Fictioneer

Word of the Day
fictioneer \ fik-shuh-NEER \ noun

Definition
:someone who writes fiction especially in quantity and without high standards
Examples
Dwight was a fictioneer who specialized in pulp novels, producing over 300 of them in his long career.

"Is it right for such irresponsible fictioneers to be playing around unconscionably with such tragic subject matter?"
— Jeff Simon, Buffalo (New York) News, November 18, 2014
Did You Know?
In Latin, the verb fingere means "to shape, fashion, or feign." Fictioneers surely do shape stories and feign the truth, so you could say that the noun fictioneer is etymologically true to its ancestor. The word fiction had been around for more than 500 years by the time fictioneer appeared in English in 1923, bearing a suffix that harks back to such words as engineer and pamphleteer. The word is used generally to refer to any writer of fiction but often specifically to one who writes with little concern for literary quality. Fictioneer and fiction aren't the only English feigners and shapers born of fingere. The words effigy, feign, figment are among others that trace back to that Latin verb.

Riot Act

Word of the Day

 

riot act \ RYE-ut-AKT \ noun

 

Definition

: a vigorous reprimand or warning — used in the phrase read the riot act

 

Examples

Celia's parents read her the riot act after she stayed out for almost an hour past her curfew.

"[Angela Merkel] read Greece and other affected zone members the riot act: their borrowing and spending was out of control, and they'd have to rein it in, just as Germany had done."

— Paul Hockenos, The Nation, March 12, 2015

 

Did You Know?

Many people were displeased when George I became king of England in 1714, and his opponents were soon leading rebellions and protests against him. The British government, anxious to stop the protests, passed a law called the "Riot Act." It allowed public officials to break up gatherings of 12 or more people by reading aloud a proclamation, warning those who heard it that they must disperse within the hour or be guilty of a felony punishable by death.

By 1819, riot act was also being used more generally for any stern warning or reprimand. Although the law long ago fell into disuse and was finally repealed in 1973, the term that it generated lives on today.

Sacrilegious

Word of the Day

 

sacrilegious \ sak-ruh-LIJ-us \ adjective

 

Definition

1: committing or characterized by a technical and not necessarily intrinsically outrageous violation (such as improper reception of a sacrament) of what is sacred because consecrated to God

 

2: grossly irreverent toward a hallowed person, place, or thing

 

Examples

My great-grandfather was a die-hard New Dealer who considered any criticism of Franklin D. Roosevelt to be sacrilegious.

"It had drawn conservative and religious protests over taxpayer financing of art that the work's opponents considered sacrilegious."
— Victoria Burnett, New York Times, February 25, 2015

 

Did You Know?

It may seem that sacrilegious should be spelled as sacreligious, since the word sometimes describes an irreverent treatment of religious objects or places. However, sacrilegious comes to us from sacrilege, which is ultimately derived from a combination of the Latin words sacer ("sacred") and legere ("to gather" or "to steal"). Its antecedent in Latin, sacrilegus, meant "one who steals sacred things." There is no direct relation to religious (which is derived from the Latin word religiosus, itself from religio, meaning "supernatural constraint or religious practice"). The apparent resemblance between sacrilegious and religious is just a coincidence.