Macabre

WORD OF THE DAY

macabre / adjective / muh-KAHB

Definition
1a: having death as a subject
1b: comprising or including a personalized representation of death
2: dwelling on the gruesome
3: tending to produce horror in a beholder

Examples
"The secret of Killing Eve is that its macabre sense of humor and spy-story subversions are ornamental compared with the series' grist: the strange, transformative pull the two main characters have on each other."
— Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, 5 Apr. 2019

"Described as a surgeon by the newspapers, Holmes was charged with having broken into a vault in Hendon churchyard on 13 September 1828 … and cut the heads off three bodies. This strange and macabre story is quite unique, yet the reasons Holmes gave for his actions still applied directly to the advancement and development of medical understanding."
— Suzie Lennox, Bodysnatchers, 2016

Did You Know?
We trace the origins of macabre to the name of the Book of Maccabees, which is included in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox canons of the Old Testament and in the Protestant Apocrypha. Sections of this biblical text address both the deaths of faithful people asked to renounce their religion and the manner in which the dead should be properly commemorated.
In medieval France, representations of these passages were performed as what became known as the "dance of death" or "dance Maccabee," which was spelled in several different ways, including danse macabre.
In English, macabre was originally used in reference to this "dance of death" and then gradually came to refer to anything grim or gruesome.

Gist

WORD OF THE DAY

gist noun / JIST

Definition
1: the ground of a legal action
2a: the main point or part
2b: essence

Examples
I didn't catch every word, but I heard enough to get the gist of the conversation.

"Ironically, the debate largely occurred on Twitter, one of the most effective disruptors of work productivity ever invented. And the gist was this: To succeed professionally, many Silicon Valley types said, one must be prepared to work not just long, but indeed punishing hours—workers must be prepared to give up 'nights and weekends.'"
— Ethan Epstein, The Washington Times, 29 Dec. 2019

Did You Know?
The word gist often appears in such contexts as "the gist of the conversation was that…" to let us know that what follows will be a statement or summary that in some way encapsulates the main point or overarching theme.
The gist of a conversation, argument, story, or what-have-you is what we rely on when the actual words and details are only imperfectly recalled, inessential, or too voluminous to recount in their entirety.
Gist was borrowed from the Anglo-French legal phrase laccion gist ("the action lies or is based [on]") in the 17th century, and it was originally used in law as a term referring to the foundation or grounds for a legal action without which the action would not be legally sustainable.

Allege

WORD OF THE DAY

allege /verb / uh-LEJ

Definition
1: to assert without proof or before proving
2: to bring forward as a reason or excuse

Examples
The lawsuit alleges that the company knew about the faulty switches but sold the product anyway.

"While the ACCC does not allege Mr. Vassella was directly involved in formulating or carrying out the alleged price-fixing scheme, court documents filed by the regulator say he was briefed on the plans within a month of their launch, and given regular presentations on progress for at least the next six months."
— Eric Johnston, The Australian, 27 Dec. 2019

Did You Know?
These days, someone alleges something before presenting the evidence to prove it (or perhaps without evidence at all), but the word actually derives from the Middle English verb alleggen, meaning "to submit (something) in evidence or as justification."
Alleggen, in turn, traces back to Anglo-French and probably ultimately to Latin allegare, meaning "to send as a representative" or "to offer as proof in support of a plea."
Indeed, allege once referred to the actions of someone who came forward to testify in court; this sense isn't used anymore, but it led to the development of the current "assert without proof" sense.

Diligent

WORD OF THE DAY

diligent / adjective / DIL-uh-junt

Definition
1: characterized by steady, earnest, and energetic effort
2: painstaking

Examples
After many hours of diligent research, the students were ready to compile their results.

"Being informed and diligent is a better investing strategy than no strategy at all. And it keeps us from 'acting ridiculously' at just the wrong time."
— Nancy Tengler, USA Today, 16 Dec. 2019

Did You Know?
You're more likely to be diligent about something if you love doing it. The etymology of diligent reflects the fact that affection can lead to energetic effort. 

The word, which entered English in the 14th century by way of Anglo-French, descends from the Latin verb diligere, meaning "to value or esteem highly" or "to love." 

The Latin diligere was formed by adding the di- prefix (from dis-, "apart") to the verb legere, an ancestor of the English legend, meaning "to gather, select" or "to read." 

Of course, you don't need to care for the task at hand in order to be diligent, but it certainly does help!

Parvenu

WORD OF THE DAY

parvenu / noun /PAHR-vuh-noo

Definition
: one that has recently or suddenly risen to an unaccustomed position of wealth or power and has not yet gained the prestige, dignity, or manner associated with it

Examples
"It's impossible to exaggerate the rapidity with which Lexus came to dominate the North American luxury market. At its introduction in 1989, its competitors denigrated it as mere parvenu.... By 1990, the LS had become the bestselling large luxury sedan in the land."
— David Booth, The Calgary Herald, 19 July 2019

"Croatia … does not have one of the strongest leagues in the world, one in which most clubs rely on selling young players, for a premium, to the aristocrats and parvenus of England and Spain. In an era in which financial might so often makes right, when the traditional European powerhouses hold the balance of power to a greater extent than at any time in history, … Croatia's achievement in making it this far is breathtaking."
— Rory Smith, The New York Times, 15 July 2018

Did You Know?
French has been generous in providing us with terms for obscure folks who suddenly strike it rich. In addition to parvenu, French has loaned us nouveau riche, arriviste, and roturier, all of which can describe a rich person of plebeian origins, especially one who is a bit snobby.
Those colorful and slightly disparaging terms for the newly moneyed clearly show their French heritage, but it may be harder to see the French background of a term Massachusetts locals once used for coastal merchants made rich through the fishing trade: codfish aristocracy.
Codfish comes from Middle English (beyond that its origin is a mystery), but aristocracy passed into English via Middle French (it is ultimately from Greek aristos, meaning "best").

Euphoria

WORD OF THE DAY

Euphoria / noun / yoo-FOR-ee-uh

Definition
: a feeling of well-being or elation

Examples
"In February 2014, Xenia gave birth to their daughter, Ella. Ben still recalls the euphoria of watching the nurse place their newborn on Xenia's chest. He still can't quite believe the song that played on the operating room radio, the refrain resounding in that moment: God only knows what I'd be without you."
— Caitlin Gibson, The Washington Post Magazine, 9 Dec. 2019

"The floor became a dance-off—in one corner, dozens of girls put all their bags and backpacks in one giant pile, so nobody had to worry where their stuff was, and then danced around the pile in a circle that was really moving to behold, an example of how a Harry Styles concert creates crucial moments of utopian unity and shared euphoria."
— Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone, 14 Dec. 2019

Did You Know?
Health and happiness are often linked, sometimes even in etymologies. Nowadays euphoria generally refers to happiness, but it derives from euphoros, a Greek word that means "healthy."
Given that root, it's not surprising that in its original English uses euphoria was a medical term. Its entry in an early 18th-century dictionary explains it as "the well-bearing of the Operation of a Medicine; that is, when the Sick Person finds himself eas'd or reliev'd by it."
Modern physicians still use the term, but they aren't likely to prescribe something that will cause it. In contemporary medicine and psychology, euphoria can describe abnormal or inappropriate feelings such as those caused by an illicit drug or an illness.

Outlandish

WORD OF THE DAY

outlandish / adjective / out-LAN-dish

Definition
1a: of or relating to another country
1b: foreign
2a : strikingly out of the ordinary
2b: bizarre
2c: exceeding proper or reasonable limits or standards
3: remote from civilization

Examples
"In a letter sent to his mother … [T.S. Eliot] wrote, 'I really think that I have far more influence on English letters than any other American has ever had, unless it be Henry James.' It's an outlandish claim, even if one allows for the kind of hyperbole to be found in a letter meant to impress one's parents."
— Kevin Dettmar, The New Yorker, 27 Oct. 2019

"Seana Benz and Jimmy Johansmeyer create a hilarious series of outlandish costumes for the Carnegie sequence, which Woodall showcases in rapid succession."
— Gene Terruso, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 15 Dec. 2019

Did You Know?
In olden times, English speakers used the phrase "outlandish man" to refer to a foreigner—or, one who came from an outland, which originally meant "a foreign land."
From here, outlandish broadened in usage from a word meaning "from another land" to one describing something unfamiliar or strange.
Dress was a common early target for the adjective; English novelist Henry Fielding, in Tom Jones (1749), writes of a woman who was "drest in one of your outlandish Garments."
Nowadays, the word can be applied to anything that strikes us as out of the ordinary, from bizarre conspiracy theories to exaggerated boasting.

Nurture

WORD OF THE DAY

nurture / verb / NER-cher

Definition
1: to supply with nourishment
2: educate
3a: to further the development of
3b: foster

Examples
The mayor pushed for tax credits for small businesses as a way to nurture economic growth.

"Nurture your marriage. While it's important to keep the kids happy, it's also important to set aside time for you and your spouse."
— K. Lori Hanson, The Miami Herald, 17 Dec. 2019

Did You Know?
It's no coincidence that nurture is a synonym of nourish—both are derived from the Latin verb nutrire, meaning "to suckle" or "to nourish."
The noun nurture first appeared in English in the 14th century, but the verb didn't arrive until the 15th century.
Originally, the verb nurture meant "to feed or nourish." The sense meaning "to further the development of" didn't come into being until the end of the 18th century.
Mary Wollstonecraft, mother of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley, is credited with first giving life to that sense in her Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792): "Public spirit must be nurtured by private virtue," she wrote.
Other nutrire descendants in English include nutrient, nutritious, nutriment, nutrition, and, of course, nourishment.

Bonhomie

WORD OF THE DAY

bonhomie / noun / bah-nuh-MEE

Definition
: good-natured easy friendliness

Examples
"For older athletes, the bonhomie among teammates and rivals who have spent years sprinting or skating together, or boxing one another out under the rim, is often as important as the exercise. Many have become friends off the court, sharing meals and socializing after games."
— Robert Weisman, The Boston Globe, 4 Dec. 2019

"Throughout its history, the hugely successful TV show 'Downton Abbey' warmly embraced the tradition of the Christmas episode, a seasonally themed special that continued the endless narrative but with a particularly romantic and sentimental nod to what audiences wanted on Christmas Day, a time of familial togetherness and bonhomie."
— Chris Jones, The Chicago Tribune, 19 Nov. 2019 

Did You Know?
English speakers borrowed bonhomie from French, where the word was created from bonhomme, which means "good-natured man" and is itself a composite of two other French words: bon, meaning "good," and homme, meaning "man."
That French compound traces to two Latin terms, bonus (meaning "good") and homo (meaning either "man" or "human being").
English speakers have warmly embraced bonhomie and its meaning, but we have also anglicized the pronunciation in a way that may make native French speakers cringe. (We hope they will be good-natured about it!)

Dauntless

WORD OF THE DAY

dauntless / adjective / DAWNT-lus

Definition
1: incapable of being intimidated or subdued
2: fearless, undaunted

Examples
With dauntless persistence, the ship's crew navigated the vessel through the unexpected storm, escaping with minimal damage and no casualties.

"Dug, as dauntless as ever, travels to the stronghold of his foes. The entrance is shielded by one gate after another, each shunting into position with a mighty clang, and finally, in the movie's best gag, by a little sliding bolt, such as you might find on a garden shed."
— Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 26 Feb. 2018

Did You Know?
The history of the world is peopled with dauntless men and women who refused to be "subdued" or "tamed" by fear.
The word dauntless can be traced back to Latin domare, meaning "to tame" or "to subdue." When our verb daunt (a domare descendant adopted by way of Anglo-French) was first used in the 14th century, it shared these meanings.
The now-obsolete "tame" sense referred to the taming or breaking of wild animals, particularly horses: an undaunted horse was an unbroken horse.
Not until the late 16th century did we use undaunted with the meaning "undiscouraged and courageously resolute" to describe people. By then, such lionhearted souls could also be described as "undauntable" as well as "dauntless."

Tontine

WORD OF THE DAY

tontine / noun /  TAHN-teen

Definition

: a joint financial arrangement whereby the participants usually contribute equally to a prize that is awarded entirely to the participant who survives all the others

Examples

"For denizens of the realm, tontines were a very popular twist on the annuity because they appealed to the gambling spirit. An annuity would pay you a steady trickle of money (boring). A tontine would pay you more and more as time went on because other people would be dying and you would be accumulating their shares." 

— Jeff Guo, The Washington Post, 28 Sept. 2015

"Lord Deverell wanted a loan from me based upon his contribution. Wanted out of the tontine entirely, rather, but without having to go to the trouble of dying." 

— Theresa Romain, Lady Notorious, 2019

Did You Know?

Tontines were named after their creator, a Neapolitan banker named Lorenzo Tonti. In 1653, Tonti convinced investors to buy shares in a fund he had created. 

Each year, the investors earned dividends, and when one of them died, their share of the profits was redistributed among the survivors. When the last investor died, the capital reverted to the state. 

Louis XIV of France used tontines to save his ailing treasury and to fund municipal projects, and private tontines (where the last surviving investor—and subsequently their heirs—got the cash instead of the state) became popular throughout Europe and the U.S. 

Eventually, though, tontines were banned; there was just too much temptation for unscrupulous investors to bump off their fellow subscribers.

Hirsute

WORD OF THE DAY

hirsute / adjective / HER-soot

Definition
1: hairy
2: covered with coarse stiff hairs

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

"Berry is a stocky, hirsute fellow, with a big, rich voice that immediately calls to mind the word 'thespian' and gives everything he says a sheen of (over)dramatic irony…."
— Robert Lloyd, The Los Angeles Times, 3 Dec. 2019

Did You Know?
Hirsute has nearly the same spelling and exactly the same meaning as its Latin parent, hirsutus. The word isn't quite one of a kind, though—it has four close relatives: hirsutism and hirsuties, synonymous nouns naming a medical condition involving excessive hair growth; hirsutal, an adjective meaning "of or relating to hair"; and hirsutulous, a mostly botanical term meaning "slightly hairy" (as in "hirsutulous stems").
The Latin hirsutus is also an etymological cousin to horrēre, meaning "to bristle." Horrēre gave rise to Latin horrōr-, horror, which has the various meanings of "standing stiffly," "bristling," "shivering," "dread," "consternation," and is the source, via Anglo-French, of our word horror.
The word horripilation—a fancy word for goose bumps—is also a hirsute relation; its Latin source, horripilāre, means "to shudder," and was formed from horrēre and pilus ("hair").

Artiface

WORD OF THE DAY

artifice / noun / AHR-tuh-fus

Definition

1a: clever or artful skill 

1b: ingenuity 

1c: an ingenious device or expedient

2a: an artful stratagem 

2b: trick 

2c: false or insincere behavior

Examples

"A generation that's grown up with Snapchat-filtered selfies and pop feminism seems to have an innate understanding that artifice doesn't negate authenticity, or that a penchant for towering wigs and acrylic nails doesn't prevent someone from being a songwriting genius." 

— Lindsay Zoladz, The New York Times, 21 Nov. 2019

"It could all be rather enervating, but the sheer polish and panache of the cast's fluttering antics brings a smile to the lips—and Wilson introduced a soupçon of reality to offset the artifice. Having pretended to have a boyfriend, wealthy heiress Polly Browne … affects to be a humble secretary after she's instantly smitten with errant rich-kid Tony, who's slumming it as an errand boy." 

— Dominic Cavendish, The Daily Telegraph (London), 3 Dec. 2019

Did You Know?

Do great actors display artifice or art? Sometimes a bit of both. Artifice stresses creative skill or intelligence, but it also implies a sense of falseness and trickery. Art generally rises above such falseness, suggesting instead an unanalyzable creative force. 

Actors may rely on some of each, but the personae they display in their roles are usually artificial creations. 

Therein lies a lexical connection between art and artifice. Artifice derives from artificium, Latin for "artifice." 

That root also gave English artificial. Artificium, in turn, developed from ars, the Latin root underlying the word art (and related terms such as artist and artisan).

Lily-livered

WORD OF THE DAY

lily-livered / adjective / LILL-ee-LIV-erd

Definition
1a: lacking courage
1b: cowardly

Examples
"The deus ex machina aspect of Mando's comrades popping up to save him and Baby Yoda from certain death once he proved he wasn't a lily-livered Empire flunky kind of irked me, but I often have that complaint with sci-fi and superhero stories, both of which are prone to ending battles with an out-of-nowhere assist."
— Katie Rife, The A.V. Club, 22 Nov. 2019

"I did see more salads than should be allowed in a place like this—something the tentacle-bearded sea captain would surely dismiss as lily-livered landlubber food. And when you're deep inside the belly of Helmsman Ale House, marvelling at the … original arched, wood-beam ceilings that make you feel as if you've been swallowed by the hull of an ancient schooner, salad seems a silly thing to eat, especially while you're chugging a pint."
— Edwin Goei, OC Weekly (Costa Mesa, California), 25 Sept. 2019

Did You Know?
The basis of the word lily-livered lies in an old belief. Years ago, people thought that health and temperament were the products of a balance or imbalance of four bodily fluids, or humors: blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile.
It was believed that a deficiency of yellow bile, or choler, the humor that governed anger, spirit, and courage, would leave a person's liver colorless or white. Someone with this deficiency, and so white-livered, would be spiritless and a coward.
Lily-livered and white-livered have been used synonymously since the 17th century, but lily-livered is now the more common expression, probably because of its alliteration.

Weal

WORD OF THE DAY

weal / noun / WEEL

Definition
1: a sound, healthy, or prosperous state
2: well-being

Examples
Before presenting the bill to the legislature, the senator spoke of devotion to the general weal.

"All our life … is but a mass of habits,—practical, emotional, and intellectual,—systematically organized for our weal or woe, and bearing us irresistibly toward our destiny, whatever the latter may be."
— William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology, 1899

Did You Know?
Weal is most often used in contexts referring to the general good. One reads, for example, of the "public weal" or the "common weal."
The latter of these led to the formation of the noun commonweal, a word that once referred to an organized political entity, such as a nation or state, but today usually means "the general welfare." The word commonwealth shares these meanings, but its situation is reversed; the "political entity" sense of commonwealth is still current whereas the "general welfare" sense has become archaic.
At one time, weal and wealth were also synonyms; both meant "riches" ("all his worldly weal") and "well-being."
Both words stem from wela, the Old English word for "well-being," and are closely related to the Old English word for "well."

Elixir

WORD OF THE DAY

elixir /noun / ih-LIK-ser

Definition
1a: a substance held to be capable of changing base metals into gold
1b: a substance held to be capable of prolonging life indefinitely
1c: cure-all
1d: a medicinal concoction
2: a sweetened liquid usually containing alcohol that is used in medication either for its medicinal ingredients or as a flavoring
3: the essential principle

Examples
While the new sports complex is hardly an elixir for all of the city's economic woes, it should spur some much-needed job growth.

"Before turning in on a really cold night, a hot toddy really helps knock off the edge. My elixir of choice is a cup of hot apple cider mixed with a shot of 12 Point Bourbon."
— Bryan Hendricks, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 14 Nov. 2019

Did You Know?
Elixir has roots in the practice of alchemy; it was used in the Middle Ages as the word for a substance believed to be capable of changing base metals into gold.
Its later use for a drug purported to prolong one's life led to its use in the names of medicines of mostly questionable effectiveness.
Today, it is often used generally for anything thought capable of remedying all ills or difficulties, be they physical or otherwise.
The word came to us via Middle English and Medieval Latin from Arabic al-iksīr; it probably ultimately derives from Greek xērion, meaning "desiccative powder."

Belated

WORD OF THE DAY

belated / adjective / bih-LAY-tud

Definition
1: delayed beyond the usual time
2: existing or appearing past the normal or proper time

Examples
Olivia called her friend on his birthday to let him know that a belated gift from her was on its way.

"Although it airs in Hebrew and Yiddish with English subtitles, Shtisel … has become such an international favorite that its creators are contemplating a belated third season, while Friends and Grace and Frankie co-creator Marta Kauffman is working on an American version."
— Joy Press, Vanity Fair, 29 Aug. 2019

Did You Know?
Long ago, there was a verb belate, which meant "to make late." From the beginning, belate tended to mostly turn up in the form of its past participle, belated.
Eventually, belate itself fell out of use, leaving behind belated as an adjective that preserved the original notion of delay.
As you may have guessed, belate and its descendant belated derive from the adjective late; belate was formed by simply combining the prefix be- ("to cause to be") with late.
Belated was also once used in the sense "overtaken by night," as in "belated travelers seeking lodging for the night." This sense was in fact the first meaning of the adjective, but it has since fallen into disuse.

Surfeit

WORD OF THE DAY

surfeit / noun / SER-fut

Definition
1a: an overabundant supply
1b: excess
2: an intemperate or immoderate indulgence in something (such as food or drink)
3: disgust caused by excess

Examples
"The fracking boom in the United States has led to a surfeit of natural gas worldwide."
— Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, 3 Dec. 2019      

"So we're keeping an eye on the next big opening, Limalimo, a 14-room lodge slated to debut in the Simien Mountains National Park in January or February. The design looks set to establish new standards: slick, sustainable (built of rammed earth and thatch), and with surfeits of natural light."
— Maria Shollenbarger, The Condé Nast Traveler, 31 Aug. 2015

Did You Know?
There is an abundance—you could almost say a surfeit—of English words that derive from the Latin facere, meaning "to do."
The connection to facere is fairly obvious for words spelled with "fic," "fac," or "fec," such as sacrifice, benefaction, and infect.
For words like stupefy (a modification of Latin stupefacere) and hacienda (originally, in Old Spanish and Latin, facienda) the facere factor is not so apparent. As for surfeit, the "c" was dropped along the path that led from Latin through Anglo-French, where facere became faire and sur- was added to make the verb surfaire, meaning "to overdo."
It is the Anglo-French noun surfet ("excess"), however, that Middle English borrowed, eventually settling on the spelling surfeit.

Dragoon

WORD OF THE DAY

dragoon / verb /druh-GOON

Definition
1: to subjugate or persecute by harsh use of troops
2: to force into submission or compliance especially by violent measures

Examples
The ragtag force, composed mostly of young men dragooned from the surrounding villages, quickly surrendered to the more professional army of its foes.

"Too often, when a performer interacts with an audience, it's a cringe-fest: at best awkward, at worst humiliating for the poor spectator dragooned into serving as a prop."
— Don Aucoin, The Boston Globe, 25 Sept. 2019

Did You Know?
A dragoon was a mounted European infantryman of the 17th and 18th centuries armed with a firearm called by the same name. No arm-twisting should be needed to get you to believe that the firearm's name, which came to English from French, is derived from its semblance to a fire-breathing dragon when fired.
History has recorded the dragonish nature of the dragoons who persecuted the French Protestants in the 17th century during the reign of Louis XIV. The persecution by means of the dragoons led to the use of the word dragoon as a verb.

Permutation

WORD OF THE DAY

permutation / noun / per-myoo-TAY-shun

Definition
1: often major or fundamental change (as in character or condition) based primarily on rearrangement of existent elements; also : a form or variety resulting from such change
2a: the act or process of changing the lineal order of an ordered set of objects
2b: an ordered arrangement of a set of objects

Examples
"Scientists have performed many permutations of the original MHC study, but the results suggest that people choose mates that have MHC genes that are dissimilar to their own—although not too dissimilar."
— Caitlin O'Connell, Elephant Don: The Politics of a Pachyderm Posse, 2015

"Two weeks after Wilder and Ortiz meet in the ring, Joshua and Ruiz plan to fight again in Saudi Arabia, which could generate several permutations of follow-up bouts, depending on who wins."
— John Eligon, The New York Times, 22 Nov. 2019

Did You Know?
Permutation has not changed all that much since it was borrowed into Middle English from Anglo-French as permutacioun, meaning "exchange, transformation."
Permutacioun traces back to the Latin verb permutare, meaning "to change thoroughly, exchange," and ultimately derives from the Latin mutare, "to change."
Other descendants of mutare in English include commute, mutant, and mutual.
Permutation also has a specific application in the field of mathematics relating to the ordering of a given set of objects. For example, permutations of items a, b, and c are abc, acb, bac, etc.

Foible

WORD OF THE DAY

foible / noun / FOY-bul

Definition

1: the part of a sword or foil blade between the middle and point

2a: a minor flaw or shortcoming in character or behavior 

2b: weakness

Examples

"From family foibles to practical jokes to heritage-based barbs, we embrace it all with laughter and shrugs. Everybody's got skeletons in their closet; we might as well laugh." 

— Paula Brewer, The Bangor (Maine) Daily News, 22 Nov. 2019

"Stand-up comedians, those unvarnished truth tellers and astute observers of human nature, are funniest when they mine their own human foibles for laughs, with bonus points for relatability." 

— The Las Vegas Weekly, 20 Nov. 2019

Did You Know?

In the 1600s, English speakers borrowed the French word foible to refer to the weakest part of the sword or foil, that part being the portion between the middle and the pointed tip. Despite the superficial resemblance, foible does not come from foil. 

The French foible was an adjective meaning "weak." (That French word, which is now obsolete, is derived from the same Old French term, feble, which gave us feeble.) The English foible soon came to be applied not only to weaknesses in blades but also to minor failings in character. 

It appeared in print with that use in the 17th century, and now the "character flaw" sense is considerably more popular than the original sword application.

Redux

WORD OF THE DAY

redux / adjective / ree-DUKS

Definition

: brought back—used postpositively

Examples

Following a spell of unseasonably warm weather in late March, April felt like winter redux as temperatures plunged back below freezing.

With No. 1 LSU and No. 2 Alabama facing off in the 'Game of the Century' redux, ticket prices are surging to levels rarely seen across college football." 

— Jeff Nowak, The New Orleans Advocate, 5 Nov. 2019

Did You Know?

In Latin, redux (from the verb reducere, meaning "to lead back") can mean "brought back" or "bringing back." 

The Romans used redux as an epithet for the goddess Fortuna with its "bringing back" meaning; Fortuna Redux was trusted to bring those far from home back safely. It was the "brought back" meaning that made its way into English. 

Redux belongs to a small class of English adjectives that are always used postpositively—that is, they always follow the words they modify. 

Redux has a history of showing up in titles of English works, such as John Dryden's Astraea Redux (a 17th-century poem on the happy restoration and return of the majestic Charles the Second), Anthony Trollope's 19th-century Phineas Redux, and John Updike's 20th-century Rabbit Redux.

Cosmeticize

WORD OF THE DAY

cosmeticize / verb / kahz-MET-uh-syze

Definition

: to make (something unpleasant or ugly) superficially attractive

Examples

The documentary takes a hard look at life in the camp, never once cosmeticizing the experience of its inhabitants.

"This time around, [Florian Henckel] von Donnersmarck is striving to deliver an epic that's palatable to wider audiences. But in cosmeticizing the painter's life, making this more of a love story crossed with wartime intrigue, he has overshot his target. With a little more truth, Never Look Away could have been really beautiful." 

— Andrea Gronvall, The Chicago Reader, 15 Feb. 2019

Did You Know?

Cosmeticize first appeared in print in the early 19th century as a descendant of the noun cosmetic. Originally, its use was often literal, with the meaning "to apply a cosmetic to," but today it is more frequently used figuratively. 

Cosmeticize does occasionally draw criticism; usage commentators are sometimes irritated by verbs coined using -ize as they can sound like silly nonce words. 

Cosmeticize is fairly well established, however, in contrast with the two other rarer verbs that have been derived from cosmetic: cosmetize and the homograph cosmetic, which often turn up in literal senses ("cosmetize the face"; "a face cosmeticked with bright rouge").