Posthaste

WORD OF THE DAY

posthaste / adverb / POHST-HAYST

Definition
: with all possible speed

Examples
"You must leave posthaste," Virginia theatrically admonished her guests, "or you'll miss your ferry!"

"These goats show almost nothing of the skittishness that we tend to expect of wild, hoofed mammals such as deer and elk, which almost always flee posthaste the instant they see a person (or, often as not, given the sensitivity of their senses, they smell or hear one)."
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City (Oregon) Herald, 9 Aug. 2019

Did You Know?
In the 16th century, the phrase "haste, post, haste" was used to inform posts (as couriers were then called) that a letter was urgent and must be hastily delivered.
Posts would then speedily gallop along a route with a series of places at which to get a fresh horse or to relay the letter to a fresh messenger. William Shakespeare was one of the first to use a version of the phrase adverbially in Richard II.
"Old John of Gaunt ... hath sent post haste
To entreat your Majesty to visit him,"
the Bard versified. He also used the phrase as an adjective (a use that is now obsolete) in Othello: "The Duke ... requires your haste-post-haste appearance," Lieutenant Cassio reports to the play's namesake.
Today, the word still possesses a literary flair attributable to the Bard.

Sobriquet

WORD OF THE DAY

sobriquet / noun / SOH-brih-kay

Definition
1: a descriptive name or epithet
2: nickname

Examples
"As a member of Congress, he voted against so many bills that he earned the 'Dr. No' sobriquet…."
— Ben Terris, The Washington Post, 3 Sept. 2019

"[H]e had a rather flightly and dissolute mode of conversing, and furthermore avowed that among his intimate friends he was better known by the sobriquet of 'The Artful Dodger'…."
— Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, 1839

Did You Know?
This synonym of nickname has the same meaning in modern French as it does in English. In Middle French, however, its earlier incarnation soubriquet referred to both a nickname and a tap under the chin.
Centuries later, the connection between these two meanings isn't clear, but what is clear is that the "nickname" meaning of sobriquet was well established in French by the time English speakers borrowed the term in the 17th century—and was the only meaning that was adopted.
In current English, the spelling sobriquet is most common, but soubriquet is also an accepted variant.

Apocryphal

Word of the Day : November 1, 2019

apocryphal / adjective / uh-PAH-kruh-ful

Definition

1a: of doubtful authenticity 

1b: spurious

2 often capitalized Apocryphal : of or resembling the Apocrypha

Examples

"The first official sighting of the creature dates from 1912, although apocryphal stories have the monster overturning the canoe of a Quapaw Indian and sinking a Confederate gunboat during the Civil War." 

— Scott Liles, The Baxter Bulletin (Mountain Home, Arkansas), 28 Aug. 2019

"In the chapter on cetology, we have to plow through a dozen pages of whale species, some of them possibly apocryphal, before we get to the payoff, a motto for freelance writers: 'Oh Time, Strength, Cash and Patience!'" 

— Mary Norris, The New York Times, 26 June 2019

Did You Know?

In Bible study, the term Apocrypha refers to sections of the Bible that are not sanctioned as belonging to certain official canons. In some Protestant versions, these sections appear between the Old and New Testaments. More generally, the word refers to writings or statements whose purported origin is in doubt. 

Consequently, the adjective apocryphal describes things like legends and anecdotes that are purported to be true by way of repeated tellings but that have never been proven or verified and, therefore, most likely are not factual. 

Both apocrypha and apocryphal derive, via Latin, from the Greek verbal adjective apokrýptein, meaning "to hide (from), keep hidden (from)," from krýptein ("to conceal, hide").