter." (The planet Jupiter was thought to make those born under it joyful or jovial.)
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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 02-22-2006 07:38 AM
Rated G
salutary \SAL-yuh-ter-ee\, adjective:
1. Producing or contributing to a beneficial effect; beneficial; advantageous.
2. Wholesome; healthful; promoting health.
Alexis de Tocqueville famously observed during his sojourn in this country that America was teeming with such associations -- charities, choral groups, church study groups, book clubs -- and that they had a remarkably salutary effect on society, turning selfish individuals into public-spirited citizens.
-- Fareed Zakaria, "Bigger Than the Family, Smaller Than the State," New York Times, August 13, 1995
Surviving a near-death experience has the salutary effect of concentrating the mind.
-- Kenneth T. Walsh and Roger Simon, "Bush turns the tide," U.S. News, February 28, 2000
And they washed it all down with sharp red wines, moderate amounts of which are known to be salutary.
-- Rod Usher, "The Fat of the Land," Time Europe, January 8, 2000
Salutary derives from Latin salutaris, from salus, salut-, "health."
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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 02-23-2006 05:05 PM
Rated G
alacrity \uh-LACK-ruh-tee\, noun:
A cheerful or eager readiness or willingness, often manifested by brisk, lively action or promptness in response.
As for his homemade meatloaf sandwich with green tomato ketchup, a condiment he developed while working in New York, I devoured it with an alacrity unbecoming in someone who gets paid to taste carefully.
-- R.W. Apple Jr., "Southern Tastes, Worldly Memories," New York Times, April 26, 2000
Arranged in long ranks, ten-, twelve-, or thirteen-year-old girls, pale and hollow-eyed, their pinned-back hair sprouting tendrils limp with perspiration, operated the machinery with such alacrity that arms and hands were a flying blur.
-- Patricia Albers, Shadows, Fire, Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti
So, I am sure that I was thrilled when I got the letter offering me the fellowship and equally sure that I wrote back to accept with alacrity.
-- Joan L. Richards, Angles of Reflection
Never was a sinking ship abandoned with such alacrity and unanimity, never was an experiment condemned so conclusively.
-- Ernest Gellner, The End of Utopia by Russell Jacoby
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