Paroxysm

WORD OF THE DAY

PAROXYSM \ PAIR-uk-sih-zum \ noun

Definition

1a: a fit, attack, or sudden increase or recurrence of symptoms (as of a disease) 
1b: convulsion

2a: a sudden violent emotion or action 
2b: outburst

Examples
Though he seldom loses his temper, his occasional and unpredictable paroxysms of anger are legendary among his colleagues. 

"Today, for National Hot Dog Month, I rank the 25 best hot dog places in the state…. Hot dog purists may go into pickle-fueled paroxysms of paranoia, aghast that several legends … are not on this list."
— Peter Genovese, The Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey), 27 July 2015

Did You Know?

Paroxysm didn't just burst onto the scene recently; its roots go back to ancient Greek. The word ultimately derives from the Greek paroxynein, which means "to stimulate." Oxynein, a parent of paroxynein, means "to provoke" or "to sharpen" and comes from oxys, a Greek word for "sharp." (That root also underlies the word oxygen.) In its earliest known English uses in the 15th century, paroxysm denoted agitation or intensification of a disease or its symptoms. (A still-used example of that sense is "a paroxysm of coughing.") Additionally, paroxysm soon took on a broader sense referring to an outburst, especially a dramatic physical or emotional one.

Askew

WORD OF THE DAY

ASKEW \ uh-SKYOO \ adverb or adjective  (Double duty!!)

 

Definition

: out of line
: awry

 

Examples

He said he was fine but he looked as if he'd been in a fight: his hair and clothes were disheveled and his glasses were askew on the bridge of his nose.

"Even so, the impact of the collision damaged the interior wall of the building and sent post office boxes askew."
— Jon Johnson, The Eastern Arizona Courier (Safford, Arizona), 17 Aug. 2015

Did You Know?

It's believed that askew was formed simply by attaching the prefix a- (meaning, among other things, "in (such) a state or condition") to skew. The word skew, which derives via Middle English from Anglo-French eschiver, meaning "to escape or avoid," can be a verb, adjective, or noun. But at the time of the first appearance of askew in English, in the middle of the 16th century, skew had only been established as a verb meaning "to take an oblique course or direction."

At least one etymologist has suggested that askew might have been influenced by an Old Norse phrase, and that the same phrase might have also given us askance. In the past, askew was used synonymously with askance, as in "She looked at me askew after my ill-timed joke."

Vilipend

WORD OF THE DAY

 

VILIPEND \ VIL-uh-pend \ verb

 

Definition

1a: to hold or treat as of little worth or account

1b: contemn (to view or treat with contempt or  scorn)

 

2a: to express a low opinion of

2b: disparage

 

Examples

As a women's movement pioneer, Susan B. Anthony fought against the dicta of those who would vilipend women by treating them as second-class citizens.

"Most people who retire do so after having invested multiple years in employment…. Most are on fixed incomes with tight budgets, hoping for good health and years of stress-free happiness. To vilipend them about their choice of not working, even if they are healthy enough, is just not fair."
— John F. Sauers, letter in The Rochester (New York) Democrat and Chronicle,

 

Did You Know?

Vilipend first appeared in English in the 15th century and had its heyday during the 19th century—being found in the works of such well-known authors as Sir Walter Scott, William Makepeace Thackeray, and George Meredith—but it fell into relative obscurity by the 20th century.

The word comes to us through French from the Latin roots vilis, meaning "cheap" or "vile," and pendere, meaning "to weigh" or "to estimate." These roots work in tandem to form a meaning of "to deem to be of little worth."

Each has contributed separately to some other common English words. Other vilis offspring include vile and vilify, while pendere has spawned such terms as append, expend, and dispense.

Turbid

WORD OF THE DAY

 

TURBID \TER-bid \ adjective

 

Definition

 

1: cloudy or discolored by suspended particles

 

2: confused, muddled

 

Examples

The speed of the water flowing over the dam becomes obvious only when one observes the turbid water roiling below.

"Overall, once white bass have spawned, they move out into the main lake and can be found in areas with a turbid layer over ultra-clear water."
—Mitch Eeagan, The Sioux City (Iowa) Journal, 1 Aug. 2015

 

Did You Know?

Turbid and turgid (which means "swollen or distended" or "overblown, pompous, or bombastic") are frequently mistaken for one another, and it's no wonder. Not only do the two words differ by only a letter, they are often used in contexts where either word could fit.

For example, a flooded stream can be simultaneously cloudy and swollen, and badly written prose might be both unclear and grandiloquent. Nevertheless, the distinction between these two words, however fine, is an important one for conveying exact shades of meaning, so it's a good idea to keep them straight.

Timeless

WORD OF THE DAY

TIMELESS \ TYME-luss \ adjective

Definition
1a : having no beginning or end  1b: eternal1c: not restricted to a particular time or date

2a: not affected by time 2b: ageless

ExamplesFashion experts say that a black dress worn with a strand of pearls is timeless. 
"That song's timeless mix of celebration and longing served as an ideal segue to the Kentucky-bred songwriter's set, which mixed pain with immediate pleasure and ultimate rewards in an intoxicating way."
— Patrick Foster, The Washington Post, 22 Aug. 2015

Did You Know?
"Time is money." "Time is the great physician." "Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations." Everyone seems to know what time is, but what does it mean to be "timeless"—that is, "without time"? Until around the turn of the 20th century, timeless was sometimes used to mean "untimely" or "premature," as in "he met his timeless end." That usage, which dates back to the late 16th century, is now considered archaic, but an equally venerable sense, "eternal" or "having no beginning or end," has proven more enduring. The two remaining senses are somewhat newer. The "not restricted to a particular time or date" meaning dates to the mid-18th century, while the most modern meaning—"ageless"—didn't exist until just before the turn of the 20th century. (By the way, the quotations we started with came from Benjamin Franklin, British statesman Benjamin Disraeli, and American writer Faith Baldwin, respectively.

Equinox

WORD OF THE DAY

 

EQUINOX \ EE-kwuh-nahks \ noun

 

Definition

1: either of the two points on the celestial sphere where the celestial equator intersects the ecliptic

 

2: either of the two times each year (as about March 21 and September 23) when the sun crosses the equator and day and night are everywhere on earth of approximately equal length

 

Examples

Though many in the U.S. and Canada consider summer to end on Labor Day, the autumnal equinox, which falls on September 22nd or 23rd (and the latter in 2015), marks the true beginning of autumn.

"In between the solstices are the equinoxes, when the Sun reaches its midpoint in the sky and the day has an equal amount of daylight and darkness."
— Kevin Schindler, The Arizona Daily Sun, 1 Aug. 2015

 

Did You Know?

Equinox descends from aequus, the Latin word for "equal," and nox, the Latin word for "night"—a fitting history for a word that describes days of the year when the daytime and nighttime are equal in length.

In the northern hemisphere, the vernal equinox marks the first day of spring and occurs when the sun moves north across the equator. (Vernal comes from the Latin word ver, meaning "spring.")

The autumnal equinox marks the first day of autumn in the northern hemisphere and occurs when the sun crosses the equator going south. In contrast, a solstice is either of the two moments in the year when the sun's apparent path is farthest north or south from the equator.

Binary

WORD OF THE DAY

 

BINARY \ BYE-nuh-ree \ adjective

 

Definition

1: consisting of two things or parts

 

2: relating to, being, or belonging to a number system having 2 as its base

 

3: involving a choice between or condition of two alternatives only (such as on-off or yes-no)

 

Examples

Brass is a binary alloy, having the two metallic elements copper and zinc.

"NASA's New Horizons is described as a mission to Pluto, but one of the reasons the dwarf planet is so fascinating to scientists is that it's part of the only known binary planet system in our solar system."

— Karen Kaplan, The Los Angeles Times, 15 July 2015

 

Did You Know?

As the old children's song goes, "The animals went in two by two, the elephant and the kangaroo…." It was a binary parade of sorts that went into Noah's ark "for to get out of the rain"—the critters were represented in pairs. If you recall those doubled up beasts, you'll remember the etymology of binary because it traces to the Latin bini, which translates as "two by two."

Although binary can be used for anything with two parts, it is now used especially in relation to computers and information processing. Digital computers use the binary number system, which includes only the digits 0 and 1, to process even complex data. In binary form, for instance, the word HELLO looks like this: 01001000 01000101 01001100 01001100 01001111.

Incandescent

WORD OF THE DAY

 

INCANDESCENT \in-kun-DESS-unt \ adjective

 

Definition

1a : white, glowing, or luminous with intense heat

1b : marked by brilliance especially of expression

1c : characterized by glowing zeal

1d: ardent

 

2a : of, relating to, or being light produced by incandescence

2b : producing light by incandescence

 

Examples

The attic was lit by a single incandescent bulb, but that was all the light we needed to read the labels on the storage boxes.

"Anyone who's ever perused books of late-19th-century British art will instantly recognize the idyllic image of a young woman in a sheer, incandescent orange dress curled up in sleep on piles of drapery on a marble bench, with a sunstruck Mediterranean in the distance."
— Ken Johnson, The New York Times, 11 June 2015

 

Did You Know?

Incandescent came into the English language toward the end of the 18th century, at a time when scientific experiments involving heat and light were being conducted on an increasingly frequent basis. An object that glowed at a high temperature (such as a piece of coal) was "incandescent." By the mid-1800s, the incandescent lamp—a.k.a. the lightbulb—had been invented; it contains a filament which gives off light when heated by an electric current. Incandescent is the modern offspring of a much older parent, the Latin verb candēre, meaning "to glow." Centuries earlier, the word for another source of light, candle, was also derived from candēre.

Ampersand

WORD OF THE DAY

 

AMPERSAND \ am-pər-sand \ noun

 

Definition

: a character '&' that is used for the word and

 

Examples

The company coming out of this merger will have a name that combines elements of each of the original companies' names with an ampersand.

"The techies attempt to log in as me. They fail.… They are flummoxed.… Did I log in too many times? Did the ampersand in my password (NTTAisGREAT&) throw off the system?" —Dave Lieber, The Dallas Morning News, 25 July 2015

Did You Know?

Despite appearances, the history of ampersand owes nothing to amp or sand. The familiar character & derives from a symbol that was used in place of the Latin word et, which also means "and." In the late Middle Ages, single letters used as words—words like I—were, when spelled, incorporated into a phrase that clarified that they were in fact individual words.
For I the phrase was I per se, I, which in Latin means "I by itself (is the word) I." In early lists of the alphabet, Z was followed by the symbol &, which was rendered & per se, and, meaning "& by itself (is the word) and." Over the years, that phrase (which when spoken aloud was pronounced "and per se and") was shortened by English speakers to ampersand.

Haptic

WORD OF THE DAY

 

HAPTIC \ HAP-tik \ adjective

 

Definition

1: relating to or based on the sense of touch

 

2: characterized by a predilection for the sense of touch

 

Examples

"Palmer Luckey, Oculus founder, says the Touch [video game controller] combines motion controls with physical buttons and haptic feedback such as vibrations."
— Chris Gaylord, The Christian Science Monitor, 12 June 2015

"Unlike most haptic systems, which rely on some sort of vibration motor, the technology behind the Hands Omni gloves instead uses something simpler: air. Small bladders are placed in the gloves' fingertips and, when the user reaches out to grab something in the virtual game world, the device selectively inflates those bladders, putting pressure on the user's fingertips and evoking the sensation of actually touching a physical object."
— Dan Moren, Popular Science, 27 Apr. 2015

 

Did You Know?

Haptic (from the Greek haptesthai, meaning "to touch") entered English in the second half of the 19th century as a medical synonym for tactile. By the middle of the 20th century, it had developed a psychological sense, describing individuals whose perception supposedly depended primarily on touch rather than sight.
Although almost no one today divides humans into "haptic" and "visual" personalities, English retains the broadened psychological sense of haptic as well as the older "tactile" sense.

Quondam

WORD OF THE DAY

 

QUONDAM \ KWAHN-dum \ adjective

 

Definition

: former, sometime

 

Examples

Many people were surprised to learn that the quondam poet and professor had since become an accountant.

"It was in that spirit that Vladimir Putin, the quondam KGB man who rules Russia, addressed his nation and the world Tuesday on the annexation of Crimea."
— Charles Lane, The Washington Post, 20 Mar. 2014

 

Did You Know?

Looking for an unusual and creative way to say "former"? Quondam (which came to English in the 16th century from Latin quondam, meaning "at one time" or "formerly") certainly fits the bill. Or maybe you'd prefer one of its synonyms: whilom, ci-devant, or preterit.

Or you could really go crazy with umquhile, a word that is extremely rare even in its more natural Scots English setting. Quondam itself isn't exactly ubiquitous, but it's used more than any of the other words above. If you're looking for something a bit more pedestrian, you might try yet another synonym: erstwhile. Despite its wonderfully archaic flavor, erstwhile is a highly favored alternative.

Modicum

WORD OF THE DAY

MODICUM \ MAH-dih-kum \ noun

 

Definition

1: a small portion

 

2: a limited quantity

 

Examples

If you had possessed a modicum of sense, you would have paused to think before accepting such a dangerous job.

"If that piece isn't covered with a swath of dressing, a modicum of blue cheese and a crumble of bacon, maneuver your knife to make that happen."
— David Hagedorn, The National Post, 11 Aug. 2015

 

Did You Know?

What does modicum have to do with a toilet? It just so happens that modicum shares the same Latin parent as commode, which is a synonym of "toilet." Modicum and commode ultimately derive from the Latin noun modus, which means "measure." Modicum (which, logically enough, refers to a small "measure" of something) has been a part of the English language since the 15th century. It descends from the Latin modicus ("moderate"), which is itself a descendant of modus. Modus really measures up as a Latin root—it also gave us mode (originally a kind of musical "measure"), modal, model, modern, modify, and modulate. More distant relatives include mete, moderate, and modest.

Neoteric

WORD OF THE DAY

 

NEOTERIC \ nee-uh-TAIR-ik \ adjective

 

Definition

1a: recent in origin
1b: modern

 

Examples

The book's dialogue is peppered with neoteric slang and jargon that can be challenging for the reader to decode.

"… he has put together a string of projects with the same modern ethos that seemed avant-garde to the point of risky at their conception—until customers began clamoring for his neoteric stamp.…"
— Anita Chabria, Sactown Magazine, October/November 2014

 

Did You Know?

The word neoteric is not itself neoteric; it's been part of English since at least 1577, and its roots go back even further—to ancient Greek. We adapted the word from Late Latin neotericus, which also means "recent."

Neotericus in turn comes from Late Greek neōterikos and ultimately from Greek neos, meaning "new" or "young." As old as its roots are, however, neoteric itself entered English later than its synonyms novel (which appeared in the 15th century) and newfangled (which was being used to describe things of the newest style or kind almost 50 years prior).

Obverse

WORD OF THE DAY

 

OBVERSE \ AHB-verss \ noun

 

Definition

1: the side of a coin or currency note bearing the chief device and lettering

1b: a front or principal surface

 

2: a counterpart having the opposite orientation or force; 

2b: something that is opposed to some other often specified thing

2c: an opposite

 

3: a proposition inferred immediately from another by denying the opposite of what the given proposition affirms

 

Examples

The artist credited with inventing the modern commemorative medal, 15th-century Italian painter Antonio Pisano, made his medals following a design formula still used today: an obverse graced with a profile portrait and a reverse adorned with an allegorical or pictorial scene.

"When parents are monitoring their children, students do well in school. The obverse is also true: When parents are not involved, students' success is at stake."

— Robert Waldron, The Boston Globe, 28 Jan. 2015

 

Did You Know?

Heads or tails? If you called heads, obverse is the word for you. Since the 17th century, we've been using obverse for the front side of coins (usually the side depicting the head or bust of a ruler). The opposite of this sense of obverse is reverse, the back or "tails" side of a coin.

Since the 19th century, obverse has also had the extended meaning "an opposing counterpart" or "an opposite." Additionally, it can be an adjective meaning "facing the observer or opponent" or "being a counterpart or complement."

Ersatz

WORD OF THE DAY

 

ERSATZ \ AIR-sahts \ adjective

 

Definition

: being a usually artificial and inferior substitute or imitation

 

Examples

If I'm going to eat ice cream, I want the real thing, not some non-fat ersatz version of it.

"Re-enactors dressed as British redcoats confront a group of ersatz militiamen, demanding they 'disperse at once.'"
— Chris McDaniel, The Peninsula Daily News (Port Angeles, Washington), 17 July 2015

 

Did You Know?

Ersatz can be traced back in English to 1875, but it really came into prominence during World War I. Borrowed from German, where Ersatz is a noun meaning "substitute," the word was frequently applied as an adjective in English to items like ersatz coffee (from acorns) and ersatz flour (from potatoes)—products resulting from the privations of war. By the time World War II came around, bringing with it a resurgence of the word along with more substitute products, ersatz was wholly entrenched in the language.

Today, ersatz can be applied to almost anything that seems like an artificial imitation, as in this quote from the August 10, 2012, issue of The Week: "The whole movie feels ersatz and expedient.…"

Foodie

WORD OF THE DAY

 

FOODIE \ FOO-dee \ noun

 

Definition

: a person having an avid interest in the latest food fads

 

Examples

As a foodie, Molly gets excited whenever a new restaurant opens in the area.

"Compared with other rice types, basmati is a low-yielding crop; increased demand by foodies all over the world has led to higher prices."
— Ruth Taber, The El Paso (Texas) Times, 5 Aug. 2015

Did You Know?

Foodie is a relatively recent addition to our language (dating from the early 1980s), but it derives from a much older word, food, which has been with us for as long as there has been anything that could be called English. Food can be traced back through Middle English to the Old English form fōda, which is itself related to Old High German fuotar, meaning "food" or "fodder," and Latin panis, meaning "bread." Panis is the source for empanada (a turnover with a sweet or savory filling), panatela (a type of cigar), panettone (a kind of bread containing raisins and candied fruit), and pantry (a room used for the storage of provisions).

Contiguous

WORD OF THE DAY

 

CONTIGUOUS \ kun-TIG-yuh-wus \ adjective

 

Definition

1a: being in actual contact
1b: touching along a boundary or at a point

 

2: adjacent — used of angles

 

3: next or near in time or sequence

 

4: touching or connected throughout in an unbroken sequence

 

Examples

At 14,494 feet, Mount Whitney, in California's Sierra Nevada range, is the highest peak in the 48 contiguous states of the U.S.

"Genghis Khan is undoubtedly one of the most successful military leaders of all time. As leader of the Mongol Empire, which at its height stretched from China to Europe, he controlled the largest contiguous empire in history."
—Jacob Davidson, Time (online), 30 July 2015

 

Did You Know?

You probably won't be surprised to learn that the word contact is a relative of contiguous, but would you believe that contagion and contingent are too? All of those words derive from the Latin contingere, meaning "to have contact with." The words contact and contiguous are fairly easy to connect with contingere, but what of the other two? In its early use, contingent was a synonym of "touching," and if you remember that touching something can pollute it (and that another meaning of contingere was "to pollute"), then contagion logically ties in, too.

Immaculate

WORD OF THE DAY

 

IMMACULATE \ ih-MAK-yuh-lut \ adjective

 

Definition

 

1a: having no stain or blemish

1b: pure

 

2: containing no flaw or error

 

3a : spotlessly clean

3b : having no colored spots or marks

 

Examples

Even a minor scandal has the power to tarnish an immaculate reputation.

"After showing me the different levels and rooms to choose from, and showing me the process by which the pods are fully cleaned after each use (the entire place was absolutely immaculate), David gestured towards a door behind the reception desk: 'Now one last very important part: the restroom!'"
—Lindsay Robertson, Gothamist (gothamist.com), 28 July 2015

 

Did You Know?

The opposite of immaculate is maculate, which means "marked with spots" or "impure." The Latin word maculatus, the past participle of a verb meaning "to stain," is the source of both words and can be traced back to macula, a word that scientists still use for spots on the skin, on the wings of insects, and on the surface of celestial objects.

Maculate has not marked as many pages as immaculate, but it has appeared occasionally (one might say "spottily"), especially as an antithesis to immaculate. We find the pair, for example, in an article by Peter Schjeldahl in an April 2004 issue of The New Yorker: "Rob's apartment, with its immaculate ranks of album spines and its all too maculate strewing of everything else…."

Rigamarole

WORD OF THE DAY

 

RIGAMAROLE \ RIG-uh-muh-rol \ noun

 

Definition

 

1: confused or meaningless talk

 

2: a complex and sometimes ritualistic procedure

 

Examples

Rather than go through the annual rigmarole of filling out tax forms, Maureen would rather pay an accountant to do her taxes for her.

"After years of procrastinating, I logged on to my retirement account. Just working my way through the rigmarole of retrieving lost passwords and locating my investments was bad enough."
—Sendhil Mullainathan, The New York Times, 11 July 2015

Did You Know?

In the Middle Ages, the term Rageman or Ragman referred to a game in which a player randomly selected a string attached to a roll of verses and read the selected verse. The roll was called a Ragman roll after a fictional king purported to be the author of the verses. By the 16th century, ragman and ragman roll were being used figuratively to mean "a list or catalog." Both terms fell out of written use, but ragman roll persisted in speech, and in the 18th century it resurfaced in writing as rigmarole, with the meaning "a succession of confused, meaningless, or foolish statements." In the mid-19th century rigmarole (also spelled rigamarole, reflecting its common pronunciation) acquired its most recent sense, "a complex and ritualistic procedure."