Chatoyant

Word of the Day

chatoyant \shuh-TOY-unt \ adjective

Definition

: having a changeable luster or color with an undulating narrow band of white light

 

Examples

"Suddenly he felt himself again in Carthage. There was a river there, too: not a little bolt of chatoyant silk like the Avon, which they would have called a 'crick' back there."
— Rupert Hughes, "Momma" And Other Unimportant People, 1920

"They had interesting rocks, everything from Texas Hill Country caliche and an agate found in a gravel parking lot to a trilobite fossil and slice of chatoyant tiger's eye from Colorado."
— Tommy Simmons, The Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA), September 2, 2010

Did You Know?

The complex structure of a cat's eye not only enables it to see at night but also gives it the appearance of glowing in the dark. Not surprisingly, jewels that sport a healthy luster are often compared with the feline ocular organ, so much that the term cat's-eye is used to refer to those gems (such as chalcedony) that give off iridescence from within.

If you've brushed up on your French lately, you might notice that the French word for cat (chat) provides the first four letters of chatoyant, a word used by jewelers to describe such lustrous gems (and by others who see the same luster elsewhere). Chatoyant derives from the present participle of chatoyer, a French verb that literally means "to shine like a cat's eyes."

Rationale

Word of the Day

rationale \ rash-uh-NAL \ noun

Definition

1: an explanation of controlling principles of opinion, belief, practice, or phenomena

2a: an underlying reason
2b: basis

 

Examples

The newspaper's editorial reflected the concerns of many who questioned the rationale behind the mayor's decision.

"… the sacred trust that elected officials will share all options they've explored, identify the ones they haven't, and share the rationale behind their decisions."
— Robert F. Walsh, Stratford (Connecticut) Star, January 29, 2015

 

Did You Know?

The word rationale appeared in the second half of the 17th century, just in time for the Age of Reason. It is based on the Latin ratio, which means "reason," and rationalis, which means "endowed with reason." At first, rationale meant "an explanation of controlling principles" ("a rationale of religious practices," for example), but soon it began to refer to the underlying reason for something (as in "the rationale for her behavior").
The latter meaning is now the most common use of the term. The English word ratio can also mean "underlying reason" (in fact, it had this meaning before rationale did), but in current use, that word more often refers to the relationship (in number, quantity, or degree) between things.

Captious

Word of the Day
captious \ KAP-shuss \ adjective

Definition

1: marked by an often ill-natured inclination to stress faults and raise objections

2: calculated to confuse, entrap, or entangle in argument

 

Examples

Befuddled by the captious question, the suspect broke down and confessed to the crime.

"During the past 15 years Mr. Maxwell has established himself as one of the few sui generis voices in experimental theater, and like all truly original talents, he has been subject to varied and captious interpretations."
— Ben Brantley, New York Times, October 24, 2012

 

Did You Know?

If you suspect that captious is a relative of capture and captivate, you're right. All of those words are related to the Latin verb capere, which means "to take." The direct ancestor of captious is captio, a Latin offspring of capere, which literally means "a taking" but which was also used to mean "a deception" or "a sophistic argument."
Arguments labeled "captious" are likely to capture you in a figurative sense; they often entrap through subtly deceptive reasoning or trifling points. A captious individual is one who you might also dub "hypercritical," the sort of carping, censorious critic only too ready to point out minor faults or raise objections on trivial grounds.

Gourmand

Word of the Day

gourmand \ GOOR-mahnd \ noun

Definition

1: one who is excessively fond of eating and drinking

 

2: one who is heartily interested in good food and drink

 

Examples

Uncle Gerald was a bit of a gourmand; he traveled far and wide to the finest restaurants and always remembered to bring his appetite.

"The dish that caused the grizzled old gourmands at my table to put down their forks in wonder, however, was a helping of dark, softly gnarled sunchokes, which Kornack cooks to a kind of sweetbread tenderness, then plates over a freshly whipped chestnut purée with disks of shaved truffles and the faintest exotic hint of eucalyptus."
— Adam Platt, New York Magazine, December 29, 2014

 

Did You Know?

"What God has plagu'd us with this gourmaund guest?" As this exasperated question from Alexander Pope's 18th-century translation of Homer's Odyssey suggests, being a gourmand is not always a good thing. When gourmand began appearing in English texts in the 15th century, it was a decidedly bad thing, a synonym of glutton that was reserved for a greedy eater who consumed well past satiation. That negative connotation mostly remained until English speakers borrowed the similar-sounding (and much more positive) gourmet from French in the 19th century. Since then, the meaning of gourmand has softened so that although it still isn't wholly flattering, it now suggests someone who likes good food in large quantities rather than a slobbering glutton.

Thrasonical

Word of the Day

thrasonical \thray-SAH-nih-kul \ adjective

Definition

: of, relating to, resembling, or characteristic of Thraso (see below!)
: bragging, boastful

 

Examples

"There was never any thing so sudden but the fight of two rams and Caesar's thrasonical brag of 'I came, saw, and overcame'…."

— William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 1623

"After pages of thrasonical twaddle sprinkled with fawning photos, charts and esoteric columns of numbers I learned only of the flawless perfection of the university...."

— Peter B. Fletcher, Ann Arbor (Michigan) News, December 16, 2003

 

Did You Know?

Thraso was a blustering old soldier in the comedy Eunuchus, a play written by the great Roman dramatist Terence more than 2,000 years ago. Terence is generally remembered for his realistic characterizations, and in Thraso he created a swaggerer whose vainglorious boastfulness was not soon to be forgotten. Thraso's reputation as a braggart lives on in thrasonical, a word that boasts a 450-year history as an English adjective.

Acumen

Word of the Day

 

acumen \ uh-KYOO-mun \ noun

 

Definition

: keenness and depth of perception, discernment, or discrimination especially in practical matters

 

Examples

Detective Morton possesses a superior acumen that enables him to solve the most bizarre and puzzling of mysteries.

"[Suzanne] Isken says the pieces on display fall in the category of fine art based on their technical acumen and their ability to push aesthetic boundaries and upend accepted themes of the traditional medium."
— Jessica Gelt, Los Angeles Times, January 24, 2015

 

Did You Know?

A keen mind and a sharp wit can pierce the soul as easily as a needle passes through cloth. Remember the analogy between a jabbing needle and piercing perception, and you will readily recall the history of acumen. Our English word retains the spelling and figurative meaning of its direct Latin ancestor, a term that literally meant "point."
Latin acumen traces to the verb acuere, which means "to sharpen" and derives from acus, the Latin word for "needle." In its first known English uses in the 1500s, acumen referred specifically to a sharpness of wit. In modern English, it conveys the sense that someone is perceptive enough to grasp a situation quickly and clever enough to use it.

Poot

This is what happens when one loses a bet with one's husband.

Word of today:

Poot 

An episode of flatulance that occurs only during defication. The difference between farts and poots are usually the duration and the sound it produces. Farts usually last longer than two seconds. Poots general last only a second, and do not resonate in rapid-fire fashion like farts. Poots are generally the wind that one usually produces when they are straining to push out feces from the rectum.

After a series of poots. Charles was able to push the turd out of his anus.

by Mr. Dwayne May 20, 2005

Whammy

whammy \ WAM-ee \ noun

 

Definition

1a : a supernatural power bringing bad luck

1b : a magic curse or spell : jinx, hex

 

2: a potent force or attack; specifically : a paralyzing or lethal blow

 

Examples

After making three errors in one inning, Mitch became convinced that someone had put the whammy on his glove.

"Finally, Finland is dealing with the double whammy of a loss of trade with Russia—after the European Union imposed Ukraine-related sanctions—and the decline of its golden goose, Nokia."

— Michael Booth, Washington Post, January 18, 2015

 

Did You Know?

The origin of whammy is not entirely certain, but it is assumed to have been created by combining wham ("a solid blow") with the whimsical -y ending. The first example of whammy in print occurred in 1940, but the word was popularized in the 1950s by the cartoonist Al Capp in the comic strip Li'l Abner. The character Evil-Eye Fleegle could paralyze someone with the sheer power of his gaze. The "single whammy" was a look with one eye, and the fearsome "double whammy" used both eyes. As you may know, "double whammy" has also found a place in English as a general term. It means "a combination of two adverse forces, circumstances, or effects"—in other words, a one-two punch.

Vox Populi

Word of the Day

vox populi \ VOKS-POP-yoo-lye \ noun

Definition

 

: popular sentiment

 

Examples

"Social media is supposed to be an arena that amplifies the vox populi, that makes it easier to know what we the people think. But sometimes it seems as though social media only makes it easier to see what we the people are thinking about."
— Kate Allen, Toronto Star, November 1, 2014

"Wheeler is moving forward with support from President Obama and from four million commenters to the FCC—a vox populi partly stirred to action by Oliver's viral HBO piece last summer on 'network neutrality,' the underlying principle that bars network owners from favoring one company's bits over another's."
— Jeff Gelles, Philadelphia Inquirer, January 18, 2015

 

Did You Know?

Vox populi is a Latin phrase that literally translates as "the voice of the people." It can be found in the longer maxim, Vox populi, vox Dei, which means "The voice of the people is the voice of God." Many people think that expression means that the people are always right, but it really implies that the will of the masses—right or wrong—is often irresistible. Since the mid-1960s, English speakers, especially British ones, have trimmed vox populi down to the abbreviated form vox pop, an expression used particularly for popular opinion as it is used and expressed by the media.

Superfluous

Word of the Day

superfluous \ soo-PER-floo-us \ adjective

 

1a: exceeding what is sufficient or necessary

1b: extra

 

2a: not needed

2b: unnecessary

 

Examples

The textbook includes so much superfluous information that students often overlook key points.

"Music director Anu Tali's clear direction, free of superfluous gestures, embodied the elegance that shone through, particularly in the increasingly polished blend of string sound that the orchestra has been producing."

— Gayle Williams, Sarasota (Florida) Herald Tribune, January 11, 2015

 

Did You Know?

If you think that superfluous must mean "extra 'fluous,'" along the pattern of such words as superabsorbent and superabundant, you're not far off. Superfluous comes from the Latin adjective superfluus, meaning literally "running over" or "overflowing."

Superfluus, in turn, derives from the combination of the prefix super- (meaning "over" or "more") and fluere, "to flow." (Fluere also gave us fluid, fluent, and influence, among others.) Since its first appearance in English in the 15th century, superfluous has referred to an "overflowing" of some supply, as of time or words, which hearkens back to its Latin origins.

Untenable

Word of the Day

untenable \un-TEN-uh-bul \ adjective

Definition

1: not able to be defended

 

2: not able to be occupied

 

Examples

Faced with a budget deficit, the company’s CEO made the untenable decision to lay off several hundred workers while still making sure he received a salary bonus.

"Where the piece is at its prickly best is in tracing the narrator's twisted reasoning as he tries to square his desire to continue his comfortable existence with his analysis that it is morally untenable…."

— Sarah Hemming, Financial Times, January 19, 2015

 

Did You Know?

Untenable and its opposite tenable come to us from Old French tenir and ultimately from Latin tenēre, both of which mean "to hold." We tend to use untenable in situations where an idea or position is so off base that holding onto it is unjustified or inexcusable.
One way to hold onto the meaning of untenable is to associate it with other tenēre descendants whose meanings are associated with "holding" or "holding onto." Tenacious ("holding fast") is one example. Others are contain, detain, sustain, maintain, and retain.

Xeriscape

Word of the Day

 

xeriscape \ ZEER-uh-skayp \ noun

Definition

: a landscaping method developed especially for arid and semiarid climates that utilizes water-conserving techniques (such as the use of drought-tolerant plants, mulch, and efficient irrigation)

Examples

The severe drought led to local water restrictions, and many people looked into xeriscape for the first time.

"With the expertise of the Arlington Garden Club and the Arlington Conservation Council … there are some good xeriscape ideas for sprucing up the grounds."
— Shirley Jinkins, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, December 15, 2014

Did You Know?

Xēros is the Greek word for "dry" that is the base for a handful of English words related to mainly dry printing (xerography) and dry, or xerophilous, habitats and their plants. In the early 1980s, the Greek adjective was used to name a type of landscaping practiced primarily in the arid western regions of the United States. (The Water Department of Denver, Colorado, is credited with the word's coinage.) Xeriscape, as it is called, uses plants that require little water and techniques that efficiently use water and reduce evaporation.

Poignant

Word of the Day

 

poignant \ POY-nyunt \ adjective

Definition

1a : painfully or deeply affecting the feelings
1b : designed to make an impression : cutting

 

2a: being to the point
2b: apt

Examples

The shuttered storefronts along the city's Main Street serve as poignant reminders of the economic recession.

"Before there was reality TV and social networks and surveillance cams everywhere in the world, Jim Carrey starred in this film about a man whose entire life is broadcast 24/7—but in his case, he doesn't know it. It has a lot to say about privacy, making it all the more poignant today."
— Eric Griffith, PCMag.com, December 26, 2014

 

Did You Know?

Poignant comes to us from French, and before that from Latin—specifically, the Latin verb pungere, meaning "to prick or sting." Several other common English words derive from pungere, including pungent, which can refer, among other things, to a "sharp" odor.
The influence of pungere can also be seen in puncture, as well as punctual, which originally meant simply "of or relating to a point." Even compunction and expunge come from this pointedly relevant Latin word.

Eradicate

Word of the Day

eradicate \ ih-RAD-uh-kayt \ verb

Definition

1: to pull up by the roots

2: to do away with as completely as if by pulling up by the roots

Examples

The new mayor promised that his term in office would be devoted to reducing crime and eradicating homelessness throughout the city.

"Countdown to Zero will show visitors how eradication efforts have broken devastating disease cycles. The successful fight against smallpox, led by intensive vaccination efforts, was followed by the vaccination campaign to eradicate polio, underway since 1988."

— NJToday.com, January 6, 2015

 

Did You Know?

Given that eradicate first meant "to pull up by the roots," it's not surprising that the root of eradicate is, in fact, "root." Eradicate, which first turned up in English in the 16th century, comes from eradicatus, the past participle of the Latin verb eradicare.

Eradicare, in turn, can be traced back to the Latin word radix, meaning "root" or "radish." Although eradicate began life as a word for literal uprooting, by the mid-17th century it had developed a metaphorical application to removing things the way one might yank an undesirable weed up by the roots. Other descendants of radix in English include radical and radish. Even the word root itself is related; it comes from the same ancient word that gave Latin radix.

Tantara

Word of the Day

 

tantara \ tan-TAIR-uh \ noun

Definition1: the blare of a trumpet or horn

Examples

A tantara announced the arrival of the Queen, and everyone snapped to attention.

"… after restoring the tomb to its former condition, we returned to the palace. But hardly had we sat down ere we heard the … tantara of trumpets and clash of cymbals, and the rattling of war men's lances…."
— Sir Richard Burton, The Arabian Nights, 1884-1886

 

Did You Know?

Tantara is a shortening of the Latin taratantara, an onomatopoetic word that in ancient times evoked the terrible sound of the war-trumpet. When tantara entered English in the 16th century, the sound it evoked was a merry one. "Tantara, tantara, the trumpets sound, / Which makes our hearte with joy abound," wrote Humphrey Gifford in 1580. Today, tantara is sometimes used as a synonym of fanfare, a word for a short, lively sound of trumpets that may also be onomatopoetic in origin.

Inimical

Word of the Day

 

inimical \ in-NIM-ih-kul \ adjective

 

Definition

1: being adverse often by reason of hostility or malevolence
(a climate inimical to health)

 

2a : having the disposition of an enemy : hostile

 

2b : reflecting or indicating hostility : unfriendly

(a cold, inimical gaze)

 

Examples

 

The mayor's proposal received an inimical response from members of the town council.

"Profiling and other means of applying stereotypes to certain types of persons on the basis of how they appear, as opposed to how they behave, is inimical to the very foundations of our democratic republic."
— Mark T. Harris, Sacramento (California) Bee, January 3, 2015

 

Origin

c.17:

from Late Latin

inimīcālis, from inimīcus, from in- (not)  + amīcus (friendly)

 

 

Hirsute

Word of the Day

hirsute \ HER-soot \ adjective

 

1: hairy

 

2: covered with coarse stiff hairs

 

Examples

Turner wore a hirsute mask as part of his werewolf costume for the school play.

"Forget the Oscars … and make way for ... The Fluffies. No, it's nothing to do with overly hirsute cats or cute rabbits. The latest awards concerning the travel industry are for the best towels and pillows found in hotels across the UK."
— From an article on MailOnline, February 28, 2014

 

Did You Know?

"Hirsute" has nearly the same spelling and exactly the same meaning as its Latin parent, "hirsutus." The word isn't quite one of a kind, though; it has four close relatives: "hirsutism" and "hirsuties," synonymous nouns naming a medical condition involving excessive hair growth; "hirsutal," an adjective meaning "of or relating to hair"; and "hirsutulous," a mostly botanical term meaning "slightly hairy" (as in "hirsutulous stems"). The latter three are not especially common but can be found in an unabridged dictionary.

Quotidian

Word of the Day

quotidian \ kwoh-TID-ee-un \ adjective or noun

as an adjective:
1: occurring every day  (a quotidian report)

(a quotidian report)

2a: belonging to each day
2b: everyday
(quotidian needs)

3: commonplace, ordinary

(paintings of no more than quotidian artistry)

 

4. (of a fever, ague, etc.) characterized by paroxysms that recur daily.

as a noun :

5. something recurring daily.

 

6. a quotidian fever or ague.

EXAMPLES

After weeks on the road, it felt good to be back to our quotidian routines.

"Some of Bach's music is a prime example of how even works of genius can be destroyed in the wrong hands. The Cello Suites were deemed quotidian exercises until Pablo Casals revealed their beauty."
— Vivien Schweitzer, The New York Times, January 2, 2015

DID YOU KNOW?In Shakespeare's play As You Like It, the character Rosalind observes that Orlando, who has been running about in the woods carving her name on trees and hanging love poems on branches, "seems to have the quotidian of love upon him." Shakespeare's use doesn't make it clear that quotidian derives from a Latin word that means "every day." But as odd as it may seem, Shakespeare's use of quotidian is just a short semantic step away from the "daily" adjective sense. Some fevers occur intermittently—sometimes daily. The phrase quotidian fever and the noun quotidian have long been used for such recurring maladies. Poor Orlando is simply afflicted with such a "fever" of love.

Latin

 

(1300-50) from the Latin quotīdiānus, cottīdiānus daily, equivalent to cottīdi(ē) every day (adv.) (*quot(t)ī a locative form akin to quot however many occur, every + diē, ablative of diēs day; cf. meridian) + -ānus -an; replacing Middle English cotidien
from Old French cotidian (Modern French quotidien), from Latin quotidianus "daily," from Latin quotus "how many? which in order or number?" (see quote (v.)) + dies "day"). Meaning "ordinary, commonplace, trivial" is from mid-15c.

Ex parte

Word of the Day

ex parte \ eks-PAR-tee \ adverb or adjective

 

1: on or from one side or party only — used of legal proceedings

 

2: from a one-sided or partisan point of view

 

EXAMPLES

"The record of the case was of vast length and full of technicalities, it was discussed ex parte by vehement propagandists on both sides…."
— Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920's, 1931

"In the U.S., lawyers are forbidden to meet with a judge 'ex parte,' or outside the presence of opposing counsel."

— Patrick Radden Keefe, The New Yorker, January 9, 2012

 

DID YOU KNOW?

"Latin has not been over-used in a procedural context ('ex parte' being a rare exception)," wrote a correspondent to The London Times in May 1999. Indeed, ex parte (which literally meant "on behalf [of]" in Medieval Latin) pops up quite often in legal settings. Even when ex parte steps outside of the courtroom—to be used of an ex parte meeting, interview, chat, conversation, investigation, discussion, or contact, for example—the "one-sided" sense often has some sort of legal or legislative slant referring to involvement of just one party or side in a case or dispute.

Compunction

Word of the Day

compunction \ kum-PUNK-shun \ noun

 

1: anxiety arising from awareness of guilt

 

2: distress of mind over an anticipated action or result

 

3a: a twinge of misgiving
3b: scruple

 

EXAMPLES

A diligent editor, Michelle feels no compunction about deleting words and phrases from even the most beautifully written paragraph for the sake of space or clarity.

"The council of generals who took power from Mr. Mubarak had feared a public backlash too much to ever allow the former president's release, but Mr. Sisi's government felt no such compunction, Mr. Bahgat said."

— David D. Kirkpatrick and Merna Thomas, The New York Times, November 30, 2014

 

DID YOU KNOW?

An old proverb says "a guilty conscience needs no accuser," and it's true that the sting of a guilty conscience—or a conscience that is provoked by the contemplation of doing something wrong—can prick very hard indeed.

 

The sudden guilty "prickings" of compunction are reflected in the word's etymological history. Compunction comes (via the Anglo-French compunction and the Middle English compunccioun) from the Latin compungere, which means "to prick hard" or "to sting." Compungere, in turn, derives from pungere, meaning "to prick," which is the ancestor of some other prickly words in English, such as "puncture" and even "point."