Tremulous

WORD OF THE DAY

 

TREMULOUS \ trem-yuh-luh-s \ adjective

 

Definition

1: characterized by or affected with trembling or tremors

 

2a: affected with timidity
2b: timorous

 

3: such as is or might be caused by nervousness or shakiness

 

4a: exceedingly sensitive

4b: easily shaken or disordered

 

Examples

The piece begins with the tremulous tones of a violin coming from what sounds like a great distance.

"After half a lifetime spent curating literary events, there is one audience question to which I remain violently allergic…. Up goes a diffident hand in the back row and a tremulous voice pipes up 'I just wonder if you could tell us where you get your ideas from?'"

— Bert Wright, The Irish Times, 21 Sept. 2015

 

Did You Know?

Do you suspect that tremulous must be closely related to tremble? If so, there's no need to be tremulous in voicing your suspicion: both of those words derive from the Latin verb tremere, which means "to tremble."

Some other English offspring of tremere are tremor, tremendous, temblor (another word for an earthquake), and tremolo (a term that describes a vibrating and quavering musical effect that was particularly popular for electric guitars and organs in the 1970s).

Miasma

WORD OF THE DAY

 

MIASMA \ mye-AZ-muh \ noun

 

Definition

1: a vaporous exhalation formerly believed to cause disease; also : a heavy vaporous emanation or atmosphere

 

2a: an influence or atmosphere that tends to deplete or corrupt;

2b: an atmosphere that obscures

2c: fog

 

Examples

"A local photographer graciously let me borrow a good lens-cleaning cloth, which I used repeatedly in the swirling miasma of mist and rain."

— Clark Fair, The Alaska Dispatch News, 13 Sept. 2015

"Economists say Greece, which had only started to recover from a grinding five-year recession, risks a relapse because of the miasma of financial uncertainty." — Jack Ewing and Liz Alderman, The New York Times, 7 May 2015

 

Did You Know?

Miasma entered English from New Latin in the mid-1600s and comes ultimately from the Greek miainein, meaning "to pollute." In notes taken during a voyage to South America on the HMS Beagle in the 1830s, Charles Darwin described an illness that he believed was caused by "miasma" emanating from stagnant pools of water. For him, miasma meant an invisible emanation of "infecting substances floating in the air … considered to be noxious to health," as defined in Noah Webster's 1828 An American Dictionary of the English Language. Nowadays, we know germs are the source of infection, so we aren't likely to use the unscientific miasma this way. But while Darwin was out to sea, broader applications of miasma were just starting to spread. Now the term is used for something destructive or demoralizing that surrounds or permeates.

Affluent

WORD OF THE DAY

 

AFFLUENT \ AF-loo-unt \ adjective

 

Definition

1: flowing in abundance

 

2: having a generously sufficient and typically increasing supply of material possessions

 

Examples

The town relies on its affluent part-time residents—those who arrive when the local mountains glisten with snow.

"Fewer than 400 of the nation's most affluent families have supplied almost half of the money raised so far by presidential candidates in both parties, according to a survey of federal campaign data by The Times."
— The New York Times, 14 Aug. 2015

 

Did You Know?

Are your coffers overflowing? Is your cash flow more than adequate? Are your assets fluid? If so, you can consider yourself affluent. Today's word is all about flow—that is to say, it's based on the Latin word for "flow," which is fluere. (Some other fluere descendants are confluence, fluctuate, fluid, influence, mellifluous, and superfluous.)
The older sense of affluent refers, both literally and figuratively, to an abundant flow, as in "an affluent fountain" or "affluent joy." The use of "affluent fortune" for an abundant flow of money is what likely led to the use of affluent as a synonym of wealthy.

Proclivity

WORD OF THE DAY

 

PROCLIVITY \ proh-KLIV-uh-tee \ noun

 

Definition

1a: an inclination or predisposition toward something

1b: a strong inherent inclination toward something objectionable

 

Examples

Martin's proclivity to lose his temper made him difficult to work with.

"Neither graduated from high school nor had any engineering background. But [Wilbur and Orville Wright] had a crucial trait: a proclivity for tinkering."
— Curt Schleier, The Investor's Business Daily, 4 Sept. 2015

 

Did You Know?

Have you always had this leaning toward wanting to know about words and their etymologies? Maybe you even have a propensity to use the featured word several times in the course of the day—due, of course, not to a proclivity for pretentiousness, but because you simply have a penchant for using a rich vocabulary.

And perhaps you have a predilection for using lots of synonyms, such as proclivity (from clivus, the Latin word for "slope"), referring to a tendency usually toward something bad; propensity, suggesting an often uncontrollable inclination; penchant, meaning an irresistible attraction; and predilection, which describes a strong liking derived from one's temperament.

Delve

WORD OF THE DAY

 

DELVE \ DELV \ verb

 

Definition

1: to dig or labor with or as if with a spade

 

2a : to make a careful or detailed search for information

2b : to examine a subject in detail

 

Examples

"Of course, help yourself to whatever you like," Rosalie murmured vaguely before delving back into her book.

"Laura M R Harrison's video sequences will use darkness and water to delve into the idea of being psychologically lost and the ways in which we consider the unknown."
— Becky Henrys, Cumbria Live (Cumbria, England), 21 Aug. 2015

 

Did You Know?

We must dig deep into the English language's past to find the origins of delve. The verb traces to the 9th-century Old English word delfan and is related to the Old High German word telban, meaning "to dig." For some 400 years, there was only delving—no digging—because dig didn't exist until the 13th century. Is the phrase "dig and delve" (as in the line "eleven, twelve, dig and delve," from the nursery rhyme that begins "one, two, buckle my shoe") redundant?

Not necessarily. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in some local uses as recently as the late 19th century, dig was the term for working with a mattock (a tool similar to an adze or a pick), while delve was reserved for work done using a spade.

Incidence

WORD OF THE DAY

 

INCIDENCE \ IN-suh-duns \ noun

 

Definition

1a : angle of incidence

1b : the arrival of something (such as a projectile or a ray of light) at a surface

 

2a : an act or the fact or manner of falling upon or affecting
2b: occurrence

2c : rate of occurrence or influence

 

Examples

The neighborhood boasts excellent schools and a low incidence of crime.

"[Meditation] may also help people with insomnia and lower the incidence, duration, and severity of acute respiratory illnesses, such as influenza.…"
— Alexia Severson, The Las Cruces (New Mexico) Sun-News, 4 Sept. 2015

 

Did You Know?

The words incident, incidence, and instance may seem similar (and, in fact, incident and incidence are closely related), but they are not used identically. In current use, incidence usually means "rate of occurrence" and is often qualified in some way ("a high incidence of diabetes"). Incident usually refers to a particular event, often something unusual or unpleasant ("many such incidents go unreported").

Instance suggests a particular occurrence that is offered as an example ("another instance of bureaucratic bumbling"); it can also be synonymous with case ("many instances in which the wrong form was submitted"). The plural incidences sometimes occurs in such contexts as "several recent incidences of crime," but this use is often criticized as incorrect.

Manqué

WORD OF THE DAY

 

manqué \ mahng-KAY \ adjective

 

Definition

: short of or frustrated in the fulfillment of one's aspirations or talents—used postpositively

 

Examples

Natalie is an actress manqué who moved to New York 10 years ago and is still looking for her first big break.

"At the center of the author's examination is Alexander Popper, a fiction writer manqué … reluctant law-school graduate who winds up handling misdemeanor cases for the Cook County Public Defender."
— The Austin (Texas) American-Statesman, 27 Nov. 2011

 

Did You Know?

The etymology of manqué is likely to vex left-handers. English speakers picked up manqué directly from French more than two centuries ago, and it ultimately comes from Latin mancus, meaning "having a crippled hand." But in between the Latin and French portions of this word's history came the Italian word manco, which means both "lacking" and "left-handed."

Lefties may be further displeased to learn that manqué isn't the only English word with a history that links left-handedness with something undesirable. For example, the word awkward comes from awke, a Middle English word meaning both "turned the wrong way" and "left-handed." And the noun gawk ("a clumsy stupid person") probably comes from a gawk that means "left-handed" in dialectal English.

Reprise

WORD OF THE DAY

 

REPRISE \ rih-PREEZ \ noun

 

Definition

1: a recurrence, renewal, or resumption of an action

 

2a : a musical repetition

2b : a repeated performance

2c: repetition

 

Examples

"Jo Anne Worley … returns to Palm Springs this weekend for a reprise of her music and comedy act, 'For the Love of Broadway,' at the Purple Room Restaurant & Stage." — Bruce Fessier, The Desert Sun (Palm Springs, California), 1 Sept. 2015

"'Sing This All Together,' the album opener, is a ramshackle but charming number…. But the reprise at the end of the first side turns the tune inside out, a six-minute-plus psychedelic jam session preceding Mick Jagger's solo croon of the original melody."

— Alex McCown, The A.V. Club (avclub.com), 24 Aug. 2015

 

Did You Know?

When reprise was first adopted into English in the 15th century, it referred to a deduction or charge made yearly out of a manor or estate (and was usually used in the plural form reprises). It probably won't surprise you, then, to learn that reprise comes from an Anglo-French word meaning "seizure, repossession, or expense." Eventually, reprise came to refer to any action that was repeated or resumed. A later sense, borrowed from modern French, applies to specific types of repetition in musical compositions. That sense was eventually generalized to describe any subsequent and identical performance. It's possible, for example, to have a reprise of a television program or a book.

Xeric

WORD OF THE DAY

 

XERIC \ ZEER-ik \ adjective

 

Definition

: characterized by, relating to, or requiring only a small amount of moisture

 

Examples

She is a botanist who primarily studies deserts and xeric shrublands.

"As water restrictions were enacted through the metro area, the Kentucky bluegrass in other parts of the park dried up, while the three display beds filled with xeric varieties that don't take much water flourished."

— Austin Briggs, The Denver Post, 6 Aug. 2015

 

Did You Know?

By the late 1800s, botanists were using the terms xerophyte and xerophytic for plants that were well adapted for survival in dry environments. But some felt the need for a more generic word that included both animals and plants. In 1926 a group proposed using xeric (derived from xēros, the Greek word for "dry") as a more generalized term for either flora or fauna.

They further suggested that "xerophytic … be entirely abandoned as useless and misleading." Not everyone liked the idea. In fact, the Ecological Society of America stated that xeric was "not desirable," preferring terms such as arid. Others declared that xeric should refer only to habitats, not to organisms. Scientists used it anyway, and by the 1940s xeric was well documented in scientific literature.

Bailiwick

WORD OF THE DAY

 

BAILIWICK \ BAY-lih-wik \ noun

 

Definition

1: the office or jurisdiction of a bailiff

 

2: a special domain

 

Examples

Since the organization of the annual Halloween party is Rhonda's bailiwick, you'll have to let her know if you plan to bring something to the festivities this year.

"The conventional wisdom is that young people no longer care enough to stand up for what is important; that the days of activism and protest have faded into the past, the bailiwick of aging hippies and activists."
— The Easton (Massachusetts) Journal, 22 May 2015

 

Did You Know?

The first half of the word bailiwick comes from the Middle English word for "bailiff," in this case a term referring to a sheriff or chief officer of a town in medieval England, not the officer who assists today in U.S. courtrooms. Bailiff derives via Anglo-French from the Latin bajulare, meaning "to carry a burden." The second half of bailiwick comes from wik, a Middle English word for "dwelling place" or "village," which ultimately derived from the Latin vicus, meaning "village." (This root also gave us -wich and -wick, suffixes used in place names like Norwich and Warwick.) Although bailiwick dates from the 15th century, the "special domain" sense did not begin to appear in English until the middle of the 19th century.

Consternation

WORD OF THE DAY

 

CONSTERNATION \ kahn-ster-NAY-shun \ noun

 

Definition

: amazement or dismay that hinders or throws into confusion

 

Examples

To the consternation of her students, Mrs. Jennings gave a pop quiz on the first Friday of the school year.

"A [Russian] law that obliged bloggers to register with the government caused consternation last year…."
— Sam Schechner and Olga Razumovskaya, The Wall Street Journal, 31 Aug. 2015

 

Did You Know?

Wonder what the seemingly dissimilar words prostrate ("stretched out with face on the ground"), stratum ("layer"), and stratus ("a low cloud form extending over a large area") have in common with consternation? They are all thought to share the Latin ancestor sternere, meaning "to spread" or "to strike or throw down." Much to our consternation, we cannot make that sentence definitive: while prostrate, stratum, and stratus are clearly the offspring of sternere, etymologists will only go so far as to say that consternation comes from Latin consternare—and that they have a strong suspicion that consternare is another descendent of sternere.

Extradite

WORD OF THE DAY

 

EXTRADITE \ EK-struh-dyte \ verb

 

Definition

: to send (one who has been accused of a crime) to another state or country for trial

 

Examples

An alleged criminal is typically only extradited under the provisions of a treaty or statute, but a fugitive is occasionally surrendered by one state or country to another as an act of good will.

"A spokesperson [for the U.S. State Department] said that since Zimbabwe and the United States signed an extradition treaty in 2000, neither nation has extradited anyone to the other."
— Jennifer Bjorhus and Paul Walsh, The Star-Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota), 3 Aug. 2015

 

Did You Know?

Some countries have a tradition of extradition—a fact which might concern criminals. Likely of significantly less concern to most criminals is the fact that extradition and tradition are related; both come from the Latin verb tradere, which means "to hand over." (Think of a tradition as something handed over from one generation to the next.) Some other words that have been handed down from tradere include betray, traitor, and treason.