Aducce

Word of the Day

adduce \ uh-DOOSS \ verb

: to offer as example, reason, or proof in discussion or analysis

EXAMPLES

"The arguments she had adduced rang true."

— Agatha Christie, The Secret Adversary, 1922

"Morris asserts that productive war makes governments, which in turn ensure peace and prosperity. He adduces the Roman Empire as his prime example."

— Alan Cate, Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH), April 27, 2014

DID YOU KNOW?

We won't lead you astray over the history of adduce; it is one of a plethora of familiar words that trace to the Latin root ducere, which means "to lead." Perhaps we can induce you to deduce a few other ducere offspring if we offer a few hints about them. One is a synonym of kidnap, one's a title for a British royal, and one's another word for decrease. Give up? They are abduct, duke, and reduce, respectively. There are also many others, including induce, which means "to persuade" or "to bring about."

Collywobbles

Word of the Day

collywobbles \ KAH-lee-wah-bulz \ noun

: pain in the abdomen and especially in the stomach
: bellyache

EXAMPLES

"It's no wonder you've got the collywobbles," said Ruth to her niece, "given the amount of Halloween candy you ate last night!"

"But even the hint of closing this cherished window into Detroit's past gives loyal museumgoers the collywobbles."

— Joy Hakanson Colby, The Detroit News, December 30, 2005

DID YOU KNOW?

We don't know who first clutched his or her tummy and called the affliction "collywobbles," but we do know the word's earliest print appearance dates from around 1823. We also know that the word probably came about through a process called "folk etymology." In that process, unusual words are transformed to make them look or sound like other, more familiar words.

Collywobbles is believed to be a friendlier-sounding transformation of cholera morbus (the New Latin term for the disease cholera) that was influenced by the words colic and wobble.

Quixotic

Word of the Day

quixotic \ kwik-SAH-tik \ adjective

1: foolishly impractical especially in the pursuit of ideals

 

2: capricious, unpredictable

EXAMPLES

Pauline characterized her Halloween decorating plans as ambitious, but she secretly feared that "quixotic" was a more apt descriptor.

"David Smith has chased for at least 15 years what seemed a quixotic challenge—finding a way to harness the energy remaining in discarded batteries which could represent at least 50 percent of their power capacity."

— Richard Craver, Winston-Salem Journal (North Carolina), September 28, 2014

DID YOU KNOW?

If you guessed that quixotic has something to do with Don Quixote, you're absolutely right. The hero of the 17th-century Spanish novel El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (by Miguel de Cervantes) didn't change the world by tilting at windmills, but he did leave a linguistic legacy in English. The adjective quixotic is based on his name and has been used to describe unrealistic idealists since at least the early 18th century. The novel has given English other words as well. Dulcinea, the name of Quixote's beloved, has come to mean "mistress" or "sweetheart," and rosinante, which is sometimes used to refer to an old, broken-down horse, comes from the name of the hero's less-than-gallant steed, Rocinante

Sempiternal

Word of the Day

sempiternal \ sem-pih-TER-nul \ adjective

: of never-ending duration

: eternal

EXAMPLES

No matter how much we try to analyze it, the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg, will be a matter of sempiternal debate.

"But by Page 10, I knew I'd never read 'Moby-Dick.' The novel— if you can call such an idiosyncratic book by any generic name—hit me like a storm out of nowhere. It contained a wild deluge of thoughts and ideas and sempiternal images."

— Amy Wilentz, Los Angeles Times, May 1, 2011

DID YOU KNOW?

Despite their similarities, sempiternal and eternal come from different roots. Sempiternal is derived from the Late Latin sempiternalis and ultimately from semper, Latin for "always." (You may recognize semper as a key element in the motto of the U.S. Marine Corps: semper fidelis, meaning "always faithful.")

Eternal, on the other hand, is derived by way of Middle French and Middle English from the Late Latin aeternalis and ultimately from aevum, Latin for "age" or "eternity." Sempiternal is much less common than eternal, but some writers have found it useful. Ralph Waldo Emerson, for example, wrote, "The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget ourselves, … to lose our sempiternal memory, and to do something without knowing how or why…."

Homage

Word of the Day

homage \ AH-mij \  noun

1: something done or given as an acknowledgement of a vassal's duty to his Lord

2a: respect

2b : tribute

EXAMPLES

One scene in the movie was clearly the director's homage to his mentor and idol.

"Click through the slideshow to preview Fili’s homage to Italian typography, including elegant signs for trattorias, … cinemas, and more." 

— Erica Schwiegershausen, New York Magazine, September 17, 2014

DID YOU KNOW?

The root of homage is homo-, the Latin root meaning "man." In medieval times, a king's male subject could officially become the king's "man" by publicly announcing allegiance to the monarch in a formal ceremony. In that ritual, known as homage, the subject knelt and placed his hands between those of his lord, symbolically surrendering himself and putting himself at the lord's disposal and under his jurisdiction. A bond was thus forged between the two; the vassal's part was to revere and serve his lord, and the lord's role was to protect the vassal and his family. Over time, homage was extended from the ceremony to the acts of duty and respect done for the lord, and eventually to any respectful act or tribute.

Lyric

Word of the Day

lyric \ LEER-ik \ adjective

1a: suitable for singing

1b: melodic

 

2: expressing direct usually intense personal emotion

EXAMPLES

The critics are praising Jessica's debut novel as a lyric masterpiece that bravely lays out the emotional tensions experienced by its young protagonist.

"Virtually all of Big Jim’s lyric digressions were on writers. When Big Jim talked about Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman or whomever, he spoke and we listened and learned."

— Frank Clancy, Savannah Morning News, September 23, 2014

DID YOU KNOW?

To the ancient Greeks, anything lyrikos was appropriate to the lyre. That elegant stringed instrument was highly regarded by the Greeks and was used to accompany intensely personal poetry that revealed the thoughts and feelings of the poet.

When the adjective lyric, a descendant of lyrikos, was adopted into English in the 1500s, it too referred to things pertaining or adapted to the lyre. Initially, it was applied to poetic forms (such as elegies, odes, or sonnets) that expressed strong emotion, to poets who wrote such works, or to things that were meant to be sung; over time, it was extended to anything musical or rhapsodic. Nowadays, lyric is also used as a noun naming either a type of poem or the words of a song.

Interlocutor

Word of the Day

interlocutor \ in-ter-LAH-kyuh-ter \ noun

: one who takes part in dialogue or conversation

EXAMPLES

Steve's aggressive insistence on the correctness of his own opinions frequently made his interlocutors uncomfortable.

"I don't wonder that one of his interlocutors stared when he seriously suggested to them that MPs were paid too much, and would do their job much better if they were on the minimum wage."

— Philip Hensher, The Independent (London), September 14, 2014

DID YOU KNOW?

Interlocutor derives from the Latin interloqui, meaning "to speak between" or "to issue an interlocutory decree." (An interlocutory decree is a court judgment that comes in the middle of a case and is not decisive.) Interloqui, in turn, ultimately comes from the words inter-, "between," and loqui, "to speak."

Some other words that English borrowed from loqui are loquacious ("talkative") [I like this word!], circumlocution (essentially, "talking around a subject"), ventriloquism ("talking in such a way that one's voice seems to come from someone or something else"), eloquent ("capable of fluent or vivid speech"), and grandiloquence ("extravagant or pompous speech").

Turophile

Word of the Day

turophile \ TOOR-uh-fyle \ noun

: a connoisseur of cheese

: a cheese fancier

EXAMPLES

Surely the turophiles at our table can recommend some good cheeses to pair with our wine selection.

"For this dish you need a special cheese from Switzerland called Raclette. It's expensive and hard to find where I live, and it smells terrible—or, to turophiles like me, divine."

— Patty Kirk, Starting From Scratch: Memoirs of a Wandering Cook, 2008

DID YOU KNOW?

Are you stuck on Stilton or gaga for Gouda? Do you crave Camembert? If so, you just might be a turophile, the ultimate cheese lover. From an irregular formation of the Greek word for cheese, tyros, plus the English -phile, meaning "lover" (itself a descendant of the Greek -philos, meaning "loving"), turophile first named cheese aficionados as early as 1938. It was in the 1950s, however, that the term really caught the attention of the American public, when Clifton Fadiman (writer, editor, and radio host) introduced turophile to readers of his eloquent musings on the subject of cheese.

Redux

Word of the Day

redux \ ree-DUKS \ adjective

: brought back

EXAMPLES

Now running in his own campaign, the son of the former mayor was advised to develop his own identity and not simply portray himself as his father redux.

"Think of it as 'Combat Evolved' redux. 'Destiny' wants to meld the multiplayer and single-player experience into a coherent whole."

— Gieson Cacho, San Jose Mercury News, September 16, 2014

DID YOU KNOW?

In Latin, redux (from the verb reducere, meaning "to lead back") can mean "brought back" or "bringing back." The Romans used redux as an epithet for the Goddess Fortuna with its "bringing back" meaning; Fortuna Redux was "one who brings another safely home." But it was the "brought back" meaning that made its way into English.

Redux belongs to a small class of English adjectives that are always used postpositively—that is, they always follow the words they modify. Redux has a history of showing up in titles of English works, such as John Dryden’s Astraea Redux (a poem "on the happy restoration and return of his sacred majesty, Charles the Second"), Anthony Trollope’s Phineas Redux, and John Updike’s Rabbit Redux.

Forswear

Word of the Day

forswear \ for-SWAIR \ verb

 

1: to make a liar of (oneself) under or as if under oath

 

2a : to reject, deny, or renounce under oath

2b : to renounce earnestly

EXAMPLES

Tina forswore flying after the latest airline mishap left her stranded in Chicago for eighteen hours.

"… the film finds Cotillard playing an ordinary woman who, shortly after recovering from a period of depression, finds herself being laid off in unusual circumstances. If she can persuade a majority of her colleagues to forswear their annual bonuses then she can keep her job."

— Donald Clarke, The Irish Times, August 22, 2014

DID YOU KNOW?

Forswear (which is also sometimes spelled foreswear) is the modern English equivalent of the Old English forswerian.

It can suggest denial:
[Thou] would'st forswear thy own hand and seal" — John Arbuthnot, John Bull) or

Perjury
"Is it the interest of any man … to lie, forswear himself, indulge hatred, seek desperate revenge, or do murder?" — Charles Dickens, American Notes. 

Though in current use, it most often has to do with giving something up, as in "the warring parties agreed to forswear violence" and "she refused to forswear her principles."
The word abjure is often used as a synonym of forswear, though with less emphasis on the suggestion of perjury or betrayal of the beliefs that one holds dear.

Infinitesimal

Word of the Day

infinitesimal \ in-fin-ih-TESS-uh-mul \ adjective

1: taking on values arbitrarily close to but greater than zero

2: immeasurably or incalculably small

EXAMPLES

Stella includes a lottery ticket in every birthday card she sends despite the infinitesimal chances that it will be a winning one.

"Across the nation, voters in the magic age range of 18 to 29 … have been coming out in this year’s primaries at a rate 20 percent less than their mostly oblivious elders, a rate which in South Florida would put their impact on the election somewhere between sparse and infinitesimal."

— Fred Grimm, The Miami Herald, August 27, 2014

DID YOU KNOW?

Infinite, as you probably know, means "endless" or "extending indefinitely." It is ultimately from Latin infinitus, the opposite of finitus, meaning "finite." The notion of smallness in infinitesimal derives from the mathematical concept that a quantity can be divided endlessly; no matter how small, it can be subdivided into yet smaller fractions, or "infinitesimals."

The concept was still in its infancy in 1710 when Irish philosopher George Berkeley observed that some people "assert there are infinitesimals of infinitesimals of infinitesimals, etc., without ever coming to an end." He used the adjective in a mathematical sense, too, referring to "infinitesimal parts of finite lines." Less than a quarter century later, the adjective had acquired a general sense applicable to anything too small to be measured.

Doctrinaire

Word of the Day

doctrinaire \ dahk-truh-NAIR \ adjective

: attempting to put into effect an abstract doctrine or theory with little or no regard for practical difficulties

EXAMPLES

"As doctrinaire as I may be about players being ready to play every day," Coach said, "they are also human beings; I need to accept they are going to need breaks once in a while."

"We use endorsement interviews to see how candidates interact with their opponents, how politically daring (or doctrinaire) they are and whether they’re thinking more about the public’s good or their own campaigns."

— Elizabeth Sullivan, Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), September 21, 2014

DID YOU KNOW?

Doctrinaire didn't start out as a critical word. In post-revolutionary France, a group who favored constitutional monarchy called themselves Doctrinaires. Doctrine in French, as in English, is a word for the principles on which a government is based; it is ultimately from Latin doctrina, meaning "teaching" or "instruction." But both ultraroyalists and revolutionists strongly derided any doctrine of reconciling royalty and representation as utterly impracticable, and they resented the Doctrinaires' influence over Louis XVIII. So when doctrinaire became an adjective, "there adhered to it some indescribable tincture of unpopularity which was totally indelible" (Blanc's History of Ten Years 1830-40, translated by Walter K. Kelly in 1848).

Judgment

Word of the Day

judgment \ JUJ-munt \ noun

 

1: a formal utterance of an authoritative opinion

 

2: a formal decision given by a court

 

3: the capacity for judging or the exercise of this capacity

EXAMPLES

Theresa showed good judgment by clearing her family out of the house as soon as she smelled gas.

"Christenson said he'll reserve judgment on the larger iPhone 6 until he holds one in his hand."

— Neil Nisperos, Redlands Daily Facts (California), September 10, 2014

DID YOU KNOW?

Judgment can also be spelled "judgement," and usage experts have long disagreed over which spelling is the preferred one. Henry Fowler asserted, "The OED [Oxford English Dictionary] prefers the older and more reasonable spelling. 'Judgement' is therefore here recommended." William Safire held an opposite opinion, writing, "My judgment is that Fowler is not to be followed."

"Judgement" is in fact the older spelling, but it dropped from favor and for centuries "judgment" was the only spelling to appear in dictionaries. That changed when the OED (Fowler's source) was published showing "judgement" as an equal variant. Today, "judgment" is more popular in the U.S., whereas both spellings make a good showing in Britain.

Clerisy

Word of the Day

clerisy \ KLAIR-uh-see \ noun

: intellectuals who form an artistic, social, or political vanguard or elite

: intelligentsia

EXAMPLES

The book's author claims that a successful society must have both a strong commitment to democratic ideals and a well-established clerisy.

"The situation was so dire that it required nothing less than scientific experts freed from constitutional strictures to run the government and the elevation of intellectuals and artists to the status of a new cultural clerisy."

— Daniel DiSalvo, The Washington Times, February 18, 2014

DID YOU KNOW?

English philosopher-poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) believed that if humanity was to flourish, it was necessary to create a secular organization of learned individuals, "whether poets, or philosophers, or scholars" to "diffuse through the whole community … that quantity and quality of knowledge which was indispensable." Coleridge named this hypothetical group the clerisy, a term he adapted from Klerisei, a German word for clergy (in preference, it seems, to the Russian term intelligentsia which we borrowed later, in the early 1900s). Coleridge may have equated clerisy with an old sense of clergy meaning "learning" or "knowledge," which by his time was used only in the proverb "an ounce of mother wit is worth a pound of clergy."

Arboreal

Word of the Day

arboreal \ ahr-BOR-ee-ul \ adjective

1: of or relating to a tree : resembling a tree

 

2: inhabiting or frequenting trees

EXAMPLES

"… we emerge into open space, 70 acres of green grassland, a savanna of widely spaced, mature trees, many reaching 60 feet tall, gnarled and weathered, separated as if each had staked out its own territory: an arboreal Gothic cathedral indeed."

— Bill Marken, Sunset, April 2014

"[The hammocks] are relatively indestructible, mimic the arboreal nests used by orangutans, and provide a resting area for the gibbons as they swing among the treetops." — Jim Redden, Portland Tribune (Oregon), August 25, 2014

DID YOU KNOW?

Arbor, the Latin word for "tree," has been a rich source of tree-related words in English, though some are fairly rare. Some arbor descendants are synonyms of arboreal in the "relating to trees" sense: arboraceous, arborary, arborical, and arborous.

Some are synonyms meaning "inhabiting trees": arboreous and arboricole. Others mean "resembling a tree": arborescent, arboresque, and arboriform. The verb arborize means "to branch freely," and arborvitae is the name of a shrub that means literally "tree of life." There's also arboretum and arboriculture. And we can't forget Arbor Day, which since 1872 has named a day set aside by various states (and the national government ) for planting trees. But watch out—the word arbor, in the sense of a "bower," is from Anglo-French herbe.

Obloquy

Word of the Day

obloquy \ AH-bluh-kwee \ noun

 

1: a strongly condemnatory utterance : abusive language

 

2: the condition of one that is discredited : bad repute

EXAMPLES

The manager walked quickly back to the dugout as insults and obloquy rained down from the stands.

"Because of the stigma associated with drug convictions, such an indictment could be tantamount to a life sentence of obloquy in terms of future employment."

— Floral Park Dispatch, January 15, 2014

DID YOU KNOW?

English speakers can choose from several synonyms to name a tongue-lashing. Abuse is a good general term that usually stresses the anger of the speaker and the harshness of the language, as in "scathing verbal abuse."

Vituperation often specifies fluent, sustained abuse; "a torrent of vituperation" is a typical use of this term. Invective implies vehemence comparable to vituperation, but may suggest greater verbal and rhetorical skill; it may also apply especially to a public denunciation, as in "blistering political invective."

Obloquy, which comes from the Late Latin ob- (meaning "against") plus loqui (meaning "to speak"), suggests defamation and consequent shame and disgrace; a typical example of its use would be "subjected to obloquy and derision."

Solipism

Word of the Day

solipsism \SOH-lip-sih-zum \ noun

: a theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing; also 
: extreme egocentrism

EXAMPLES

The actor’s memoir of the years during which he struggled to break into show business is loaded with so much introspection that it borders on solipsism.

"Perhaps the most shocking part of [the novel] 10:04 is just how kind it feels, how Lerner is unafraid to show the narrator escaping intellectual solipsism and expressing real emotion."

— Anthony Domestico, Boston Review, September 2, 2014

DID YOU KNOW?

Fans of René Descartes credit the French philosopher with introducing solipsism as a major problem of modern philosophy, but the word solipsism most likely sprang from a French satire written by Giulio Clemente Scotti in 1652 called La Monarchie des Solipses. The term wasn't used in English until the late 19th century, when solipsism, a composite of the Latin solus ("alone") and ipse ("self"), was applied purely in the philosophical sense. Recently the word has taken on another, more general sense, suggesting an ego-driven selfishness or self-indulgence.

Expropriate

Word of the Day

expropriate \ ek-SPROH-pree-ayt \ verb

1: to deprive of possession or proprietary rights

 

2: to transfer (the property of another) to one's own possession

EXAMPLES

The city council rejected a proposal to expropriate private property for the highway expansion.

"The city spent nearly $50,000 to expropriate eight tracts that could be used for a potential studio expansion."

— Michele Marcotte, The Times (Shreveport, Louisiana), July 21, 2013

DID YOU KNOW?

If you guessed that expropriate has something in common with the verb appropriate, you're right. Both words ultimately derive from the Latin adjective proprius, meaning "own." Expropriate came to us by way of the Medieval Latin verb expropriare, itself from Latin ex- ("out of" or "from") and proprius. Appropriate descends from Late Latin appropriare, which joins proprius and Latin ad- ("to" or "toward"). Both the verb appropriate ("to take possession of" or "to set aside for a particular use") and the adjective appropriate ("fitting" or "suitable") have been with us since the 15th century, and expropriate has been a part of the language since at least 1611. Other proprius descendants in English include proper and property.

Global Village

Phrase of the Day

global village \ GLOH-bul VIL-ij \ noun

: the world viewed as a community in which distance and isolation have been dramatically reduced by electronic media (such as television and the Internet)

EXAMPLES

Thanks to crowdsourcing and the generous response of the global village, the couple received enough donations from strangers all over the world to pay their sick daughter's medical bills.

"Adding fuel to each of these contagions is our ever-growing web of connections to the global village, with the virtual tethers now so much a part of our daily lives that they no longer surprise. Every Facebook user, in theory, is just a single friend request away from some 1.3 billion others."

— Clifton Leaf, Fortune, August 22, 2014

DID YOU KNOW?

The term global village is closely associated with Herbert Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian communications theorist and literature professor hailed by many as a prophet for the 20th century. McLuhan's mantra, "the medium is the message," summarized his view of the influence of television, computers, and other electronic information sources in shaping society and modern life. By 1960, he had delineated his concept of the "global village," and by 1970, the public had embraced the term and recognized the idea as both exhilarating and frightening. As a 1970 Saturday Review article noted, "There are no boundaries in a global village. All problems will become so intimate as to be one's own...."