2011_11_30 churlish \CHUR-lish\, adjective: Stingy; mean.

churlish \CHUR-lish\, adjective:
1. Boorish or rude.
2. Of a churl; peasantlike.
3. Stingy; mean.
4. Difficult to work or deal with, as soil.
And Ethel, though sometimes sharp and malicious and difficult, wasn't churlish or unpunctual or casual at all.
 -- Ruth Rendell, One Across, Two Down
I call it churlish that you would complain of a little time spent in schooling me when the rewards I've earned you come in thick and fast.
 -- Karen Miller, A Blight of Mages
Churlish originates in the Old English ceorlisc meaning “peasant, freeman, man without rank.” It had various meanings in early Middle English, including "man of the common people," "a country man," "husbandman," "free peasant." By 1300, it meant "bondman, villain," also "fellow of low birth or rude manners."

2011_11_29 serry \SER-ee\, verb: To crowd closely together.

serry \SER-ee\, verb:
To crowd closely together.
Serry means to crowd and is spelled serry.
 -- Mildred Colvin, Missouri Brides
To keep unsettled the questions upon which these united with the Liberation Society, —accustom a powerful contingent to work together with “political Dissenters,”—to serry friends and foes into hostile phalanx, —to accept battle on a week ground where it is only possible to rally half the forces...
 -- S. Wellington, The Spectator, Vol. 6
Serry is from the Middle Frenceh serré which was the past participle of serrer meaning “to press tightly together.”

2011_11_28 panegyrize \PAN-i-juh-rahyz\, verb: To eulogize; to deliver or write a panegyric about.

panegyrize \PAN-i-juh-rahyz\, verb:
1. To eulogize; to deliver or write a panegyric about.
2. To indulge in panegyric; bestow praises.
I allowed then as how I had been moved to panegyrize Lieutenant Locke.
 -- Louis Bayard, The Pale Blue Eye
Judge Story was a profound admirer of Chief Justice Marshall, and could rarely hear his name mentioned without digressing to panegyrize his learning and intellectual power.
 -- William Matthews, Hours with Men and Books
From Greek, panegyrize originally meant “belonging to a public assembly” from pan meaning “all” and egyris, “gathering.”

2011_11_27 stertor \STUR-ter\, noun: A heavy snoring sound.

stertor \STUR-ter\, noun:
A heavy snoring sound.
He was snoring, a wheeze and stertor that animated the papers scattered round him...
 -- T.C. Boyle, Riven Rock
The stertor of Meat's breathing came softly, almost soothingly, through the wall.
 -- Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding
Stertor comes from the Latin stret which meant “to snore.”

2011_11_26 procrustean \proh-KRUHS-tee-uhn\, adjective: Tending to produce conformity by violent or arbitrary means.

procrustean \proh-KRUHS-tee-uhn\, adjective:
1. Tending to produce conformity by violent or arbitrary means.
2. Pertaining to or suggestive of Procrustes.
Soon they were operating a sort of procrustean ferry where the fares were tailored to accommodate the purses of the travelers. Ultimately all pretense was dropped and the immigrants were robbed outright.
 -- Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
To force them into the machine would require a Procrustean mutilation of their basic humanity.
 -- Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
Procrustean refers to the Greek myth of Procrustes, who was a robber who tortured his victims. According to mythology, he was killed by Theseus.

2011_11_25 dipsomania \dip-suh-MEY-nee-uh\, noun: An irresistible, typically periodic craving for alcoholic drink.

dipsomania \dip-suh-MEY-nee-uh\, noun:
An irresistible, typically periodic craving for alcoholic drink.
During his last years he'd become a regular drinking companion of Roosevelt's younger brother, Elliot, whose life was also ended by dipsomania some years later.
 -- Caleb Carr, The Alienist
What exactly has Mr. Waugh in mind, one would like to know, in making the perhaps too charming young man a dipsomania? Is it no more than that, being himself an unsatisfactory Roman Catholic, Sebastian lacked the will to resist drink?
 -- Martin Stannard, Evelyn Waugh: The Critical Heritage
Dipsomania literally means crazy thirst from the Greek dips (thirst) and mania (crazy).

2011_11_24 appetence \AP-i-tuhns\, noun: Intense desire; strong natural craving; appetite.

appetence \AP-i-tuhns\, noun:
1. Intense desire; strong natural craving; appetite.
2. Instinctive inclination or natural tendency.
3. Material or chemical attraction or affinity.
A sudden step and desire to reach back in time to change the circumstances, to re-write and re-route all those ferocious columns, an appetence to change what had been done and said.
 -- Charles D. Ellison, Tantrum
How immense is their thirst for life! A youthful nation in its entirety, a new mankind, inspired with an eager appetence for knowledge and truth.
 -- Stefan Zweig and Laurence Mintz, Balzac, Dickens, Dostoevsky: Master Builders of the Spirit
Appetence, from the same root as appetite, comes from the Latin appete meaning “to seek for or long for.”

2011_11_23 crepitate \KREP-i-teyt\, verb: To make a crackling sound; crackle.

crepitate \KREP-i-teyt\, verb:
To make a crackling sound; crackle.
The lampwicks crepitate; their flames are about to go out, long mosquitoes flit in rapid circlings about them.
 -- Gustave Flaubert, The Temptation of Saint Anthony
This horrible talk, however, evidently possessed a potent magic for my friend; and his imagination, checked for a while by the influence of his kinsman, began to ferment and crepitate.
 -- Henry James, Stories Revived
Crepitate is from the Latin crepitare which meant “to rustle or chatter.”

2011_11_22 poltroon \pol-TROON\, noun: A wretched coward; craven. -- adj. Marked by utter cowardice.

poltroon \pol-TROON\, noun:
1. A wretched coward; craven.
adjective:
1. Marked by utter cowardice.
By heavens, if, under the circumstances of the provocation which you gave him, and his whole family, he would be as mean and cowardly a poltroon as I find you be...”
 -- William Carleton, Valentine M'Cultchy, the Irish Agent
“Poltroon, my dear, poltroon!” Moloch put in. “He has no sense of decency, no respect—for me, or for anything. He's a vulgar, coarse fool.”
 -- Henry Miller, Moloch
Poltroon originally came from the Latin pullus meaning “young animal.” It came to mean an idler or coward in Old French.

2011-11-20 Dehli, India

2011_11_21 salvo \SAL-voh\, noun: An excuse or quibbling evasion.

salvo \SAL-voh\, noun:
1. Something to save a person's reputation or soothe a person's feelings.
2. An excuse or quibbling evasion.
3. A simultaneous or successive discharge of artillery, bombs, etc.
4. A round of fire given as a salute.
5. A round of cheers or applause.
King Edward, however, artfully inserted a salvo, saving the rights of the King of England and of all others which before the date of this treaty belong to him or any of them in the marches or elsewhere.
 -- G. A. Henty, In Freedom's Cause
Ignoring sons, he scanned the daughters with salvo upon salvo of loving glances...
 -- William T. Vollmann, The Royal Family
Salvo originates in the Latin word salvus meaning “safe.”

2011_11_20 mitigate \MIT-i-geyt\, verb: To become milder; lessen in severity.

mitigate \MIT-i-geyt\, verb:
1. To lessen in force or intensity, as wrath, grief, harshness, or pain; moderate.
2. To make less severe: to mitigate a punishment.
3. To make (a person, one's state of mind, disposition, etc.) milder or more gentle; mollify; appease.
4. To become milder; lessen in severity.
I owe you a thousand obligations for all the attention you showed me in my late calamitous situation, and ill, very ill, should I repay those obligations, if I did not try as a friend to mitigate these violent transports.
 -- Charlotte Turner Smith, Celestina
That does nothing to mitigate your condescending arrogance.
 -- William Kittredge, The Willow Field
Mitigate is from the Latin roots mit (soft) and agere (to cause).

2011_11_19 knavery \NEY-vuh-ree\, noun: dishonest dealing; trickery.

knavery \NEY-vuh-ree\, noun:
1. Unprincipled, untrustworthy, or dishonest dealing; trickery.
2. Action or practice characteristic of a knave
3. A knavish act or practice.
Knavery may serve for a turn, but honesty is best in the long run.
 -- Aesop, Aesop's Fables
Yes, I took the brunt of it but not because there was a ballot on it but because I know knavery when I see knavery. Plus underhandedness and mischief.
 -- Gordon Lish, Collected Fictions
Originally from the German word knabe meaning “boy or lad,” knavery has been used to imply deceitful intentions since the 1200s.

2011_11_18 omnibus \OM-nuh-buhs\, noun: A volume of reprinted works of a single author

omnibus \OM-nuh-buhs\, noun:
1. A volume of reprinted works of a single author or of works related in interest or theme.
2. A bus.
adjective:
1. Pertaining to, including, or dealing with numerous objects or items at once.
He is working on an omnibus volume that will combine old and new material to explain what he's been doing all these years.
 -- Benjamin Ivry, “Joseph Mitchell's Secret” New York Magazine, Feb. 9, 1987
An omnibus containing extracts from past works, linked with Koestler's 1980 comments, it has a far more coherent shape than the author appears to think.
 -- Bernard Dixon, “Two Cultures At One” New Scientist, Jan. 8, 1981
Omnibus means “for all” in Latin.

2011_11_17 bibliophage \BIB-lee-uh-feyj\, noun: An ardent reader; a bookworm.

bibliophage \BIB-lee-uh-feyj\, noun:
An ardent reader; a bookworm.
You may recall, if you are something of a bibliophage, that the late Sylvia Plath had a story with a similar name.
 -- Corey Mesler, We Are a Billion-Year-Old Carbon
The borrower, heedless, reckless bibliophage cares nothing about all this; into the midst of these learned pleasures he leaps like a fox into a hen-roost; he is smitten all at once with an overmastering hunger for reading...”
 -- Elliot Stock, The Bookworm
Bibliophage derives from the Latin biblio meaning “books” and phage meaning “a thing that devours.”

201111_16 opuscule \oh-PUHS-kyool\, noun: A small or minor work.

opuscule \oh-PUHS-kyool\, noun:
1. A small or minor work.
2. A literary or musical work of small size.
Little by little, with patience and luck and the progressive sharpening of my predatory eye, I found one or another opuscule of his in my used book stores in Oxford and London.
 -- Javier Marías, Dark Back of Time
The guide, a mere opuscule of ten pages, is entitled 'The Great Sepulture of the Cappuccini', and is well worth the hundred lire one pays for it.
 -- Jocelyn Brooke, The Dog at Clambercrown
Opuscule is from the Latin roots opus meaning “word” and cule which is a suffix that implies a diminutive version, as in molecule and fascicle.

2011_11_15 apocrypha \uh-POK-ruh-fuh\, noun: Writings, statements, etc., of doubtful authorship or authenticity.

apocrypha \uh-POK-ruh-fuh\, noun:
1. Various religious writings of uncertain origin regarded by some as inspired, but rejected by most authorities.
2. A group of 14 books, not considered canonical, included in the Septuagint and the Vulgate as part of the Old Testament, but usually omitted from Protestant editions of the Bible.
3. Writings, statements, etc., of doubtful authorship or authenticity.
The apocrypha, some of which the peasants would hear in church, were popular because of their often grotesque humor, and although there was frequently a didactic element, it was not usually overbearing.
 -- Jack V. Haney, Russian Wondertales
The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries gave birth to numerous chronicles, hagiographies, legends, and apocrypha, in which the proportion of fictional and nonfictional elements varied.
 -- Carl Edmund Rollyson, Critical Survey of Long Fiction
Apocrypha comes from the Greek apokryphos meaning “hidden, unknown or spurious.”

2011_11_14 fascicle \FAS-i-kuhl\, noun: A small bundle, tight cluster, or the like

fascicle \FAS-i-kuhl\, noun:
1. A section of a book or set of books published in installments as separate pamphlets or volumes.
2. A small bundle, tight cluster, or the like.
3. Botany. A close cluster, as of flowers or leaves.
4. Anatomy. A small bundle of nerve or muscle fibers.
Citations of passages within texts collected in the Buddhist and Daoist cannons are by fascicle and page...
 -- Robert Fort Company, Strange Writing
In 1981 R. W. Franklin published The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson, a manuscript edition that arranges the poems in fascicle order.
 -- Elaine Showalter, Modern America Women Writers
Fascicle originates in the Latin word fascus meaning “a bundle or pack” and the suffix “cle” that implies a smaller version, as in particle.

2011_11_13 lyard \LAHY-erd\, adjective: Streaked or spotted with gray or white.

lyard \LAHY-erd\, adjective:
Streaked or spotted with gray or white.
Referring again to the color of medieval horses, white or grey, which was called “lyard”—were the favourite colors...
 -- Walter Clifford Meller, A Knight's Life in Days of Chivalry
The best color for a stallion, is brown bay dappled, dapple gray, bright bay, or white lyard.
 -- Gervase Markham, Cavelarice
Lyard is from the Old French liart. However its meaning before that is unknown.

2011_11_12 rankle \RANG-kuhl\, verb: To cause keen irritation or bitter resentment in.

Word of the Day for Saturday, November 12, 2011
rankle \RANG-kuhl\, verb:
1. To cause keen irritation or bitter resentment in.
2. To continue to cause keen irritation or bitter resentment within the mind; fester; be painful.
She holds that scornful expression long enough to make sure I notice. I make believe I don't. I try not to let it rankle me.
 -- Joseph Heller, Something Happened
The section of it which chiefly rankled in Charteris's mind, and which had continued to rankle ever since, was that in which the use of the word “buffoon” had occurred.
 -- P. G. Wodehouse, Tales of St. Austin's
Rankle has a complex history. It derives from the Middle English word rancler meaning “to fester” which is a derivative of draoncle, late Latin for “a sore” which itself comes from the Latin draco meaning “a serpent.”

2011_11_11 zeal \zeel\, noun:Fervor for a person, cause, or object; eager desire or endeavor; enthusiastic diligence; ardor.

zeal \zeel\, noun:

Fervor for a person, cause, or object; eager desire or endeavor; enthusiastic diligence; ardor.

...serve him with zeal, and love him with fidelity.
-- Fanny Burney, Cecilia: Or, Memoirs of an Heiress

This passionate profession, which Newman uttered with the greater zeal that it was the first time he had felt the relief words at once as hard and as careful as hammer-taps could give his spirit, kindled two small sparks in Mrs. Bread's fixed eyes.
-- Henry James, The American

Zeal is derived from the Greek word zelos, the same root as the word zealous.

2011_11_10 pansophy \PAN-suh-fee\, noun: Universal wisdom or knowledge.

pansophy \PAN-suh-fee\, noun:

Universal wisdom or knowledge.

For just at the moment Baconfield had come to perceive the divine formulae that dictate, in darkness, the world's apparent randomness, just when the thumbmarks on his walls comprised an exhilarating pansophy and he stood poised on the verge of omniscience, an uncircumscribable chaos has swept into his life.
-- Rikki Ducornet, The Jade Cabinet

Wade had somehow managed to fuse the lightning-bolt pansophy of our visionary past with a single-minded perspicacity befitting the finest of the experimental methods...
-- Konrad Ventana, A Desperado's Daily Bread

From the Greek, pansophy is comprised of the root words pan meaning “all” and sophy meaning “wisdom.”

Read the full entry | See synonyms | Comment on today's word | Suggest tomorrow's word

2011_11_03 obscurantism \uhb-SKYOORr-uhn-tiz-uhm\,...

2011_11_03 obscurantism \uhb-SKYOORr-uhn-tiz-uhm\,...: obscurantism \uhb-SKYOORr-uhn-tiz-uhm\, noun: 1. Opposition to the increase and spread of knowledge. 2. Deliberate obscurity or evasion of ...

2011_11_09 kef \keyf\, noun: A state of drowsy contentment

kef \keyf\, noun:
1. A state of drowsy contentment
2. Also, keef. a substance, especially a smoking preparation of hemp leaves, used to produce this state.
I need not add that my kef—my noon rest, did not pass without interruption.
 -- Karl Friedrich May, Through the Desert
...I tied on my hat and lit it down and held up my umbrella for shade, and fell into kef, being incapable of sustained thought.
 -- William Cory, Extracts from the Letters and Journals of William Cory
Kef comes from the Arabic word kaif meaning “well-being or pleasure.”

2011_11_08 plebiscite \PLEB-uh-sahyt\, noun: A direct vote of the qualified voters of a state in regard to some important public question.A direct vote of the qualified voters of a state in regard to some important public question. A direct vote of the qualified voters of a state in regard to some important public question.

plebiscite \PLEB-uh-sahyt\, noun:

1. A direct vote of the qualified voters of a state in regard to some important public question.
2. The vote by which the people of a political unit determine autonomy or affiliation with another country.

How many of these were there? Not enough to put the verdict of the plebiscite in doubt, anyway.
-- Arthur C. Clark, The Last Theorem

It was he who devised the plebiscite and the governmental machinery for making plebiscites yield the desired results — ninety-eight percent of the votes in favor of tyranny, two percent against.
-- Aldous Huxley, Complete Essays

Plebiscite is comprised the Latin roots plebi meaning “common people” and scitum meaning “resolution or decree.”

2011_11)7 canny \KAN-ee\, adjective: Careful; cautious; prudent.

canny \KAN-ee\, adjective:
1. Careful; cautious; prudent.
2. Astute; shrewd; knowing; sagacious.
3. Skilled; expert.
4. Frugal; thrifty.
5. Scot. A. Safe to deal with, invest in, or work at (usually used with a negative). B. Gentle; careful; steady. C. Snug; cozy; comfortable. D. Pleasing; attractive. E. Archaic. Having supernatural or occult powers.
adverb:
1. In a canny manner.
2. Scot. Carefully; cautiously.
But they're not going to catch us that easily. If they're canny, we can be canny too!
 -- Hans Fallada, Every Man Dies Alone
Some of the little contrivances, which he thought so canny, left her doubtful.
 -- D.H. Lawrence, The Rainbow
Canny is derived from the Middle English word ken meaning “knowledge or understanding.” It is related to the verb kennen meaning “to see, know, or make known.”

2011_1106 junket \JUHNG-kit\, noun: A pleasure excursion, as a picnic or outing.

junket \JUHNG-kit\, noun:
1. A trip, usually by an official or legislative committee, paid out of public funds and ostensibly to obtain information.
2. A sweet, custardlike food of flavored milk curdled with rennet.
3. A pleasure excursion, as a picnic or outing.
verb:
1. To go on a junket.
2. To entertain; feast; regale.
Yeah, well, there's a lot more of them on the operation, fellows in the control room, women too. They all decided to go to California together on a junket. Whooping it up, you know?
 -- Patricia Highsmith, Tales of Natural and Unnatural Catastrophes
Some lobbyists get together and put up money for a few congresspeople to go to a resort for a winter weekend. The catch is the lobbyists get to go along and talk to them. They usually call it a seminar or a symposium, but basically it's a junket.
 -- John Lutz, Final Seconds
Junket is rooted in the Latin word juncata which meant “rush basket.” It is likely that the basket was associated with the notion of a picnic basket and came to signify a pleasure trip.

2011_11_5 quean \kween\, noun: An overly forward, impudent woman; shrew; hussy.

quean \kween\, noun:
1. An overly forward, impudent woman; shrew; hussy.
2. A prostitute.
3. British Dialect. A girl or young woman, especially a robust one.
I answer thee, thou art a beggar, a quean, and a bawd.
 -- Thomas Middleton, Five Plays
Had I had my own will, I would have had her to Bridewell, to flog the wild blood out of her—a cutty quean, to think of wearing the breeches, and not so much as married yet!
 -- Sir Walter Scott, Waverley Novels
Quean, predictably, is rooted in the same Old English word that queen comes from, the word cwen which meant woman.

2011_11_04 prehensible \pri-HEN-suh-buhl\, adjective: Able to be seized or grasped.

prehensible \pri-HEN-suh-buhl\, adjective:
Able to be seized or grasped.
Do they not give the obvious signified a kind of difficultly prehensible roundness, cause my reading to slip?
 -- Roland Barthes, Image, Music, Text
And I, having only the name Divers as a visible, prehensible asperity for grasping the invisible, shall contort it so as to make it enter mine, mingling the letters of both.
 -- Jean Genet, Miracle of the Rose
Prehensible comes from the Latin word prehension meaning “a taking hold.”

2011_11_03 obscurantism \uhb-SKYOORr-uhn-tiz-uhm\, noun: Evasion of clarity.

obscurantism \uhb-SKYOORr-uhn-tiz-uhm\, noun:
1. Opposition to the increase and spread of knowledge.
2. Deliberate obscurity or evasion of clarity.
Of course they're not. That's why there were all those confrontations, all that aggression and obscurantism. Because the forces of darkness are dying, and they are thrown back on such things as a last resort.
 -- Paulo Coelho, The Witch of Portobello
In these he had shown himself a stalwart champion of Christian doctrine at its most precise and purest, equally remote from the modern laxity and obscurantism of the past.
 -- Albus Camus, The Plague

2011_11_02 metempirical \met-em-PIR-i-kuhl\, adjective: Beyond or outside the field of experience.

metempirical \met-em-PIR-i-kuhl\, adjective:
1. Beyond or outside the field of experience.
2. Of or pertaining to metempirics.
...but the quality of her innate wit had deepened, strange “metempirical” (as Van called them) undercurrents seemed to double internally, and thus enrich, the simplest expression of her simplest thoughts.
 -- Vladimir Nabokov, Ada, or Ardor, a Family Chronicle
Still however, instead of aspiring to becoming rigorous and metempirical, poetry lives by the heart, the sense and singing.
 -- Kahlil Gibran with Andrew Dib Sherfan, The Third Treasury of Kahlil Gibran
Metempircal derives from the Greek words met- meaning “beyond or before” and empirical meaning “experience.”

2011_11_01 aioli \ahy-OH-lee\, noun: A sauce made of oil and eggs

aioli \ahy-OH-lee\, noun:
A sauce made of oil and eggs, usually flavored with garlic, from the Provence region of France.
He said he was treating. There was roast artichoke topped with a sort of sly aioli. Mutton stuffed with foie gras, double chocolate rum cake. Seven kinds of cheese.
 -- David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
A beef sirloin is good, too, slightly charred on the outside and reddish pink in the middle, nicely peppered, with mustard aioli.
 -- Garrison Keillor, Love Me
Aioli comes from the Provençal word for garlic, ai and the Latin word for oil, oli.