Chivalry

WORD OF THE DAY

chivalry / noun / SHIV-ul-ree

Definition

1: mounted men-at-arms

2: gallant or distinguished gentlemen

3: the system, spirit, or customs of medieval knighthood

4a: the qualities of the ideal knight 

4b: chivalrous conduct

Examples

"Coutts was founded in 1692. Queen Anne, who reigned from 1702 to 1714, commissioned it to make ornate ceremonial chains and badges for the knights of the Thistle, an order of chivalry." 

— Simon Clark and Phillipa Leighton-Jones, The Wall Street Journal, 15 Mar. 2018

"At the centre of the opera is Quixote's quest to retrieve the beautiful Dulcinea's stolen necklace from a gang of thieves. Quixote believes that if he can complete this act of chivalry, he will win her heart and hand in marriage." 

— Ben Neutze, Time Out Sydney (Australia), 21 Mar. 2018

Did You Know?

In days of old when knights were bold, Anglo-French speakers used the word chevaler (an ancestor of our word chevalier) for a knight or horseman. By the 14th century, English speakers had adopted the slightly modified spelling chivalry to describe their own well-armored, mounted warriors. 

Nowadays, when we say that chivalry is not dead, we are alluding to the high standard of character and conduct typically associated with gallant knights. If you trace chevaler back to Late Latin, you'll find that it derives from caballarius, which is also the ancestor of another term for a daring medieval gentleman-at-arms: cavalier.

Querulous

WORD OF THE DAY

querulous / adjective / KWAIR-yuh-lus 
 
Definition
1: habitually complaining
2: fretful, whining


Examples
"… the punch of her performance lies in its sheer nerve; even though her character has our sympathy from the start, she keeps asking for more, tugging at us like a querulous child until our patience cracks."
— Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 24 July 2017


"And while ordinarily, he was not one who was inclined to be querulous, still now on occasion, he could be. He began by asking questions concerning his wife's appearance—irritating little whys which are so trivial and yet so exasperating and discouraging to a woman."
— Theodore Dreiser, The Financier, 1912


Did You Know?
English speakers have tagged fearful whiners querulous since late medieval times. The Middle English form of the word, querelose, was an adaptation of the Latin adjective, querulus, which in turn evolved from the Latin verb queri, meaning "to complain."
Queri is also an ancestor of the English words quarrel and quarrelsome, but it isn't an ancestor of the noun query (meaning "question"). No need to complain that we're being coy; we're happy to let you know that query descends from the Latin verb quaerere, meaning "to ask."

Traduce

WORD OF THE DAY
traduce / verb / truh-DOOSS 
 
Definition
1: to expose to shame or blame by means of falsehood and misrepresentation
2: violate, betray


Examples
"Here, at last, was someone prepared publicly to speak up for the BBC when so many others were seeking to traduce and destroy it."
— Jason Cowley, New Statesman, 19 Nov. 2012


"Some players' records reflect abilities enhanced by acts of bad character—surreptitious resorts to disreputable chemistry that traduces sportsmanship. But as younger writers who did not cover baseball during the PED era become Hall of Fame voters, the electorate is becoming less interested in disqualifying PED users."
— George Will, The Washington Post, 22 Jan. 2017


Did You Know?
Traduce is one of a number of English synonyms that you can choose when you need a word that means "to injure by speaking ill of."
Choose traduce when you want to stress the deep personal humiliation, disgrace, and distress felt by the victim. If someone doesn't actually lie, but makes statements that injure by specific and often subtle misrepresentations, malign may be the more precise choice.
To make it clear that the speaker is malicious and the statements made are false, calumniate is a good option. But if you need to say that certain statements represent an attempt to destroy a reputation by open and direct abuse, vilify is the word you want.

Slew

WORD OF THE DAY

slew / noun / SLOO

Definition

: a large number

Examples

Daniel regularly receives a slew of clothing catalogs as part of his junk mail.

"We had two weeks off and wanted to take a fun mother-daughter trip to Europe but didn't want to grapple with the slew of flights we'd have to take to visit multiple cities or the constant unpacking and packing involved on such a trip." 

— Shivani Vora, The New York Times, 11 Mar. 2018

Did You Know?

Slew appeared as an American colloquialism in the early 19th century. Its origins are unclear, but it is perhaps taken from the Irish slua, a descendant of Old Irish slúag, meaning "army," "host," or "throng." 

Slew has several homographs (words that are spelled alike but different in meaning, derivation, or pronunciation) in English. These include: slew as the past tense of the verb slay; slew as a spelling variant of slough, a word which is also commonly pronounced \SLOO\ and which means "swamp," "an inlet on a river," or "a creek in a marsh or tide flat"; and the verb slew, meaning "to turn, veer, or skid."

Loath

WORD OF THE DAY
loath / adjective / LOHTH 
 
Definition
1: unwilling to do something contrary to one's ways of thinking
2: reluctant


Examples
My grandfather was naturally very proud of the company he had built, so he was loath to admit that it was time to think about selling it and retiring.


"It seems like a lot of film directors are loath to embrace VR for the same reason that Roger Ebert famously dismissed video games as a form of art: They think it's a gimmick that punishes artistry in the name of the medium's requirements."
— Alex McLevy, The A.V. Club, 15 Mar. 2018


Did You Know?
Many usage commentators point out that the spelling of loath, the adjective, is distinct from loathe, the verb that means "to dislike greatly."
Merriam-Webster dictionaries do record loathe (along with loth) as a variant spelling for the adjective, but at the same time indicate that the loath spelling is the most common one. The adjective and the verb both hark back to Old English, and the "e" ending in each has come and gone over the centuries—but if you want to avoid the ire of those who like to keep the language tidy, stick with loath for the adjective and loathe for the verb.

Cathexis

WORD OF THE DAY
cathexis / noun / kuh-THEK-sis 
 
Definition
: investment of mental or emotional energy in a person, object, or idea


Examples
"In 2004, Bowie had a heart attack, and he was recently rumored to be in poor health. Leading up to the release of 'The Next Day,' a jittery cathexis formed. Do we judge Bowie as we always have, by his own standards? Would a new album be received reverentially, like those of the post-motorcycle-crash Bob Dylan?"
— Sasha Frere-Jones, The New Yorker, 18 Mar. 2013


"… young lovers who marry during the giddy rush of cathexis, when the hormonal highs of romantic love prompt them to be in love with being in love, often find there's no cement to tightly bind their relationship."
— Mike Masterson, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 25 Dec. 2016


Did You Know?
You might suspect that cathexis derives from a word for "emotion," but in actuality the key concept is "holding." Cathexis comes to us by way of New Latin (Latin as used after the medieval period in scientific description or classification) from the Greek word kathexis, meaning "holding."
It can ultimately be traced back (through katechein, meaning "to hold fast, occupy") to the Greek verb echein, meaning "to have" or "to hold." Cathexis first appeared in print in 1922 in a book about Freud's psychological theories (which also established the plural as cathexes, as is consistent with Latin), and it is still often used in scientific and specifically psychological contexts.

Bloviate

WORD OF THE DAY
bloviate / verb / BLOH-vee-ayt 
 
Definition
: to speak or write verbosely and windily


Examples
"It's a slow night. Just a couple of other regulars and our usual bartender, a bright, young fellow who seems to enjoy his customers' company, despite our tendency to bloviate."
— Bruce VanWyngarden, The Memphis Flyer, 15 Feb. 2018


"Wall Street analysts and the media covering them have often bloviated about the lamentable end of retail, the death of department stores, the changing fickle habits of Millennials, the power of online retail, and the tragedy of an America left behind."
— Monica Showalter, The American Thinker, 6 July 2017


Did You Know?
Warren G. Harding is often linked to bloviate, but to him the word wasn't insulting; it simply meant "to spend time idly." Harding used the word often in that "hanging around" sense, but during his tenure as the 29th U.S. President (1921-23), he became associated with the "verbose" sense of bloviate, perhaps because his speeches tended to the long-winded side.
Although he is sometimes credited with having coined the word, it's more likely that Harding picked it up from local slang while hanging around with his boyhood buddies in Ohio in the late 1800s. The term probably derives from a combination of the word blow plus the suffix -ate.

Headlong

WORD OF THE DAY

headlong / adverb / HED-LAWNG

Definition

1: with the head foremost

2a: without deliberation 

2b: recklessly

3: without pause or delay

Examples

He's impulsive when it comes to romance and often rushes headlong into relationships, with little thought given to their long-term viability.

"What was once optimistically pitched as a complete 800-mile program that could be built for about $35 billion and conceivably up and running by as early as 2020 has run headlonginto an unrelenting wall of obstacles, including engineering, litigation and politics." 

— Tim Sheehan, The Fresno (California) Bee, 15 Mar. 2018

Did You Know?

Headlong appeared in Middle English as hedlong, an alteration of the older hedling. 

Hedling is a combination of the Middle English hed ("head") and -ling, an adverb suffix which means "in such a direction or manner." Thus, hedling originally meant "with the head foremost" or, if you will, "in the direction of the head." By the late 1400s, influenced by its use in the compound word endlong, the adjective long began to be regarded as a suffix and a variant of -ling. 

It was this substitution of -ling with -longthat led to the replacement of words like sideling and headling with the now more familiar sidelong and headlong.

Embarrass

WORD OF THE DAY

embarrass / verb / im-BAIR-us

Definition

1a: to cause to experience a state of self-conscious distress

1b: to place in doubt, perplexity, or difficulties

1c: to involve in financial difficulties

2a: to hamper the movement of

2b: hinder, impede

3a: to make intricate 

3b: complicate

4: to impair the activity of (a bodily function) or the function of (a bodily part)

Examples

He was embarrassed to discover that he had been talking to prospective clients all day with a piece of spinach lodged in his teeth.

"To start with, the existence of the blog post itself is a striking demonstration of privilege. Most people think twice before publicly embarrassing their former employers, for fear that it will ruin their careers or they will face other types of retaliation." 

— Sarah Kessler, Quartz, 27 Jan. 2018

Did You Know?

If you've ever been so embarrassed that you felt like you were caught up in a noose of shame, then you may have some insight into the origins of the word embarrass. The word can be traced back through French and Spanish to the Portuguese word embaraçar, which was itself probably formed as a combination of the prefix em- (from Latin in-) and baraça, the Portuguese word for "noose." 

Though embarrass has had various meanings related to acts that hinder or impede throughout its history in English, these days it most often implies making someone feel or look foolish.

Onomatopoeia

WORD OF THE DAY

onomatopoeia / noun / ah-nuh-mah-tuh-PEE-uh

Definition

1: the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it (such as buzz, hiss)

2: the use of words whose sound suggests the sense

Examples

"The 'whiz'—or is it the 'whoosh,' or maybe 'sh-sh-sh-sh-sh'?—of an ace being served is described … by rival tennis players in the opening moments of Anna Ziegler's 'The Last Match.' The speakers concede, though, that an onomatopoeia doesn't do the job of explaining what it's like to have a meteoric ball hurtling past your ears, shattering your hopes if not the sound barrier." 

— Ben Brantley, The New York Times, 26 Oct. 2017

"[James] Chapman pointed out that what looks like variation in onomatopoeia is sometimes simply a rearranging of discrete sounds: clap clap in English becomes plec plec in Portuguese." 

— Uri Friedman, The Atlantic, 27 Nov. 2015

Did You Know?

Onomatopoeia came into English via Late Latin and ultimately traces back to Greek onoma, meaning "name," and poiein, meaning "to make." (Onoma can be found in such terms as onomastics, which refers to the study of proper names and their origins, while poiein gave us such words as poem and poet.) 

English speakers have only used the word onomatopoeia since the mid-1500s, but people have been creating words from the sounds heard around them for much longer. In fact, the presence of so many imitative words in language spawned the linguistic bowwow theory, which postulates that language originated in imitation of natural sounds.

Vulnerable

WORD OF THE DA Y
vulnerable / adjective / VUL-nuh-ruh-bul 
 
Definition
1: capable of being physically or emotionally wounded
2a: open to attack or damage
2b: assailable


Examples
The article reminds readers to install the latest antivirus software on their computers so that they will not be vulnerable to malware and viruses.


"Updated flood maps would give property owners an accurate picture of how vulnerable their property is to flooding and would help them take the appropriate measures to prepare for future storms."
— Steve Ellis, Asbury Park (New Jersey) Press, 15 Mar. 2018


Did You Know?
Vulnerable is ultimately derived from the Latin noun vulnus ("wound"). Vulnus led to the Latin verb vulnerare, meaning "to wound," and then to the Late Latin adjective vulnerabilis, which became vulnerable in English in the early 1600s.
Vulnerable originally meant "capable of being physically wounded" or "having the power to wound" (the latter is now obsolete), but since the late 1600s, it has also been used figuratively to suggest a defenselessness against non-physical attacks.
In other words, someone (or something) can be vulnerable to criticism or failure as well as to literal wounding. When it is used figuratively, vulnerable is often followed by the preposition to.

Aegis

WORD OF THE DAY
aegis / noun / EE-jus 
 
Definition
1: a shield or breastplate emblematic of majesty that was associated with Zeus and Athena
2a: protection
2b: controlling or conditioning influence
3a : auspices, sponsorship
3b: control or guidance especially by an individual, group, or system


Examples
The matter will be dealt with under the aegis of the ethics committee.


"The security office is not part of the main White House staff operation. Located outside the West Wing, it has an independent director who is not a political appointee. Its work, however, falls under the broader aegis of the White House chief of staff's office."
— Anne Gearan, The Washington Post, 16 Feb. 2018


Did You Know?
We borrowed aegis from Latin, but the word ultimately derives from the Greek noun aigis, which means "goatskin."
In ancient Greek mythology, an aegis was something that offered physical protection, and it has been depicted in various ways, including as a magical protective cloak made from the skin of the goat that suckled Zeus as an infant and as a shield fashioned by Hephaestus that bore the severed head of the Gorgon Medusa.
The word first entered English in the 15th century as a noun referring to the shield or protective garment associated with Zeus or Athena. It later took on a more general sense of "protection" and, by the late-19th century, it had acquired the extended senses of "auspices" and "sponsorship."

Reify

WORD OF THE DAY
reify / verb / RAY-uh-fye 
 
Definition
1: to consider or represent (something abstract) as a material or concrete thing
2: to give definite content and form to (a concept or idea)

Examples
"Increased awareness of automated surveillance, in other words, is most effective at demystifying the systems doing the watching, not reifying their wisdom and authority."
— John Herrman, The New York Times, 14 Jan. 2018


"The home is a haven to be sure. There neatness scrubs away history like grease while retaining the polished signs of the past and reifying the timeless."
— William H. Gass, The New York Times Book Review, 3 Aug. 1986


Did You Know?
Reify is a word that attempts to provide a bridge between what is abstract and what is real. Fittingly, it derives from a word that is an ancestor to real—the Latin noun res, meaning "thing." Both reify and the related noun reification first appeared in English in the mid-19th century.
Each word combines the Latin res with an English suffix (-fy and -fication, respectively) that is derived from the Latin -ficare, meaning "to make."
In general use, the words refer to the act of considering or presenting an abstract idea in real or material terms, or of judging something by a concrete example.

Defer

WORD OF THE DAY
defer / verb / dih-FER 
 
Definition
1 : put off, delay
2 : to postpone induction of (a person) into military service


Examples
"She made suggestions including deferring the decision again, as well as opening the opportunity for more applicants to be considered…."
— Kelly Fisher, The Tennessean, 17 Jan. 2018


"He said funds are needed now, in large part, because deferring the maintenance will increase repair costs in the future."
— Anthony Warren, The Northside Sun (Jackson, Mississippi), 23 Mar. 2017


Did You Know?
There are two words spelled defer in English. The other defer, which means "to delegate to another for determination or decision" or "to submit to another's wishes or opinion" (as in "I defer to your superior expertise"), is derived from the Latin verb deferre, meaning "to bring down."
The defer we're featuring today is derived from Latin differre, which itself has several meanings including "to postpone" and "to differ." Not surprisingly, differre is also the source of our word differ, meaning "to be different."

Kitsch

WORD OF THE DAY

kitsch / noun / KITCH

Definition

1: something that appeals to popular or lowbrow taste and is often of poor quality

2: a tacky or lowbrow quality or condition

Examples

Geraldine was amused by the kitsch sold in the roadside souvenir shop, but she wasn't tempted to buy anything.

"During my wait, I took in my surroundings, which reflect a thematic blend of 1950s-style diner and rural-American kitsch. The TV behind the barstool counter cranked out a steady diet of 'The Andy Griffith Show' reruns via Netflix." 

— The Grub Scout, The Knoxville News-Sentinel, 16 Feb. 2018

Did You Know?

"The fashionable clothing label … kicked off the revival last June …, putting its models in Miranda-inspired swimsuits and marching them through a gantlet of 50 tons of bananas," writes Mac Margolis in Newsweek International (January 2006) of a fabulously kitschy gala commemoration for the late Brazilian singer and actress Carmen Miranda. 

Since we borrowed kitsch from German in the 1920s, it has been our word for things in the realm of popular culture that dangle, like car mirror dice, precariously close to tackiness. But although things that can be described with kitsch and the related adjective kitschy are clearly not fine art, they may appeal to certain tastes—some folks delight in velvet paintings, plastic flamingos, dashboard hula dancers, and Carmen Miranda revivals!

Maladroit

WORD OF THE DAY


maladroit / adjective / mal-uh-DROYT 
 
Definition
1: lacking skill, cleverness, or resourcefulness in handling situations
2: inept


Examples
Any project, however carefully planned, is doomed to fail under maladroit management.


"[Lucy Atkins'] tale of a high-flying television historian entangled with a socially maladroit and manipulative 60-something housekeeper is smart and horrifying in equal measure."
— Geordie Williamson, The Australian, 16 Dec. 2017


Did You Know?
To understand the origin of maladroit, you need to put together some Middle French and Old French building blocks. The first is the word mal, meaning "bad," and the second is the phrase a droit, meaning "properly."
You can parse the phrase even further into the components a, meaning "to" or "at," and droit, meaning "right, direct, or straight."
Middle French speakers put those pieces together as maladroit to describe the clumsy among them, and English speakers borrowed the word intact back in the 17th century. Its opposite, of course, is adroit, which we adopted from the French in the same century.

Ineluctable

WORD OF THE DAY
ineluctable / adjective / in-ih-LUK-tuh-bul 
 
Definition
1: not to be avoided, changed, or resisted
2: inevitable


Examples
"Mr. Unkrich faced a dilemma. On the one hand, he believed that artists should not be restricted to 'only telling stories about what they know and their own culture.' But he also needed to safeguard against his ineluctable biases and blind spots, and ensure that his film didn't 'lapse into cliché or stereotype.'"
— Reggie Ugwu, The New York Times, 19 Nov. 2017


"… Mann's photographs were beautiful, although never cloying, and impossible to reduce to clean readings. But one of the deeper things they captured was the ineluctable pain—even in idyllic circumstances—of growing up."
— Sebastian Smee, The Washington Post, 28 Feb. 2018


Did You Know?
Like drama, wrestling was popular in ancient Greece and Rome. "Wrestler," in Latin, is luctator, and "to wrestle" is luctari.
Luctari also has extended senses—"to struggle," "to strive," or "to contend."
Eluctari joins e- ("ex-") with luctari, forming a verb meaning "to struggle clear of."
Ineluctabilis brought in the negative prefix in- to form an adjective describing something that cannot be escaped or avoided; English speakers borrowed ineluctabilis as ineluctable.
Another word that has its roots in luctari is reluctant. Reluctari means "to struggle against"—and someone who is reluctant resists or holds back.

Veld

WORD OF THE DAY
veld / noun / VELT 
 
Definition
: a grassland especially of southern Africa usually with scattered shrubs or trees


Examples
"In the South African cakes you'll find marula—a fruit that grows in the veld, typically used to make a popular liqueur—and naartjie, a type of sweet mandarin orange."
— Kristen Hartke, The Washington Post, 23 Aug. 2017


"I duck as swarming bees zoom overhead, trailing their queen. They are gone again in a second, coiling off in a shadowy murmuration across the veldt."
— Aidan Hartley, The Spectator, 13 Jan. 2018


Did You Know?
Veld (also spelled veldt) comes from Afrikaans, the language of the Afrikaners, the descendants of the Dutch and Huguenot people who settled in southern Africa in the 17th century.
Literally, veld means "field," and is akin to feld, the Old English predecessor of field. English speakers adopted the Africa-specific sense of veld in the 18th century. Veld refers to open country in southern Africa.
Different regions of the veld are distinguished by their elevations. There is the Highveld, the Lowveld, and the Middle Veld, each with different geographical characteristics. Another term associated with veld is kopje (or koppie). This word came to English from Afrikaans (and ultimately from a Dutch word meaning "small head" or "cup") and refers to a small hill, particularly one on the African veld.

Career

WORD OF THE DAY
career / verb / kuh-REER 
 
Definition
: to go at top speed especially in a headlong manner


Examples
The nervous passengers gripped their seats and exchanged anxious looks as the bus careered down the icy road.


"The year continued apace, as Hollywood careered haphazardly between wildly unexpected successes and 'sure things' that bombed just as dramatically."
— Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post, 29 Dec. 2017


Did You Know?
Chances are you're familiar with the verb careen as used in the sense of "to go forward in a headlong or uncontrolled manner."
Similarly, you likely know the noun career meaning "a profession for which one trains and which is undertaken as a permanent calling."
What you may not know is that the noun career (from Middle French carriere) originally referred to a course or passage (as in "the sun's career across the sky") and to the speed used to traverse such a course. In the context of medieval tournaments, career referred to the charge of mounted knights as well as to the courses they rode.
Verb use eventually developed with a general "to go fast" meaning, and later the more specific sense of moving in a reckless or headlong manner. (If you're wondering, career is not etymologically related to careen; careen has nautical origins, tracing to the Latin word for "hull.")

Sensibility

WORD OF THE DAY
sensibility / noun / sen-suh-BIL-uh-tee 
 
Definition
1a: ability to receive sensations
1b: sensitiveness
2: peculiar susceptibility to a pleasurable or painful impression (as from praise or a slight) — often used in plural
3: awareness of and responsiveness toward something (such as emotion in another)
4: refined or excessive sensitiveness in emotion and taste


Examples
"In 1973, while heading the New York Philharmonic, he replaced the orchestra members' chairs with rugs and cushions, the better to appeal to the sensibilities of a young, post-hippie audience that regarded classical music as stuffy and pedantic."
— George Varga, The San Diego Union-Tribune, 6 Jan. 2016


"His guest appearances mark something more than the usual exchange of core audiences between individual artists, though they are definitely that; they're a chance to enlarge the sensibility of rap itself, to remind himself that, however hard and successfully he strains to be the biggest rapper, rap as a whole is always bigger than he is."
— Frank Guan, Vulture, 14 Feb. 2018


Did You Know?
From Latin sentire ("to feel"), the meanings of sensibility run the gamut from mere sensation of the sense organs to excessive sentimentality. In between is a capacity for delicate appreciation, a sense often pluralized.
In Jane Austen's books, sensibility, a word much appreciated by the novelist, is mostly an admirable quality she attributed to or found lacking in her characters: "He had … a sensibility to what was amiable and lovely" (of Mr. Elliot in Persuasion).
In Sense and Sensibility, however, Austen starts out by ascribing to Marianne sensibleness, on the one hand, but an "excess of sensibility" on the other: "Her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation … she was everything but prudent."

Abide

WORD OF THE DAY
abide / verb / uh-BYDE 
 
Definition
1a: to bear patiently
1b: tolerate
1c: to endure without yielding
1d: withstand
2: to wait for; await
3: to accept without objection
4: to remain stable or fixed in a state
5a: to continue in a place
5b: sojourn


Examples
Susan has been a vegetarian for years and can no longer abide even the smell of cooked meat.


"They plainly abided a situation that was intolerable, and they shouldn't have done it."
— Robert F. Bauer, The New York Times, 20 Feb. 2018


Did You Know?
Abide may sound rather old-fashioned these days. The word has been around since before the 12th century, but it is a bit rare now, except in certain specialized uses. Even more archaic to our modern ear is abidden, the original past participle of abide.
Today, both the past tense and the past participle of abide are served by either abode or abided, with abided being the more frequent choice. Abide turns up often in the phrase "can't (or couldn't) abide."
The expression abide by, which means "to conform to" or "to acquiesce in," is also common. Related terms include the participial adjective abiding (which means "enduring" or "continuing," as in "an abiding interest in nature"), the noun abidance ("continuance" or "compliance"), and the noun abode ("residence").