Advertent

Word of the Day

advertent \ ad-VER-tunt \ adjective

 

1: giving attention

2: heedful

 

EXAMPLES

Marcia listened to everything I said with an advertent expression on her face, and then proceeded to tell me, point by point, why she disagreed with me.

The governor is still threatening to veto the bill, even though he is advertent to the strong public support for it.

 

DID YOU KNOW?

You may be thinking that advertent should mean "intentional." After all, inadvertent means "unintentional." Take away the negative prefix in- and you're left with that word's opposite, right? If this is your line of thought, you're not entirely off base; the two words (which both entered English in the 17th century and derive from Latin advertere, meaning "to turn the mind or attention") are in fact closely linked. But inadvertent has another, older meaning: "inattentive" or "not focusing the mind on a matter." The established meaning of advertent falls opposite that older sense of inadvertent. Does this mean that advertent never means "intentional"? Not exactly. We have seen some evidence of this use, but it's not yet well enough established to be entered in our dictionaries.

Endemic

Word of the Day

endemic \ en-DEM-ik \ adjective

 

1: characteristic of or prevalent in a particular field, area, or environment

 

2: restricted or peculiar to a locality or region

 

EXAMPLES

A recent report identifies the country as a "failed state," citing endemic corruption at all levels of government.

"Aucoin's research focuses on the development of rapid diagnostics as a resource to countries where disease is endemic and expanding."

— From an article in the Reno Gazette-Journal (Nevada), December 3, 2013

 

DID YOU KNOW?

If you translate it literally, "endemic" means "in the population." It derives from the Greek "endēmos," which joins "en," meaning "in," and "dēmos," meaning "people" or "populace." "Endemic" is often used to characterize diseases that are generally found in a particular area; malaria, for example, is said to be endemic to tropical and subtropical regions.

 

This use differs from that of the related word "epidemic" in that it indicates a more or less constant presence in a particular population or area rather than a sudden, severe outbreak within that region or group.

 

The word is also used by biologists to characterize the plant and animal species that are only found in a given area.

Syncretic

Word of the Day

Syncretic \ sin-KRET-ik \ adjective

: characterized or brought about by a combination of different forms of belief or practice

EXAMPLES

Dr. Portman practices a syncretic form of medicine, borrowing from both Eastern and Western medical traditions.

"Her CV cites disparate accomplishments as a scientist, writer, and artist—and teacher…. Moreover, her career arc represents a syncretic impulse that characterizes her general outlook on life." — Glen Martin, Forbes, November 4, 2014

DID YOU KNOW?

Syncretic has its roots in an ancient alliance. It's a descendant of the Greek word synkrētismos, meaning "federation of Cretan cities"—syn- means "together, with," and Krēt- means "Cretan." The adjective first appeared in English in the mid-19th century, and the related noun syncretism debuted over 200 years earlier. Syncretic retains the idea of coalition and appears in such contexts as "syncretic religions," "syncretic societies," and even "syncretic music," all describing things influenced by two or more styles or traditions. The word also has a specific application in linguistics, where it refers to a fusion of inflectional forms.

Oxymoron

Word of the Day

oxymoron \ ahk-sih-MOR-ahn \ noun

 

: a combination of contradictory or incongruous words; broadly
: something (such as a concept) that is made up of contradictory or incongruous elements

 

EXAMPLES

"That's an oxymoron!" said Joanne, when she heard the DJ describe the song as an "instant classic."

"A 'healthy snack' sounds like an oxymoron. The two words seem to be on opposite ends. But that does not have to be the case."
— Karen Miller, The Boston Banner, October 23, 2014

 

DID YOU KNOW?

 

The Greeks exhaustively classified the elements of rhetoric, or effective speech and writing, and gave the name oxymōron, literally "pointed foolishness," to the deliberate juxtaposing of seemingly contradictory words. The roots of oxymoron, oxys meaning "sharp" or "keen" and mōros meaning "foolish," are nearly antonyms themselves, making oxymoron nicely self-descriptive.

Oxymoron originally applied to a meaningful paradox condensed into a couple of words, as in "precious bane," "lonely crowd," or "sweet sorrow." Today, however, oxymoron can also refer to unintentional contradictions, like "a plastic glass."

Ergonomic

Word of the Day

ergonomic \ er-guh-NAH-mik \ adjective

 

1: of or relating to the science of designing and arranging things people use so that the people and things interact most efficiently and safely

 

2: designed or arranged for safe, comfortable, and efficient use

 

EXAMPLES

Clara hoped that the ergonomic arrangement of her new workstation would help reduce the daily aches in her elbow and wrist.

"Fender has been credited with design and manufacturing innovations that revolutionized the world of electric guitars and basses. The Stratocaster body introduced a curvy ergonomic design for ease of playing…."

— Ronald D. White, Los Angeles Times, November 12, 2014

 

DID YOU KNOW?

In 1969, a British publication assured the public that although the word ergonomics looked forbidding, "all it means is the science of making things fit people, instead of asking people to fit things." Ergonomic design as a field of study originated in the 19th century when a Polish author, Wojciech Jastrzebowski, wrote an article about the relation between human activity and the methods used to accomplish that activity.

In the article, written in his native Polish, Jastrzebowski coined the word ergonomji, an efficient combination of the Greek ergo-, meaning "work," and nomos, meaning "law." British scientist K. F. H. Murrell is credited with creating the English word ergonomics in 1949, applying the -nomics ending to ergo- in imitation of economics. Earliest evidence of the adjective ergonomic dates to 1954.

Réchauffé

Word of the Day

réchauffé \ ray-shoh-FAY \ noun

 

1a: something presented in a new form without change of substance

1b: rehash

 

2: a warmed-over dish of food

 

EXAMPLES

The day after the holiday, it was traditional to serve réchauffés and snacks rather than cook a full meal.

"[It] is a réchauffé, … lifted and stitched from 'The Gastronomical Me' and other books."

— Victoria Glendinning, New York Times Book Review, June 9, 1991

 

DID YOU KNOW?

We borrowed réchauffé in the early 19th century from the French; it is the past participle of their verb réchauffer, which means "to reheat." Nineteenth-century French speakers were using it figuratively to designate something that was already old hat—you might say, "warmed over."

English speakers adopted that same meaning, which is still our most common. But within decades someone had apparently decided that leftovers would seem more appealing with a French name. The notion caught on. A recipe for "Réchauffé of Beef a la Jardiniere," for example, instructs the cook to reheat "yesterday's piece of meat" in a little water with some tomatoes added, and serve it on a platter with peas and carrots and potatoes. Réchauffé shares its root with another English word, chafing dish, the name of a receptacle for keeping food warm at the table.

Incommensurable

Word of the Day

incommensurable \ in-kuh-MEN-suh-ruh-bul \ adjective

 

: not commensurable; broadly

: lacking a basis of comparison in respect to a quality normally subject to comparison

 

EXAMPLES

The two theories are incommensurable, making any attempt at comparison across disciplines ridiculous.

"Camus' own predicament as an Algerian of European descent sympathetic to both sides of the Algerian War led him to recognize a collision of incommensurable truths and embrace classical moderation."

— Steven G. Kellman, The Texas Observer, December 2013

 

DID YOU KNOW?

Commensurable means "having a common measure" or "corresponding in size, extent, amount, or degree." Its antonym incommensurable generally refers to things that are unlike and incompatible, sharing no common ground (as in the "incommensurable theories" of the first example sentence), or to things that are very disproportionate, often to the point of defying comparison ("incommensurable crimes").

Both words entered English in the 1500s and were originally used (as they still can be) for numbers that have or don't have a common divisor. They came to English by way of Middle French and Late Latin, ultimately deriving from the Latin noun mensura, meaning "measure." Mensura is also an ancestor of commensurate (meaning "coextensive" or "proportionate") and incommensurate ("disproportionate" or "insufficient"), which overlap in meaning with commensurable and incommensurable but are not exact synonyms.

Allege

Word of the Day

allege \ uh-LEJ \ verb

 

1: to assert without proof or before proving

 

2: to bring forward as a reason or excuse

 

EXAMPLES

She alleges that her roommate stole hundreds of dollars from her.

"The Chicago lawsuit … alleges a two-decade-long campaign by the industry to persuade doctors to make the use of painkillers routine for chronic pain by obscuring the drugs' risks and misrepresenting their efficacy."

— David Armstrong, Businessweek, November 14, 2014

 

DID YOU KNOW?

These days, someone "alleges" something before presenting the evidence to prove it (or perhaps without evidence at all), but the word actually derives from the Middle English verb alleggen, meaning "to submit (something) in evidence or as justification."

Alleggen, in turn, traces back to Anglo-French and probably ultimately to Latin allegare, meaning "to send as a representative" or "to offer as proof in support of a plea."

Indeed, allege once referred to the actions of someone who came forward to testify in court; this sense isn't used anymore, but it led to the development of the current "assert without proof" sense.

Mellifluous

Word of the Day

mellifluous \ muh-LIFF-luh-wus \ adjective

 

1: having a smooth rich flow

 

2: filled with something (such as honey) that sweetens

 

EXAMPLES

The young diva has a powerful, mellifluous voice that makes her album a sweet aural confection.

"Corr recorded the album in Los Angeles with producer Mitchell Froom, and the style looks back to the mellifluous pop of the Carpenters, Dusty Springfield, and Burt Bacharach, music her parents played when she was a kid in the '70s."

— Steve Klinge, Philadelphia Inquirer, March 14, 2014

 

DID YOU KNOW?

In Latin, mel means "honey" and fluere means "to flow." Those two linguistic components flow smoothly together in mellifluus (from Late Latin) and mellyfluous (from Middle English), the ancestors of mellifluous. The adjective these days typically applies to sound, as it has for centuries.

In 1671, for example, Milton wrote in Paradise Regained of the "Wisest of men; from whose mouth issu'd forth Mellifluous streams." But mellifluous can also be used of flavor, as when wine critic Eric Asimov used it to describe pinot grigio in the book Wine With Food: "Most pinot grigios give many people exactly what they want: a mellifluous, easy-to-pronounce wine that can be ordered without fear of embarrassment and that is at the least cold, refreshing, and for the most part cheap."

Greenmail

Word of the Day

greenmail \ GREEN-mail \ noun

 

1a: the practice of buying enough of a company's stock to threaten a hostile takeover and reselling it to the company at a price above market value

1b: the money paid for such stock

 

EXAMPLES

In an astonishing act of greenmail, the investor bought up all available shares of the company and leveraged his sale back to the company at triple the purchase price.

"We arrived in the middle of great turmoil, with the era of greenmail and leveraged buyouts, when both managers and corporate raiders were abusing shareholders horribly." — Nell Minow, interview in USA TODAY, October 20, 2014

 

DID YOU KNOW?

Greenmail is a recent English coinage, but its history spans a millennium. In the Anglo-Saxon historical records for 1086, we find an early use of a word that still survives in Scottish English as mail, meaning "payment" or "rent."

The 16th century saw the appearance of the compound blackmail, which was originally a tribute that freebooting

chiefs at the Scottish border exacted in exchange for immunity from pillage. In 1862, the U.S. government began printing paper money using green ink, and soon the word green came to suggest money. Finally, in the 1980s, greenmail was coined by combining green and blackmail to describe a particular type of financial piracy.

Deride

Word of the Day

deride \ dih-RYDE \ verb

 

1: to laugh at contemptuously

 

2: to subject to usually bitter or contemptuous ridicule

 

EXAMPLES

Although derided by classmates for his cocksure insistence that he would be a millionaire by the age of 25, he achieved his goal when his Internet startup went public.

"The aggressive, scowling superstar who'd deride you for your lack of taste and even tell you you're holding your phone wrong suddenly wants to invite you to dinner."

— Chris Matyszczyk, CNET, November 2, 2014

 

DID YOU KNOW?

When deride was borrowed into English in the 16th century, it came to us by combining the prefix de- with ridēre, a Latin verb meaning "to laugh." Ridēre is also the ancestor of the English words risible ("laughable") and ridiculous. Of course, English has a number of words meaning "to laugh at unkindly"; in addition to deride, we have ridicule, mock, and taunt.

Deride suggests laughter loaded with contemptuousness or bitterness, whereas ridicule implies a deliberate often malicious belittling ("consistently ridiculed everything she said"). Mock implies scorn often ironically expressed by mimicry or sham deference ("mocking the speaker's impassioned tones"). Taunt suggests jeeringly provoking insult or challenge ("hometown fans taunted the visiting team").

Melancholia

Word of the Day

melancholia \ mel-un-KOH-lee-uh \ noun

 

1: a mental condition and especially a manic-depressive condition characterized by extreme depression, bodily complaints, and often hallucinations and delusions;

 

2: a feeling of sadness and depression, broadly

 

EXAMPLES

"As the debates about the future shape of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), Fifth Edition, continue, a review of one of the liveliest arguments, about melancholia as a diagnostic category in its own right, appears timely."

— From an article by Paul Grof in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, April 2013

"While some lyrics in Brian Wilson's handwriting are drenched in melancholia, most convey the band's signature, sunny optimism."

— From an article in The Daily Home (Talladega, Alabama), April 20, 2013

 

DID YOU KNOW?

Today's word traces back to Greek "melan " ("black, dark") and "cholē" ("bile"). Medical practitioners once adhered to the system of humors—bodily fluids that included black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm.
An imbalance of these humors was thought to lead to disorders of the mind and body. One suffering from an excess of black bile (believed to be secreted by the kidneys or spleen) could become sullen and unsociable - liable to anger, irritability, brooding, and depression.
Today, doctors no longer ascribe physical and mental disorders to the disruption of the four humors (thank goodness!), but the word "melancholia" is still used in psychiatry (it is identified as a "subtype" of clinical depression in the Diagnositc and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) and as a general term for despondency.

 

Haggard

Word of the Day

haggard \ HAG-urd \ adjective

 

1a : wild in appearance

1b : having a worn or emaciated appearance : gaunt

 

EXAMPLES

The mountain climbers were hungry and haggard but were otherwise in good shape after having been stranded on the mountain for more than a week.

"[Dorothea] Lange's 1936 photographs of California migrant worker Florence Owens Thompson and her children capture the haggard desperation of Thompson and her brood during the Great Depression…."

— Chuck Sudo, Chicagoist, November 7, 2014

 

DID YOU KNOW?

Haggard comes from falconry, the sport of hunting with a trained bird of prey. The birds used in falconry were not bred in captivity until very recently. Traditionally, falconers trained wild birds that were either taken from the nest when quite young or trapped as adults.
A bird trapped as an adult is termed a haggard, from the Middle French hagard. Such a bird is notoriously wild and difficult to train, and it wasn't long before the falconry sense of haggard was being applied in an extended way to a "wild" and intractable person.
Next, the word came to express the way the human face looks when a person is exhausted, anxious, or terrified. Today, the most common meaning of haggard is "gaunt" or "worn."

 

Shopaholic

Word of the Day

shopaholic \ shah-puh-HAH-lik \ noun

 

: one who is extremely or excessively fond of shopping

 

EXAMPLES

Susie is such a shopaholic that her friends refuse to set foot in a mall with her when there are big sales.

"Uncle Sam is a shopaholic, the world's most prolific buyer of goods and services. Every year, the federal government spends between $350 billion and $500 billion on procurement."
— editorial, The Times-Tribune (Scranton, Pennsylvania), September 20, 2014

 

DID YOU KNOW?

The word alcoholic refers to someone who has a serious disorder. Addictive shopping can be serious, too, but the word shopaholic is most often used playfully to suggest mere excess rather than true addiction. Shopaholic first appeared in print in 1983. It was formed on the model of alcoholic, which was itself created many years earlier by combining alcohol with -ic, meaning "of or relating to."

People evidently saw a parallel between someone addicted to alcohol and someone "addicted" to shopping. This is not the first time alcoholic has spawned a spinoff word—shopaholic was preceded by workaholic and chocoholic, both of which first turned up in 1968.