Whirligig

WORD OF THE DAY

Whirligig \ WER-lih-gig \ noun

Definition
1 : a child's toy having a whirling motion
2a : one that continuously whirls or changes
2b : a whirling or circling course (as of events)

Examples
"As 2016 draws mercifully to a close, just what, exactly, are we to make of this bewildering whirligig of a year?"
— Brian Chasnoff, The San Antonio News-Express, 30 Dec. 2016
"The whirligig, an object that spins or whirls, may have started as a farmer's weathervane, but it evolved into a recognized piece of American folk art."
— Michelle Galler, RappNews.com (Rappahannock County, VA), 8 Dec. 2016

Did You Know?
English speakers, and particularly children, began spinning whirligigs as early as the 15th century. Since then, whirligig has acquired several meanings beyond its initial toy sense.
It even has a place in the common name of the whirligig beetle, a member of the family Gyrinidae that swiftly swims in circles on the surface of still water. The word whirligig comes to us from Middle English whirlegigg ("whirling top"), which is itself from whirlen, meaning "to whirl," and gigg, meaning "(toy) top."

Abdicate

WORD OF THE DAY
abdicate \ AB-dih-kayt \ verb
 
Definition
1 : to renounce a throne, high office, dignity, or function
2 : to relinquish (something, such as sovereign power) formally
3a: to cast off
3b: discard


Examples
"[The Duke of Windsor] abdicated the throne of the British Empire but remained king of men's style all his life. One of his great tricks was to elevate humble or casual trends and fabrics."
— Nicholas Foulkes, Newsweek, 2 Sept. 2016


"… while dining at the restaurant Daniel in New York City, I asked Raj Vaidya, the head sommelier, to pick a red wine for my main course…. I don't abdicate this sacramental responsibility lightly, but Vaidya knows my taste, and he almost invariably comes up with something special."
— Jay McInerney, Town & Country, 1 June 2015


Did You Know?
Give it up. English includes many words for the process of throwing in the towel, especially for relinquishing a job or elected office. Abdicate, a derivative of the prefix ab- (meaning "from," "away," or "off") and the Latin verb dicare (meaning to "proclaim"), has been used primarily for those who give up sovereign power or who evade a very serious responsibility (such as parental responsibility). Renounce is often used as a synonym of abdicate, but it adds to that term the suggestion that an individual is giving up something as a sacrifice to achieve a far greater end. Resign is another option when you are describing a more matter-of-fact departure from a job, office, or trust.

Concatenate

WORD OF THE DAY
concatenate \ kahn-KAT-uh-nayt \ verb
 
Definition
: to link together in a series or chain


Examples
"While the stories are separate, they're concatenated in that characters recur from story to story, so while one might be a major player in one tale, he might be only alluded to in a subsequent narrative."
— Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2013


"To test cockatoos' planning and mechanical capacities, Auersperg designed a box housing a visible cashew nut blocked by five interlocking devices. The locks were concatenated so that the bird would have to solve the lock puzzle farthest from the reward before gaining access to the next, and so on."
— Jenny Jennings Foerst, American Scientist, November 2013


Did You Know?
Concatenate comes directly from Latin concatenare, which in turn is formed from con-, meaning "with" or "together," and catena, meaning "chain." (The word chain itself also evolved from catena.) Concatenate has a somewhat longer history as an adjective, meaning "linked together," than as a verb.
The adjective first appeared in English in the 15th century and the verb wasn't in use until more than a century later. Catenate, a verb in its own right meaning "to link in a series," had also arrived on the scene by the early 17th century.