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.”