WORD OF THE DAY
buttress / noun / BUTT-russ
Definition
1 (architecture): a projecting structure of masonry or wood for supporting or giving stability to a wall or building
2: something that resembles a buttress, to include - a projecting part of a mountain or hill, (biology) a horny protuberance on a horse's hoof at the heel, (botany) the broadened base of a tree trunk or a thickened vertical part of it
3: something that supports or strengthens
Examples
"The root system of one of the cedars has been hollowed out into a den, in which Neasloss finds black bear hair. One of the tree's buttresses has been chopped long ago by what he recognizes was a nephrite ax, the green jade axes that the coastal people used until 1846, when they adopted steel axes."
— Alex Shoumatoff, Smithsonian, September 2015
"The modifications to Isabella [Dam] include raising the profile of the main and auxiliary dams 16 feet, adding buttresses and other safety features, and excavating 100 feet deep to build the huge spillway."
— Steven Mayer, The Bakersfield Californian, 28 July 2019
Did You Know?
In architecture, a buttress is an exterior support that projects from a wall to resist the sideways force, called thrust, created by the load on an arch or roof.
The word buttress was first adopted into English as butres in the 14th century. It came to us from the Anglo-French (arche) boteraz, meaning "thrusting (arch)," and ultimately derives from the verb buter, "to thrust."
Buter is also the source of our verb butt, meaning "to thrust, push, or strike with the head or horns."
Buttress developed figurative use relatively soon after its adoption, being applied to anything that supports or strengthens something else.
Monday, September 30, 2019
Friday, September 27, 2019
Cleave
WORD OF THE DAY
Cleave / verb / KLEEV
Definition
1a: to divide (something) by or as if by a cutting blow
1b: split
2a: to separate (something) into distinct parts and especially into groups having divergent views
3: to subject to chemical cleavage
4: to split especially along the grain
5: to penetrate or pass through something by or as if by cutting
Examples
The surface you're cutting against will have a greater impact on your knife's edge than the food you're chopping up, assuming you aren't regularly cleaving through massive bones."
— Paul Stephen, The San Antonio Express News, 10 July 2019
"Of course, single-item restaurants are nothing new.... But they don't usually serve something so divisive as polenta. You see, the slow-cooked dish of maize cleaves opinion like a Justin Bieber concert. You either love it or loathe it—and ever has it been so."
— Samuel Mustin, The Independent (London), 30 Jan.2014
Did You Know?
Cleave has two homographs, each with a distinct origin. There is cleave meaning "to adhere firmly and closely or loyally and unwaveringly," as in "a family that cleaves to tradition"; that one is from Old English clifian, meaning "to adhere."
And there is the cleave with meanings relating to splitting and dividing, which derives from Old English clēofan, meaning "to split."
The two have slightly different inflections. The "split" cleave usually has cleaved as its past tense form, but cleft and clove are both in use as well; as its past participle form (the form that often occurs with have), cleaved is most common, but cleft and cloven are also used.
The "adhere" cleave commonly has cleaved or clove (and occasionally clave) as its past tense and cleaved as its past participle.
Thursday, September 26, 2019
Frowsy
WORD OF THE DAY
frowsy / adjective / FROW-zee
Definition
1: musty, stale
2: having a slovenly or uncared-for appearance
Examples
The lamp, discovered in a frowsy Midwestern antique store, turned out to be quite valuable.
"On good days, I could also manage super boring reality TV shows, like 'Escape to the Country,' in which retired British couples go on slow searches for frowsy new homes in sleepy towns, and nobody gets excited about anything."
— Yvonne Abraham, The Boston Globe, 24 Nov. 2018
Did You Know?
The exact origins of frowsy are perhaps lost in an old, frowsy book somewhere, but some etymologists have speculated that frowsy (also spelled frowzy) shares a common ancestor with the younger, chiefly British, word frowsty, a synonym of frowsy in both its senses.
That ancestor could be the Old French word frouste, meaning "ruinous" or "decayed," or the now-obsolete English word frough or frow, meaning "brittle" or "fragile."
An early print example of frowsy can be found in Thomas Otway's 1681 comedy The Souldier's Fortune, wherein the character Beau refers to another character as "a frouzy Fellmonger."
frowsy / adjective / FROW-zee
Definition
1: musty, stale
2: having a slovenly or uncared-for appearance
Examples
The lamp, discovered in a frowsy Midwestern antique store, turned out to be quite valuable.
"On good days, I could also manage super boring reality TV shows, like 'Escape to the Country,' in which retired British couples go on slow searches for frowsy new homes in sleepy towns, and nobody gets excited about anything."
— Yvonne Abraham, The Boston Globe, 24 Nov. 2018
Did You Know?
The exact origins of frowsy are perhaps lost in an old, frowsy book somewhere, but some etymologists have speculated that frowsy (also spelled frowzy) shares a common ancestor with the younger, chiefly British, word frowsty, a synonym of frowsy in both its senses.
That ancestor could be the Old French word frouste, meaning "ruinous" or "decayed," or the now-obsolete English word frough or frow, meaning "brittle" or "fragile."
An early print example of frowsy can be found in Thomas Otway's 1681 comedy The Souldier's Fortune, wherein the character Beau refers to another character as "a frouzy Fellmonger."
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Lèse-Majesté
WORD OF THE DAY
lèse-majesté / noun / layz-MAJ-uh-stee
Definition
1a: a crime (such as treason) committed against a sovereign power
1b: an offense violating the dignity of a ruler as the representative of a sovereign power
2: a detraction from or affront to dignity or importance
Examples
"David's grandfather, President Eisenhower, had left David all his clothes in his will, and David felt obliged to wear them…. Naturally, it would be something along the lines of lèse-majesté for him to remove the presidential jacket and vest and sit in his shirtsleeves, so he gamely continued to sweat in the sweltering heat, out of respect for Ike."
— Michael Korda, Another Life, 2000
"Thai law makes it illegal to defame, insult or threaten 'the King, the Queen, the Heir-apparent or the Regent.' … Though other countries still have similar laws—both Spain and the Netherlands have lèse-majesté laws on the books—Thailand's enforcement of its laws may make them the strictest in the world."
— Adam Taylor, The Washington Post, 8 Feb. 2019
Did You Know?
Lèse-majesté (or lese majesty, as it is also styled in English publications) comes into English by way of Middle French, from the Latin laesa majestas, which literally means "injured majesty."
The English term can conceivably cover any offense against a sovereign power or its ruler, from treason to a simple breach of etiquette.
Lèse-majesté has also acquired a more lighthearted or ironic meaning, referring to an insult or impudence to a particularly pompous or self-important person or organization.
As such, it may be applied to a relatively inoffensive act that has been exaggeratedly treated as if it were a great affront.
lèse-majesté / noun / layz-MAJ-uh-stee
Definition
1a: a crime (such as treason) committed against a sovereign power
1b: an offense violating the dignity of a ruler as the representative of a sovereign power
2: a detraction from or affront to dignity or importance
Examples
"David's grandfather, President Eisenhower, had left David all his clothes in his will, and David felt obliged to wear them…. Naturally, it would be something along the lines of lèse-majesté for him to remove the presidential jacket and vest and sit in his shirtsleeves, so he gamely continued to sweat in the sweltering heat, out of respect for Ike."
— Michael Korda, Another Life, 2000
"Thai law makes it illegal to defame, insult or threaten 'the King, the Queen, the Heir-apparent or the Regent.' … Though other countries still have similar laws—both Spain and the Netherlands have lèse-majesté laws on the books—Thailand's enforcement of its laws may make them the strictest in the world."
— Adam Taylor, The Washington Post, 8 Feb. 2019
Did You Know?
Lèse-majesté (or lese majesty, as it is also styled in English publications) comes into English by way of Middle French, from the Latin laesa majestas, which literally means "injured majesty."
The English term can conceivably cover any offense against a sovereign power or its ruler, from treason to a simple breach of etiquette.
Lèse-majesté has also acquired a more lighthearted or ironic meaning, referring to an insult or impudence to a particularly pompous or self-important person or organization.
As such, it may be applied to a relatively inoffensive act that has been exaggeratedly treated as if it were a great affront.
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Axiomatic
WORD OF THE DAY
axiomatic / adjective / ak-see-uh-MAT-ik
Definition
1a: taken for granted
1b: self-evident
2: based on or involving an axiom or system of axioms
Examples
"It's axiomatic that intellectuals like to deal with ideas. Ideas are to the intellectual what paint is to the painter and stone is to the mason."
— Jonah Goldberg, The Baltimore Sun, 10 June 2019
"Value of life? How could I answer the question on the spur of the moment? The sacredness of life I had accepted as axiomatic. That it was intrinsically valuable was a truism I had never questioned."
— Jack London, The Sea-Wolf, 1904
Did You Know?
An axiom is a principle widely accepted on the basis of its intrinsic merit, or one regarded as self-evidently true.
axiomatic / adjective / ak-see-uh-MAT-ik
Definition
1a: taken for granted
1b: self-evident
2: based on or involving an axiom or system of axioms
Examples
"It's axiomatic that intellectuals like to deal with ideas. Ideas are to the intellectual what paint is to the painter and stone is to the mason."
— Jonah Goldberg, The Baltimore Sun, 10 June 2019
"Value of life? How could I answer the question on the spur of the moment? The sacredness of life I had accepted as axiomatic. That it was intrinsically valuable was a truism I had never questioned."
— Jack London, The Sea-Wolf, 1904
Did You Know?
An axiom is a principle widely accepted on the basis of its intrinsic merit, or one regarded as self-evidently true.
A statement that is axiomatic, therefore, is one against which few people would argue.
Axiomatic entered English from Middle Greek axiōmatikos, and axiom derived, via Latin, from Greek axiōma ("something worthy") and axios ("worthy").
The word axiom can also refer to a statement accepted as true as the basis for argument or inference. Such axioms are often employed in discussions of philosophy, as well as in mathematics and geometry, where they are sometimes called postulates.
Monday, September 23, 2019
Detritus
WORD OF THE DAY
detritus / noun / dih-TRYE-tus
Definition
1 (geology): loose material (such as rock fragments or organic particles) that results directly from disintegration
2a: a product of disintegration, destruction, or wearing away
2b: debris
2c: miscellaneous remnants
2d: odds and ends
Examples
"Much to our shock, when my roommates and I opened the cabinets above and underneath our sink, we stood witness to an unbelievable mess. All of the detritus left as a result of the incomplete, shoddy work of 'renovating' the apartment appeared to have just been shoved behind the doors. Bags of random trash, dust bunnies, and paper towels filled the space."
— Daniel Varghese, GQ.com, 6 Aug. 2019
"As telescopes grow more advanced, astronomers have become more adept at finding not just white dwarf systems, but also the detritus that sometimes surrounds them. Often these objects–which might be planets, asteroids, comets, or other space junk—are noticed only after they fall into the white dwarf, contaminating the star's otherwise pure outer layers."
— Korey Haynes, Discover Magazine, 7 Aug. 2019
Did You Know?
If you use detritus in speech, remember to stress the second syllable, as you do in the words arthritis and bronchitis.
Once you've mastered its meaning and pronunciation, you'll find that detritus is a term—originally a geology term—that can be applied in many situations.
After the first hard freeze of fall, gardens are littered with the detritus of the summer's plants and produce: stalks, leaves, vines, and maybe even an abandoned hand trowel.
As a flood-swollen river retreats to its banks, it leaves detritus—debris gathered by the raging waters—in its wake.
The detritus of civilization may include junkyards and abandoned buildings; mental detritus may include all kinds of useless trivia.
detritus / noun / dih-TRYE-tus
Definition
1 (geology): loose material (such as rock fragments or organic particles) that results directly from disintegration
2a: a product of disintegration, destruction, or wearing away
2b: debris
2c: miscellaneous remnants
2d: odds and ends
Examples
"Much to our shock, when my roommates and I opened the cabinets above and underneath our sink, we stood witness to an unbelievable mess. All of the detritus left as a result of the incomplete, shoddy work of 'renovating' the apartment appeared to have just been shoved behind the doors. Bags of random trash, dust bunnies, and paper towels filled the space."
— Daniel Varghese, GQ.com, 6 Aug. 2019
"As telescopes grow more advanced, astronomers have become more adept at finding not just white dwarf systems, but also the detritus that sometimes surrounds them. Often these objects–which might be planets, asteroids, comets, or other space junk—are noticed only after they fall into the white dwarf, contaminating the star's otherwise pure outer layers."
— Korey Haynes, Discover Magazine, 7 Aug. 2019
Did You Know?
If you use detritus in speech, remember to stress the second syllable, as you do in the words arthritis and bronchitis.
Once you've mastered its meaning and pronunciation, you'll find that detritus is a term—originally a geology term—that can be applied in many situations.
After the first hard freeze of fall, gardens are littered with the detritus of the summer's plants and produce: stalks, leaves, vines, and maybe even an abandoned hand trowel.
As a flood-swollen river retreats to its banks, it leaves detritus—debris gathered by the raging waters—in its wake.
The detritus of civilization may include junkyards and abandoned buildings; mental detritus may include all kinds of useless trivia.
Friday, September 20, 2019
Misprision
WORD OF THE DAY
misprision / noun / mis-PRIZH-un
Definition
1a: neglect or wrong performance of official duty
1b: concealment of treason or felony by one who is not a participant in the treason or felony
1c: seditious conduct against the government or the courts
2: misunderstanding, misinterpretation
Examples
The article asserts that the health guru's recommendations are based on a misprision of what it means to be healthy.
"The charge, misprision of a felony, is one prosecutors often deploy against defendants who have agreed to help the government make its case."
— Grace Toohey, The Advocate (Baton Rouge, Louisiana), 8 Mar. 2019
Did You Know?
All but one of the following words traces back to Latin prehendere, meaning "to seize." Which word doesn't belong?
apprehend - comprehend - misprision - misprize - prison - surprise
It's easy to see the prehendere connection in apprehend and comprehend, whereas you may be surprised that surprise is from prehendere (via Anglo-French susprendre, meaning "to capture" or "to take by surprise").
Prison, too, is from prehendere by way of Anglo-French. And misprision comes to us by way of Anglo-French mesprisun ("error, wrongdoing"), from mesprendre ("to take by mistake"), itself from prehendere.
The only word that's out of place is misprize, meaning "to despise" or "to undervalue." It's ultimately from Latin pretium, meaning "value," but—in a trick move that perhaps only English could pull off—misprize has also given us a related noun meaning "contempt, scorn," in the form of an etymologically distinct misprision.
Thursday, September 19, 2019
Issuable
WORD OF THE DAY
issuable / adjective / ISH-oo-uh-bul
Definition
1: open to contest, debate, or litigation
2: authorized for issue
3: possible as a result or consequence
Examples
"The common shares issuable upon exercise of the options are subject to a four-month hold period from the original date of grant."
— Yahoo! Finance, 25 July 2019
"Questions calling for inadmissible proof which is damaging and prejudicial should be objected to on any and every possible ground. Even if an attorney appears to be making an excessive number of objections, this is preferable to admitting without contest issuable evidence devastating in its effect."
— Mason Ladd, Case and Comment, Vol. 44, No. 6, 1922
Did You Know?
Although issuable now tends to appear in financial contexts (such as in reference to shares that are eligible to be issued, or made available, according to a company's articles of incorporation), it was originally used in the late 16th century as a legal term: an issuable matter was one that was open to contest, debate, or litigation.
Within a century, though, the word had taken on the "authorized for issue" meaning that it most commonly has today. In making its home in the world of finance, issuable is carrying on a family tradition. In the early 14th century, its predecessor issue began being used in plural to refer to proceeds from a source of revenue, such as an estate.
Issue itself traces back to Latin exire, meaning "to go out."
issuable / adjective / ISH-oo-uh-bul
Definition
1: open to contest, debate, or litigation
2: authorized for issue
3: possible as a result or consequence
Examples
"The common shares issuable upon exercise of the options are subject to a four-month hold period from the original date of grant."
— Yahoo! Finance, 25 July 2019
"Questions calling for inadmissible proof which is damaging and prejudicial should be objected to on any and every possible ground. Even if an attorney appears to be making an excessive number of objections, this is preferable to admitting without contest issuable evidence devastating in its effect."
— Mason Ladd, Case and Comment, Vol. 44, No. 6, 1922
Did You Know?
Although issuable now tends to appear in financial contexts (such as in reference to shares that are eligible to be issued, or made available, according to a company's articles of incorporation), it was originally used in the late 16th century as a legal term: an issuable matter was one that was open to contest, debate, or litigation.
Within a century, though, the word had taken on the "authorized for issue" meaning that it most commonly has today. In making its home in the world of finance, issuable is carrying on a family tradition. In the early 14th century, its predecessor issue began being used in plural to refer to proceeds from a source of revenue, such as an estate.
Issue itself traces back to Latin exire, meaning "to go out."
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
Bivouac
WORD OF THE DAY
bivouac / verb / BIV-uh-wak
Definition
1a: to make a usually temporary encampment under little or no shelter
1b: camp
2: to take shelter often temporarily
3: to provide temporary quarters for
Examples
The search party bivouacked under a nearby ledge until the storm passed.
"Isakson said Native American artifacts were found on the site, along with plenty of evidence to suggest Union soldiers had bivouacked there after the Civil War."
— Lawrence Specker, The Huntsville (Alabama) Times, 17 Mar. 2019
Did You Know?
In the 1841 edition of An American Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster observed bivouac to be a French borrowing having military origins. He defined the noun bivouac as "the guard or watch of a whole army, as in cases of great danger of surprise or attack" and the verb as "to watch or be on guard, as a whole army."
The French word is derived from the Low German word biwacht, a combination of bi ("by") and wacht ("guard").
In some German dialects, the word was used specifically for a patrol of citizens who assisted the town watch at night. Today, bivouac has less to do with guarding and patrolling and more about having shelter.
bivouac / verb / BIV-uh-wak
Definition
1a: to make a usually temporary encampment under little or no shelter
1b: camp
2: to take shelter often temporarily
3: to provide temporary quarters for
Examples
The search party bivouacked under a nearby ledge until the storm passed.
"Isakson said Native American artifacts were found on the site, along with plenty of evidence to suggest Union soldiers had bivouacked there after the Civil War."
— Lawrence Specker, The Huntsville (Alabama) Times, 17 Mar. 2019
Did You Know?
In the 1841 edition of An American Dictionary of the English Language, Noah Webster observed bivouac to be a French borrowing having military origins. He defined the noun bivouac as "the guard or watch of a whole army, as in cases of great danger of surprise or attack" and the verb as "to watch or be on guard, as a whole army."
The French word is derived from the Low German word biwacht, a combination of bi ("by") and wacht ("guard").
In some German dialects, the word was used specifically for a patrol of citizens who assisted the town watch at night. Today, bivouac has less to do with guarding and patrolling and more about having shelter.
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Labile
WORD OF THE DAY
labile / adjective / LAY-byle
Definition
1a: readily or continually undergoing chemical, physical, or biological change or breakdown
1b: unstable
2 : readily open to change
Examples
"From the outset, we see Queen Anne—portrayed brilliantly by Olivia Colman—as frail, obese and emotionally-labile. One minute, she's calmly speaking to her confidante…. The next, she's accosting a boy servant in a hysterically bizarre scene….
—Lipi Roy, Forbes.com, 24 Feb. 2019
"'A desirable long-term outcome would be to create [contact] lenses from polymerd that are fine-tuned to be inert during use but labile and degradable when escaping into the environment.' As for members of the public concerned they are polluting the environment, [Dr. Rolf] Halden said: 'Used plastic lenses ideally should be returned to the manufacturer for recycling….'"
— Kashmir’s Gander, Newsweek, 20 Aug. 2018
Did You Know?
We are confident that you won't slip up or err in learning today's word, despite its etymology.
Labile was borrowed into English from French and can be traced back (by way of Middle French labile, meaning "prone to err") to the Latin verb labi, meaning "to slip or fall."
Indeed, the first sense of labile in English was "prone to slip, err, or lapse," but that usage is now obsolete. Other labi descendants in English include collapse, elapse, and prolapse, as well as lapse itself.
Monday, September 16, 2019
Yooper
WORD OF THE DAY
Definition
: a native or resident of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan — used as a nickname
Examples
"The district has always elected Yoopers to represent them in Congress, rather than someone from the lower peninsula like Morgan."
— Melissa Nann Burke, The Detroit News, 6 Nov2018
"Mezydlo and Turnquist live in the Upper Peninsula community of Mohawk, which is about 25 miles south of Copper Harbor, the northernmost tip of the U.P.'s remote Keweenaw Peninsula. The region is known for having notoriously long, snowy winters—but snow lingering through July? Shocking, even for a lifelong Yooper like Turnquist."
—Emily Bingham, MLive.com, 26 July 2019
Did You Know?
The word Yooper comes from the common nickname of Michigan's Upper Peninsula—the "U.P."—and the etymology requires the same follow-up question that a challenging joke does: "Get it?"
If you're not there yet, try saying them both out loud: Yooper, U.P. Yoopers have been saying both out loud now for about 40 years, but it's only in recent years that those beyond the U.P. and its geographical neighbors have begun to encounter Yooper in use.
Yoopers refer to people who live in the Lower Peninsula as trolls (they live "under" the Mackinac Bridge, after all), but that nickname is still at this point too much of a regionalism to qualify for entry in our dictionaries.
Friday, September 13, 2019
Abscond
WORD OF THE DAY
abscond / verb / ab-SKAHND
Definition
: to depart secretly and hide oneself
Examples
"The camera tracked [the black bear] as he moved in a sturdy lurch, … holding his dangling, unnecessary arms close to his chest like a mime absconding with a snatched purse."
— Jon Mooallem, The New York Times Magazine, 21 Dec. 2016
"The historian Plutarch wrote that about a million Gauls were killed in the campaign and another million enslaved. Some Gallic fighters may have absconded to Britannia—not yet governed by the Roman Empire—rather than face the legions."
— Isaac Schultz, Atlas Obscura, 30 July 2019
Did You Know?
Abscond derives from Latin abscondere, meaning "to hide away," a product of the prefix ab- and condere, a verb meaning "to conceal."
Condere is also the root for recondite, a word meaning "concealed" as well as "hard to understand" or "obscure."
Abscond retained the meaning of its Latin parent when it was first used in English in the 17th century.
In general usage, abscond refers to any act of running away and hiding (usually from the law and often with funds), but in legal circles, the word is used specifically when someone who has already become the focus of a legal proceeding hides or takes off in order to evade the legal process, as in "absconded from parole."
abscond / verb / ab-SKAHND
Definition
: to depart secretly and hide oneself
Examples
"The camera tracked [the black bear] as he moved in a sturdy lurch, … holding his dangling, unnecessary arms close to his chest like a mime absconding with a snatched purse."
— Jon Mooallem, The New York Times Magazine, 21 Dec. 2016
"The historian Plutarch wrote that about a million Gauls were killed in the campaign and another million enslaved. Some Gallic fighters may have absconded to Britannia—not yet governed by the Roman Empire—rather than face the legions."
— Isaac Schultz, Atlas Obscura, 30 July 2019
Did You Know?
Abscond derives from Latin abscondere, meaning "to hide away," a product of the prefix ab- and condere, a verb meaning "to conceal."
Condere is also the root for recondite, a word meaning "concealed" as well as "hard to understand" or "obscure."
Abscond retained the meaning of its Latin parent when it was first used in English in the 17th century.
In general usage, abscond refers to any act of running away and hiding (usually from the law and often with funds), but in legal circles, the word is used specifically when someone who has already become the focus of a legal proceeding hides or takes off in order to evade the legal process, as in "absconded from parole."
Thursday, September 12, 2019
Deleterious
WORD OF THE DAY
deleterious / adjective / del-uh-TEER-ee-us
Definition
: harmful often in a subtle or unexpected way
Examples
"With an injury, the body automatically responds with an inflammatory process to neutralize the toxic microorganisms, repair the affected tissues and eliminate debris from the wound. That is beneficial, but chronic inflammation is deleterious, causing a continuous supply of free-radicals, overwhelming our antioxidant immunities."
— Phyllis Van Buren, The St. Cloud (Minnesota) Times, 24 Apr. 2019
"But Superior Court Judge Peter Bariso ruled in 2016 that the landfill could stay open because its closure 'would have drastic and deleterious effects on the surrounding communities and their taxpayers.'"
— Scott Fallon, The Record (Bergen County, New Jersey), 24 May 2019
Did You Know?
Pernicious, baneful, noxious, and detrimental are the wicked synonyms of deleterious. All five words refer to something exceedingly harmful. Of the group, deleterious is most often used for something that is unexpectedly harmful.
Pernicious implies irreparable harm done by something that degrades or undermines in an evil or insidious way ("the pernicious effects of corruption"), while baneful suggests injury through poisoning or destruction ("the baneful consequences of war").
Noxious can apply to anything that is both offensive and injurious to the health of body or mind ("noxious chemical fumes"), and detrimental implies an obvious harmfulness to something specified ("the detrimental effects of excessive drinking").
deleterious / adjective / del-uh-TEER-ee-us
Definition
: harmful often in a subtle or unexpected way
Examples
"With an injury, the body automatically responds with an inflammatory process to neutralize the toxic microorganisms, repair the affected tissues and eliminate debris from the wound. That is beneficial, but chronic inflammation is deleterious, causing a continuous supply of free-radicals, overwhelming our antioxidant immunities."
— Phyllis Van Buren, The St. Cloud (Minnesota) Times, 24 Apr. 2019
"But Superior Court Judge Peter Bariso ruled in 2016 that the landfill could stay open because its closure 'would have drastic and deleterious effects on the surrounding communities and their taxpayers.'"
— Scott Fallon, The Record (Bergen County, New Jersey), 24 May 2019
Did You Know?
Pernicious, baneful, noxious, and detrimental are the wicked synonyms of deleterious. All five words refer to something exceedingly harmful. Of the group, deleterious is most often used for something that is unexpectedly harmful.
Pernicious implies irreparable harm done by something that degrades or undermines in an evil or insidious way ("the pernicious effects of corruption"), while baneful suggests injury through poisoning or destruction ("the baneful consequences of war").
Noxious can apply to anything that is both offensive and injurious to the health of body or mind ("noxious chemical fumes"), and detrimental implies an obvious harmfulness to something specified ("the detrimental effects of excessive drinking").
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Repertoire
WORD OF THE DAY
repertoire / noun / REP-er-twahr
Definition
1a: a list or supply of dramas, operas, pieces, or parts that a company or person is prepared to perform
1b: a supply of skills, devices, or expedients; broadly
1c: amount, supply
1d: a list or supply of capabilities
2a: the complete list or supply of dramas, operas, or musical works available for performance
2b: the complete list or supply of skills, devices, or ingredients used in a particular field, occupation, or practice
Examples
"But the make-or-break element of any interior Mexican restaurant is its mole repertoire, and I was curious to see how these sauces would turn out. My favorite was a light, sweet, chile-based mole served with chunky butternut squash topped with sweet-potato crisps."
— Patricia Sharpe, The Texas Monthly, June 2019
"For decades, immunologists had reasoned that the T-cell surveillance system might be able to detect and kill cancer cells. But, unlike infected cells, cancerous ones tend to be so genetically similar to normal cells, with such a similar repertoire of proteins, that they're hard for even T cells to pick out of a crowd."
— Siddhartha Mukherjee, The New Yorker, 22 July 2019
Did You Know?
The Late Latin noun repertorium, meaning "list," has given us two words that can be used to speak of the broad range of things that someone or something can do.
One is repertory, perhaps most commonly known as a word for a company that presents several different plays, operas, or other works at one theater, or the theater where such works are performed.
Repertoire, which comes from repertorium via French, once meant the same thing as repertory but later came to refer to the range of skills that a person has, such as the different pitches a baseball pitcher can throw or the particular dishes that are a chef's specialty.
repertoire / noun / REP-er-twahr
Definition
1a: a list or supply of dramas, operas, pieces, or parts that a company or person is prepared to perform
1b: a supply of skills, devices, or expedients; broadly
1c: amount, supply
1d: a list or supply of capabilities
2a: the complete list or supply of dramas, operas, or musical works available for performance
2b: the complete list or supply of skills, devices, or ingredients used in a particular field, occupation, or practice
Examples
"But the make-or-break element of any interior Mexican restaurant is its mole repertoire, and I was curious to see how these sauces would turn out. My favorite was a light, sweet, chile-based mole served with chunky butternut squash topped with sweet-potato crisps."
— Patricia Sharpe, The Texas Monthly, June 2019
"For decades, immunologists had reasoned that the T-cell surveillance system might be able to detect and kill cancer cells. But, unlike infected cells, cancerous ones tend to be so genetically similar to normal cells, with such a similar repertoire of proteins, that they're hard for even T cells to pick out of a crowd."
— Siddhartha Mukherjee, The New Yorker, 22 July 2019
Did You Know?
The Late Latin noun repertorium, meaning "list," has given us two words that can be used to speak of the broad range of things that someone or something can do.
One is repertory, perhaps most commonly known as a word for a company that presents several different plays, operas, or other works at one theater, or the theater where such works are performed.
Repertoire, which comes from repertorium via French, once meant the same thing as repertory but later came to refer to the range of skills that a person has, such as the different pitches a baseball pitcher can throw or the particular dishes that are a chef's specialty.
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Pell-Mell
WORD OF THE DAY
pell-mell / adverb / pel-MEL
Definition
1: in mingled confusion or disorder
2: in confused haste
Examples
When the final bell of the day rang, the children bolted from their desks and streamed pell-mell out the door into the schoolyard.
"The grammar school dropout was forever on the move. There were times he bolted into the darkroom of his employer's photographic studio to hide from an approaching truant officer. More often, the errand boy ran pell-mell to the offices of New York City newspapers and magazines, lugging a pouch stuffed with the newsy photographs of the day…."
— Bill Case, The Pilot (Southern Pines, North Carolina), 14 July 2019
Did You Know?
The word pell-mell was probably formed through a process called reduplication.
The process—which involves the repetition of a word or part of a word, often including a slight change in its pronunciation—also generated such terms as bowwow, helter-skelter, flip-flop, and chitchat.
Yet another product of reduplication is shilly-shally, which started out as a single-word compression of the question "Shall I?"
For pell-mell, the process is believed to have occurred long ago: our word traces to a Middle French word of the same meaning, pelemele, which was likely a product of reduplication from Old French mesle, a form of mesler, meaning "to mix."
pell-mell / adverb / pel-MEL
Definition
1: in mingled confusion or disorder
2: in confused haste
Examples
When the final bell of the day rang, the children bolted from their desks and streamed pell-mell out the door into the schoolyard.
"The grammar school dropout was forever on the move. There were times he bolted into the darkroom of his employer's photographic studio to hide from an approaching truant officer. More often, the errand boy ran pell-mell to the offices of New York City newspapers and magazines, lugging a pouch stuffed with the newsy photographs of the day…."
— Bill Case, The Pilot (Southern Pines, North Carolina), 14 July 2019
Did You Know?
The word pell-mell was probably formed through a process called reduplication.
The process—which involves the repetition of a word or part of a word, often including a slight change in its pronunciation—also generated such terms as bowwow, helter-skelter, flip-flop, and chitchat.
Yet another product of reduplication is shilly-shally, which started out as a single-word compression of the question "Shall I?"
For pell-mell, the process is believed to have occurred long ago: our word traces to a Middle French word of the same meaning, pelemele, which was likely a product of reduplication from Old French mesle, a form of mesler, meaning "to mix."
Monday, September 9, 2019
Olfactory
WORD OF THE DAY
olfactory / adjective / ahl-FAK-tuh-ree
Definition
: of or relating to the sense of smell
Examples
"The glands located between the cat's toes secrete a scent whenever he scratches on objects such as a tree or a scratching post. This activity provides an olfactory territory mark in addition to the visual."
— Pam Johnson-Bennett, Think Like a Cat, 2011
"Young male anglerfish face the challenge of finding a mate in the ocean's vastness. They have large olfactory organs, which suggests that suitors follow a trail of pheromones."
— William J. Broad, The New York Times, 29 July 2019
Did You Know?
Olfactory derives from the past participle of the Latin olfacere ("to smell"), which was formed from the verb olēre ("to give off a smell") and facere ("to do").
Olfactory is a word that often appears in scientific contexts (as in "olfactory nerves," the nerves that pass from the nose to the brain and contain the receptors that make smelling possible), but it has occasionally branched out into less specialized contexts.
The pleasant smell of spring flowers, for example, might be considered an "olfactory delight."
A related word, olfaction, is a noun referring to the sense of smell or the act or process of smelling.
olfactory / adjective / ahl-FAK-tuh-ree
Definition
: of or relating to the sense of smell
Examples
"The glands located between the cat's toes secrete a scent whenever he scratches on objects such as a tree or a scratching post. This activity provides an olfactory territory mark in addition to the visual."
— Pam Johnson-Bennett, Think Like a Cat, 2011
"Young male anglerfish face the challenge of finding a mate in the ocean's vastness. They have large olfactory organs, which suggests that suitors follow a trail of pheromones."
— William J. Broad, The New York Times, 29 July 2019
Did You Know?
Olfactory derives from the past participle of the Latin olfacere ("to smell"), which was formed from the verb olēre ("to give off a smell") and facere ("to do").
Olfactory is a word that often appears in scientific contexts (as in "olfactory nerves," the nerves that pass from the nose to the brain and contain the receptors that make smelling possible), but it has occasionally branched out into less specialized contexts.
The pleasant smell of spring flowers, for example, might be considered an "olfactory delight."
A related word, olfaction, is a noun referring to the sense of smell or the act or process of smelling.
Friday, September 6, 2019
Skulk
WORD OF THE DAY
skulk / verb / SKULK
Definition
1: to move in a stealthy or furtive manner
2: to hide or conceal something (such as oneself) often out of cowardice or fear or with sinister intent
Examples
The cat often skulks around the foyer, waiting for someone to open the front door.
"Engineers did not, for instance, want the robot to silently skulk up and scare anyone—but how exactly should it announce itself? They tested a wide range of noises, from Road Runner-style 'beep-beeps' to the honks of reversing forklifts before settling on a pleasant yet insistent chirp they mixed from a clip of birdsong."
— Drew Harwell, The Washington Post, 6 June 2019
Did You Know?
Here's one for the word-puzzle lovers. Can you name three things that the word skulk has in common with all of these other words: booth, brink, cog, flit, kid, meek, scab, seem, and skull?
If you noticed that all of the terms on that list have just one syllable, then you've got the first, and easiest, similarity, but the next two are likely to prove a little harder to guess.
Do you give up? All of the words listed above are of Scandinavian origin and all were first recorded in English in the 13th century.
As for skulk specifically, its closest known Scandinavian relative is the Norwegian dialect word skulka, which means "to lie in wait" or "to lurk."
skulk / verb / SKULK
Definition
1: to move in a stealthy or furtive manner
2: to hide or conceal something (such as oneself) often out of cowardice or fear or with sinister intent
Examples
The cat often skulks around the foyer, waiting for someone to open the front door.
"Engineers did not, for instance, want the robot to silently skulk up and scare anyone—but how exactly should it announce itself? They tested a wide range of noises, from Road Runner-style 'beep-beeps' to the honks of reversing forklifts before settling on a pleasant yet insistent chirp they mixed from a clip of birdsong."
— Drew Harwell, The Washington Post, 6 June 2019
Did You Know?
Here's one for the word-puzzle lovers. Can you name three things that the word skulk has in common with all of these other words: booth, brink, cog, flit, kid, meek, scab, seem, and skull?
If you noticed that all of the terms on that list have just one syllable, then you've got the first, and easiest, similarity, but the next two are likely to prove a little harder to guess.
Do you give up? All of the words listed above are of Scandinavian origin and all were first recorded in English in the 13th century.
As for skulk specifically, its closest known Scandinavian relative is the Norwegian dialect word skulka, which means "to lie in wait" or "to lurk."
Thursday, September 5, 2019
Adscititious
WORD OF THE DAY
adscititious / adjective / ad-suh-TISH-us
Definition
: derived or acquired from something extrinsic
Examples
"I left the warm embrace of government work for adscititious reasons, driven not by boredom or indignation, but mainly by itchy feet."
— John Derbyshire, The National Review, 17 July 2002
"We should choose our books as we would our companions, for their sterling and intrinsic merit, not for their adscititious or accidental advantages."
— Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon, 1832
Did You Know?
Adscititious comes from a very "knowledgeable" family—it ultimately derives from scīscere, the Latin verb meaning "to get to know, ascertain, vote for, approve."
The related scīre means "to know" and is fundamental to science, conscience, prescience ("foreknowledge"), nescience ("lack of knowledge"), as well as adscititious.
Admittedly, adscititious is more akin to adscīscere, which means "to admit" or "to adopt."
This explains why adscititious describes something adopted from an outside source.
adscititious / adjective / ad-suh-TISH-us
Definition
: derived or acquired from something extrinsic
Examples
"I left the warm embrace of government work for adscititious reasons, driven not by boredom or indignation, but mainly by itchy feet."
— John Derbyshire, The National Review, 17 July 2002
"We should choose our books as we would our companions, for their sterling and intrinsic merit, not for their adscititious or accidental advantages."
— Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon, 1832
Did You Know?
Adscititious comes from a very "knowledgeable" family—it ultimately derives from scīscere, the Latin verb meaning "to get to know, ascertain, vote for, approve."
The related scīre means "to know" and is fundamental to science, conscience, prescience ("foreknowledge"), nescience ("lack of knowledge"), as well as adscititious.
Admittedly, adscititious is more akin to adscīscere, which means "to admit" or "to adopt."
This explains why adscititious describes something adopted from an outside source.
Wednesday, September 4, 2019
Minim
WORD OF THE DAY
minim / noun / MIN-im
Definition
1: a musical half note
2: something very minute
3: a unit of capacity equal to 1/60 fluid dram
Examples
"And yet there are transcendent sparks in [writer Raymond Carver's work that] I keep going back to, moments of human communion that raise his people briefly above the wreckage of their worlds.… What's notable here is the clause he felt able to let her go, and also what he does immediately after these lines: 'He brought his arm down and turned to his children.' … There's a minim of grace in that gesture, of self-forgiveness and, yes, of hope, however fugitive."
— William Giraldi, Commonweal, 23 Apr. 2019
"He thanked me with a smiling nod, measured out a few minims of the red tincture and added one of the powders."
— Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1886
Did You Know?
Like the more common minimum, minim derives from the Latin word minimus, meaning "least" or "smallest."
Musicians were the first to note its significance in the 15th century as a word for the half note. Chirographers soon adopted it as a word for a single downstroke in penmanship (such as any of the three in the letter m), and after careful analysis, apothecaries prescribed minim as a word for their smallest unit of liquid capacity.
English speakers have also embraced minim as a general noun referring to things that are very small and as an adjective meaning "of the smallest size," as in "a minim amount."
minim / noun / MIN-im
Definition
1: a musical half note
2: something very minute
3: a unit of capacity equal to 1/60 fluid dram
Examples
"And yet there are transcendent sparks in [writer Raymond Carver's work that] I keep going back to, moments of human communion that raise his people briefly above the wreckage of their worlds.… What's notable here is the clause he felt able to let her go, and also what he does immediately after these lines: 'He brought his arm down and turned to his children.' … There's a minim of grace in that gesture, of self-forgiveness and, yes, of hope, however fugitive."
— William Giraldi, Commonweal, 23 Apr. 2019
"He thanked me with a smiling nod, measured out a few minims of the red tincture and added one of the powders."
— Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1886
Did You Know?
Like the more common minimum, minim derives from the Latin word minimus, meaning "least" or "smallest."
Musicians were the first to note its significance in the 15th century as a word for the half note. Chirographers soon adopted it as a word for a single downstroke in penmanship (such as any of the three in the letter m), and after careful analysis, apothecaries prescribed minim as a word for their smallest unit of liquid capacity.
English speakers have also embraced minim as a general noun referring to things that are very small and as an adjective meaning "of the smallest size," as in "a minim amount."
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
Fecund
WORD OF THE DAY
fecund / adjective / FEK-und
Definition
1a: fruitful in offspring or vegetation
1b: prolific
2: intellectually productive or inventive to a marked degree
Examples
As an artist, she gets most of her inspiration from nature; her daily walks in the woods are a fecund source of ideas.
"As if there aren't enough bugs around, get this: insects are amazingly fecund and can reproduce quickly, laying thousands of eggs in a short time."
— Terri Schlichenmeyer, The Montgomery Herald (Oak Hill, West Virginia), 23 July 2019
Did You Know?
Fecund and its synonyms fruitful and fertile all mean producing or capable of producing offspring or fruit, literally or figuratively.
Fecund applies to things that yield offspring, fruit, or results in abundance or with rapidity ("a fecund herd," "a fecund imagination").
Fruitful emphasizes abundance, too, and often adds the implication that the results attained are desirable or useful ("fruitful plains," "a fruitful discussion").
Fertile implies the power to reproduce ("a fertile egg") or the power to assist in reproduction, growth, or development ("fertile soil," "a fertile climate for artists").
Monday, September 2, 2019
Extemporize
WORD OF THE DAY
extemporize / verb / ik-STEMP-puh-ryze
Definition
1a: to do something extemporaneously
2a: improvise
2b: to compose, perform, or speak extemporaneously
3: to get along in a makeshift manner
Examples
"Donald's own trio consisted of piano, bass and cello. Each player's part was written, not extemporized."
— Anthony Weller, The Los Angeles Times, 3 Feb. 2019
"The name Cher Horowitz was extemporized by Wallace Shawn, who plays a teacher in 'Clueless.' Wallace Shawn is also Jewish, and he came up with the catchy Jewish-sounding designation for the film's star during a scene where he was taking attendance in the classroom."
— Tamar Skydell, The Forward, 31 Dec. 2018
Did You Know?
Extemporize means to say or do something on the spur of the moment, an appropriate meaning given the word's history.
Extemporize was coined by adding the suffix -izeto Latin ex tempore, meaning "instantaneously" or "on the spur of the moment."
Ex tempore, in turn, was formed by combining ex and the noun tempus, meaning "time." Incidentally, ex tempore was also borrowed wholesale into English (where it means "extemporaneously").
Other descendants of Latin ex tempore include the now rare extemporal and extemporary (both synonyms of extemporaneous), and as you have no doubt guessed by now, extemporaneous itself.
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