2012_02_07 crib \krib\, verb:嬰兒床 To pilfer or steal, especially to plagiarize.

嬰兒床,

飼槽,

拘禁

crib \krib\, verb:

1. To pilfer or steal, especially to plagiarize.
2. To confine in or as if in a crib.
3. To provide with a crib or cribs.
4. To line with timber or planking.
5. Informal. A. To use a crib in examinations, homework, translating, etc. B. To steal; plagiarize.
6. (Of a horse) to practice cribbing.

noun:
1. A child's bed with enclosed sides.
2. A stall or pen for cattle.
3. A rack or manger for fodder, as in a stable or barn.
4. A bin for storing grain, salt, etc.
5. Informal. A. A translation, list of correct answers, or other illicit aid used by students while reciting, taking exams, or the like; pony. B. Plagiarism. C. A petty theft.
6. A room, closet, etc., in a factory or the like, in which tools are kept and issued to workers.
7. A shallow, separate section of a bathing area, reserved for small children.
8. Any confined space.
9. Slang. A house, shop, etc., frequented by thieves or regarded by thieves as a likely place for burglarizing.
10. Building Trades, Civil Engineering. Any of various cellular frameworks of logs, squared timbers, or steel or concrete objects of similar form assembled in layers at right angles, often filled with earth and stones and used in the construction of foundations, dams, retaining walls, etc.
11. A barrier projecting part of the way into a river and then upward, acting to reduce the flow of water and as a storage place for logs being floated downstream.
12. A lining for a well or other shaft.
13. Slang. One's home; pad.
14. Cribbage. A set of cards made up by equal contributions from each player's hand, and belonging to the dealer.
15. A cheap, ill-kept brothel.
16. A wicker basket.
17. British, Australian. Lunch, especially a cold lunch carried from home to work and eaten by a laborer on the job; snack.

An otherwise dense early college roommate used to prate that "reality is mankind's greatest illusion," something he cribbed from a psych professor who got it from Erik Erikson.
 -- Jim Harrison, The Road Home

Radford's a lazy bastard, you know, and apparently he cribbed a bunch of his lecture notes from somewhere — some old tome he thought nobody had ever read or ever would read — but Archy spotted it instantly, of course, and is making a hell of a stink.
 -- Edith Taylor, The Serpent Under It

Crib comes from the German word krebe which meant basket. Its alternate sense meaning "to steal" arose in the 1600s and leant itself to the current sense of "to plagiarize."

2012_02_06 filiopietistic adj. Pertaining to reverence of forebears or tradition, especially if carried to excess.

Word of the Day for Monday, February  6, 2012
filiopietistic \fil-ee-oh-pahy-i-TIS-tik\, adjective:
Pertaining to reverence of forebears or tradition, especially if carried to excess.
The popular historical narratives of the many immigrant groups may indeed be filiopietistic in the exaggerated and often shrilly made claims for their important contributions to the making of the country of their choice.
 -- Orm Øverland, immigrant Minds, American Identities
In a filiopietistic age it would be difficult to find a more filiopietistic man — toward his own father, the founders, and the past generally — than Edward Everett.
 -- Paul A. Varg, Edward Evertt: The Intellectual in the Turmoil of Politics
A clunky word, filiopietistic is a clear combination of Latin roots. Filio means "brotherly"; piet is related to piety; and the suffix -istic (related to -ism) denotes the noun related to a verb (like baptism).

2012_02_05 pied \pahyd\, adjective: Wearing pied clothing.

pied \pahyd\, adjective:
1. Having patches of two or more colors, as various birds and other animals.
2. Wearing pied clothing.
"Lashing his tail, he followed the pied mare reluctantly into the cave. Its upper walls and ceiling clustered with glowing lichens and fungi in rose, ghost blue, saffron, and plum."
 -- Meredith Ann Pierce, Dark Moon
The fact of the pied birds being pursued and persecuted with much clamour by the other ravens of the island was the chief cause which led Brünnich to conclude that they were specifically distinct.
 -- Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man
Pied, like the pastry pie, is related to the Latin word for magpie, pīca. Magpies have black and white coats, so that type of patched coat came to be called "pied."

2012_02_04 caprice \kuh-PREES\, noun: 任性

caprice \kuh-PREES\, noun:
1. A sudden, unpredictable change, as of one's mind or the weather.
2. A tendency to change one's mind without apparent or adequate motive; whimsicality; capriciousness.
3. Music. Capriccio.
Does she turn, thought he, thus, from one to the other, with no preference but of accident or caprice? Is her favour thus light of circulation?
 -- Fanny Burney, Camilla, or a Picture of Youth
You lose, you gain—it's all caprice. The omnipotence of caprice. The likelihood of reversal. Yes, the unpredictable reversal and its power.
 -- Philip Roth, The Humbling
Caprice is from the Italian word capriccio which means a sudden start or motion. It comes from the word capro meaning goat.
Saturday, 2012_02_04 caprice

2012_02_03 默想 excogitate \eks-KOJ-i-teyt\, verb: To think out; devise; invent.

默想
excogitate \eks-KOJ-i-teyt\, verb:
1. To think out; devise; invent.
2. To study intently and carefully in order to grasp or comprehend fully.
But observe the singular phenomenon — on approximately the same date several thousand men and women of letters retire to secluded corners to excogitate a thing described as "charm"; each cudgeling his or her head for some variety which can possibly be regarded as original...
 -- Upton Sinclair, Money Writes!
I preferred to relate aloud, to excogitate in a lively, external manner, with a flow of invention as useless as was my declamation of it, a whole novel crammed with adventure, in which the Duchess, fallen upon misfortune…
 -- Marcel Proust, Swann's Way
Excogitate is related to the word cogitate which means "to think." The prefix ex- typically means "out of", but in this case it means "thoroughly."

2012_02_02 peroration \per-uh-REY-shuhn\, noun: A long speech characterized by lofty and often pompous language.

peroration \per-uh-REY-shuhn\, noun:
1. A long speech characterized by lofty and often pompous language.
2. Rhetoric. The concluding part of a speech or discourse, in which the speaker or writer recapitulates the principal points and urges them with greater earnestness and force.
Thus he apostrophised his house and race in terms of the most moving eloquence; but when it came to the peroration—and what is eloquence that lacks a peroration?—he fumbled. He would have liked to have ended with a flourish to the effect that he would follow in their footsteps and add another stone to their building.
 -- Virginia Woolf, Orlando: A Biography
This person always provides a dramatic peroration; it is expected of him and he seldom disappoints. Tamsour is the theme; and the substance is usually personal aggrandizement, sometimes a bit of self-pity, but never apologies for past misdeeds, real or imaginary.
 -- Jack Vance, Night Lamp
Peroration comes from the Latin word perōrātiōn which meant "a closing speech."

2012_02_01 doyenne \doi-EN\, noun: A woman who is the senior member of a group, class, or profession.

doyenne \doi-EN\, noun:
A woman who is the senior member of a group, class, or profession.
Inspector Neele propounded to himself three separate highly coloured reasons why the faithful doyenne of the typists' room should have poisoned her employer's mid-morning cup of tea, and rejected them as unlikely.
 -- Agatha Christie, A Pocket Full of Rye
Her physical characteristics had shifted over time, from soft to hard, from blond to gray, and tight to slack and swollen. This doyenne of crochet and pregnancy was to me one woman and all women, because everything about her was variable, including her temperament.
 -- Darin Strauss, Chang and Eng
Doyenne only came into common English use in the early 1900s, but it originates in the Old French word deien, which is also the root of the word dean. The suffix -enne is a French suffix for a personal female noun.