Entry tags:

czech proverbs, italian proverbs

it was a wide and moony grin/together peaceful and obscene
roister

Pronunciation: roy-stêr

Part of Speech: Verb, intransitive

Meaning: 1. To revel boisterously, to party noisily and obnoxiously, usually as a result of overdrinking. 2. To speak loudly, boastfully, like a swaggering bully.

Notes: People who roister are roisterers and their behavior is roisterous. However, if you think the doubling of the suffix -er a bit too much, simply omit one: a roister is also a roisterer.

In Play: When the fun at a party begins to offend some people, it has become roistering: "Noah Sarque finally had to give up roistering with his buddies when resting up from a roister took him longer than getting tired." Roistering is closely associated with alcohol intake: "Harley and his mates roistered from bar to bar until they were all picked up and tucked safely into a paddy wagon in the wee hours of the morning."

Word History: Today's Good Word came from French rustre "peasant, lout", a variation of Old French ruste "farmer" from Latin rusticus "rustic, related to the country". The Latin word is the adjective of rus "country(side)", ruris "of the country(side)", with the shift of S to R (rhotacism) that was common in Latin. The R-form went into the making of the adjective ruralis "related to the country", which English also borrowed as rural. It may seem odd that roister is unrelated to boisterous, given its adjective roisterous with its similarity in spelling and meaning. That similarity, however, is purely coincidental. - from alphadictionary.com

clam (noun)

Pronunciation: [klæm]

Definition: (1) An edible, burrowing bivalve mollusk of the class Pelecypoda, found in the sand under fresh and salt water; (2) a clamp or vise. (3) As a verb it means to seal one's lips, to refuse to talk.

Usage: It is easy to see how the word for "clamp" became the word for clam. The idiom "to clam up" comes from the second meaning of today's word: to clamp one's lips closed the way a clam clamps its two shells together for protection. The use of "clam" to refer to dollars (50 clams = $50) is easy to follow if you know that Indian wampum, used for money, comprised strings of shells. But why would anyone be as happy as a clam? Have you ever seen a clam smile? The full original phrase was "happy as a clam at high tide," the only time when the little critters are safe from hungry animals.

Suggested Usage: As you can see already, today's word is a favorite of English speakers and has many colloquial uses, "When we asked the kids who had tracked mud across the kitchen floor, they all clammed up." Using this word to refer to dollars is very slangy but has its humorous uses, "Emma Chiset must have paid 500 clams for that gown she wore to the Fly Ball last weekend."

Etymology: Today's word comes from Old English clam(m) "a bond, clamp," which points to Old Germanic forms *klam-, *klamm-, and/or *klamb meaning "to press or squeeze together." These related roots ended up in English as clam "clamp, clam," "clamp" itself, and, probably, "cramp." It is possible that "climb" in the sense of cling, as a climbing vine, may have originated in the same root. All these words seem phonologically and semantically related but exactly how is not clear. Clammy "wet, sticky," on the other hand, has a different origin. It was widely spelled "claymy" in the 15th century but "clam" was used to refer to clay at about the same time. In any event, although we associate the adjective with clams now, the original association was with clay. - from yourdictionary.com

glower \GLAU-uhr\, intransitive verb:

1. To look or stare angrily or with a scowl.
2. An angry or scowling look or stare.

At one point, the head of the institute started chatting with colleagues sitting at a table behind Yeltsin, prompting the Russian President to interrupt his reading and glower at them.
-- Bruce W. Nelan, "The Last Hurrah?", Time, April 26, 1993

A baby wearing a disposable nappy has been placed on a tree trunk in dark woodland: he seems to glower at us disapprovingly, like a troll, or a mini-Churchill.
-- Margaret Walters, "The secret life of babies", New Statesman, September 13, 1996

A boyish-looking man who frowned and glowered, trying to look more authoritative than his twenty-nine years, Andrei said his job was to focus on the convolutions in Russian property law.
-- Eleanor Randolph, Waking the Tempest

Floyd approached me with a glower, cheeks reddened, indignant.
-- William Peter Blatty, Demons Five, Exorcists Nothing

Glower is from Middle English gloren, perhaps ultimately of Scandinavian origin. - from dictionary.com

spidery, a.

[f. SPIDER n. + -Y.
Cotgrave (1611) has Araignier, spiderie, but the word otherwise belongs to the 19th century.]

1. a. Like a spider in appearance or form.
1837 New Monthly Mag. LI. 365 That grotesque race, the Sapajous,..are slender,..long in tail, and spidery in general appearance. 1859 LD. LYTTON Wanderer (ed. 2) 21 Spidery Saturn in his webs of fire. 1881 J. W. OGLE Harveian Orat. 93 That hideous spidery crustacean, the crab.
Comb. 1882 Garden 25 Mar. 194/3 A bright spidery-looking flower.

b. fig. Entangling like a spider.
1825 COLERIDGE Let. 21 Feb. (1971) V. 414 As we advance in years, the World, that spidery Witch, spins it's threads narrower and narrower, still closing in on us. 1875 M. COLLINS Sweet & Twenty III. II. vii. 19 Lest he should be picked up by the wily widow or spidery spinster.

2. a. Of legs or arms: Resembling those of a spider; long and thin.
c1845 DE QUINCEY Fatal Marksman Wks. 1859 XII. 228 The old woman, stretching her withered spidery arms after the flying girl. 1880 R. BROUGHTON Sec. Th. I. i, He is a..fragile young man, slender as any reed, and with legs even more spidery than Jane's. 1896 CROCKETT Cleg Kelly vi. 47 Delicate little keys with spidery legs.

b. Suggestive of the appearance of a spider with long and thin legs.
1862 H. AÏDÉ Carr of Carrl. II. 228 The marchesa wrote, with characteristic effusion, in her long spidery characters. 1879 STEVENSON Trav. Cevennes 82 A spidery cross on every hill-top. 1894 A. SPINNER Study in Colour 132 The writing was quite legible, although rather crooked and spidery in places.

c. Like a spider-web in formation; suggestive of a cobweb or cobwebs.
Not always clearly separable from prec.
1860 Ecclesiologist XXI. 284 An ornate kind of German Late-Pointed, very spidery in detail. a1893 SYMONDS in H. F. Brown Biogr. (1895) I. ii. 53, I hauled some spidery black weed out of a pool. 1909 BOND & CAMM Roodlofts 172 The tracery is spidery.

3. Suggestive of that of a spider, in respect of entanglement, cunning, etc.
1843 LYTTON Last Bar. VI. i, I have of late narrowly and keenly watched that spidery web which ye call a Court. 1875 BESANT & RICE Harp & Cr. xviii, He had the spidery look as his flabby face shone through the panes.

4. Of the nature of spiders.
1871 M. E. BRADDON Lovels xi, There was a particular race of spiders, the biggest specimens of the spidery species it had ever been her horror to encounter.

5. Full of or infested by spiders.
1889 MARCHIONESS OF STAFFORD How I Spent my Twentieth Year 260 A gabled cottage..in reality rather uncomfortable—stuffy and spidery. 1894 D. C. MURRAY Making of Novelist 15, I shall never forget the spidery black-painted galleries and staircases. - from oed.com

fissiparous

Pronunciation: fi-sip-pê-rês

Part of Speech: Adjective

Meaning: 1. Reproducing by biological fission, splitting into two living organisms or cells, which may further divide. 2. Tending to break up into smaller pieces, especially if the pieces themselves split.

Notes: Linguistically speaking, today's Good Word appears to be the adjective of the verb fissiparate "to divide into parts that divide into parts" but the verb is used even more rarely than the adjective. This word may be used adverbially (fissiparously), of course, and it offers a selection of nouns: fissiparousness, fissiparation, fissiparism, and my personal favorite, fissiparity. (Hmmm. Is fissiparous fissiparous?)

In Play: Some small biological organisms and parts of organisms reproduce by fission: "When Gwendolyn saw her child pull an earthworm apart, she was glad to know that the worm was fissiparous." However, today's Good Word now applies to anything that splits into parts, such as the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. China is now worrying that it might be fissiparous. Religions have been fissiparous in the past, breaking apart into factional denominations and subdenominations based on different interpretations of their scriptures.

Word History: Today's Good Word is made up of Latin fissus "split" + parere "to give birth" + the adjective suffix -ous. Fissus is the past passive participle of the verb findere "to split". This same word went into the making of fission, which meant simply "splitting" in Latin. Its root, believe it or not, evolved from the Proto-Indo-European root bheid-, which came down to English as bite, bit, and bitter, the biting taste. The present participle of parere is paren(t)s "bearing, giving birth" or "someone who gives birth". - from alphadictionary.com

ressentiment
PRONUNCIATION:
(ruh-san-tee-MAH)
[the final syllable is nasal]

MEANING:
noun: A feeling of resentment and hostility accompanied by the lack of means to express or act upon it.

ETYMOLOGY:
From French ressentiment, from ressentir (to feel strongly), from sentir, from Latin sentire (to feel). Ultimately from the Indo-European root sent- (to head for or to go), that is also the source for send, scent, sense, sentence, assent, and consent.

USAGE:
"It is fair enough to say that Gass intends Kohler as a representative modern middling man seething with ressentiment."
Robert Alter; The Tunnel; The New Republic (Washington, DC); Mar 27, 1995.

"Don is an extraordinary amalgam of ressentiment and rage."
Carl Bromley; The Limeys; The Nation (New York); Jul 9, 2001. - from wordsmith.org

crank (noun)

Pronunciation: [krængk]

Definition: (1) A tool consisting of a handle at right angles to a shaft (rather like the letter "Z") that creates a rotary motion when turned; (2) a crook or twist, as a crank of phrase; (3) an eccentric or grouchy person.

Usage: Today's word may be freely used as a verb in the first sense: to crank an antique car engine. In the second two senses there is an adjective, cranky "twisty, eccentric, grouchy," with an adverb, "crankily," and its own noun, "crankiness."

Suggested Usage: The interesting aspect of today's word is its second meaning which connects the first to the third: "The road to Ephraim's house has so many cranks and twists you could walk there in a straight line faster than you can drive." We have almost forgotten this meaning in the US. The third meaning, of course, is common: "The road to Ephraim's was so crooked that I was too cranky to socialize by the time I arrived."

Etymology: Today's word is an original English term from Old English "cranc" in cranc-stæf "bent staff," arising from an Old Germanic word that apparently meant "bent over, curled up." It is akin to Old English cringan, crang, crungen to "fall in battle," originally "curl up," a word that ultimately emerged as cringe "to draw up, contract" with a meaning nearer the original one. This same stem shows up in German and Dutch krank "sick" and, without the [n], in English "crook(ed)." The third sense of today's word apparently derived from the second: a person with a twisted mind or otherwise bent out of shape. - from yourdictionary.com

poetaster
noun a person who writes inferior poetry.
— origin late 16th cent.: modern Latin, from Latin poeta poet + -aster. - from askoxford.com

immolate \IM-uh-layt\, transitive verb:

1. To sacrifice; to offer in sacrifice; to kill as a sacrificial victim.
2. To kill or destroy, often by fire.

What have I gained, that I no longer immolate a bull to Jove, or to Neptune, or a mouse to Hecate . . . if I quake at opinion, the public opinion, as we call it; or at the threat of assault, or contumely, or bad neighbors, or poverty, or mutilation, or at the rumor of revolution, or of murder?
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays and English traits

In the city of Bhopal, police used water canon to thwart a group of Congress workers who were on the point of immolating themselves.
-- Peter Popham, "Gandhi critics are expelled by party", Independent, May 21, 1999

Bowls of honey at the room's center drew random insects to immolate themselves against a nearby bug zapper.
-- Carol Kino, "Damien Hirst at Gagosian", Art in America, May 2001

Immolate comes from the past participle of Latin immolare, "to sacrifice; originally, to sprinkle a victim with sacrificial meal," from in- + mola, "grits or grains of spelt coarsely ground and mixed with salt." - from dictionary.com

woolgathering
(noun)
[WOOL-gath'-ahr-ing]

1. an idle indulgence in fantasy: "After taking the car on a test-drive, Walter spent an afternoon wrapped in woolgathering."

intransitive verb: woolgather
noun form: woolgatherer

Origin:
Approximately 1553; from the literary meaning 'gathering fragments of wool torn from sheep by bushes.' - from vocabvitamins.com

recision or rescission
PRONUNCIATION:
(ri-SIZH-uhn)

MEANING:
noun: An act of canceling.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin recision (cutting back), from recidere (to cut back), from caedere (to cut).

USAGE:
"Democrats want to limit cancellations to the first 18 months of coverage and require insurers to obtain approval from regulators before revoking a policy. Schwarzenegger wants to let insurers keep the recision option but impose new rules intended to thoroughly vet people's medical histories."
Jordan Rau; Health Insurance Ambition Narrows; Los Angeles Times; Aug 4, 2008. - from wordsmith.org

prunella
noun [mass noun] a strong silk or worsted fabric used formerly for barristers' gowns and the uppers of women's shoes.
— origin mid 17th cent.: perhaps from French prunelle sloe (because of its dark colour). - from askoxford.com

haptic \HAP-tik\ adjective
1 : relating to or based on the sense of touch
2 : characterized by a predilection for the sense of touch

Example sentence:
Katy could tell one kind of yarn from another purely by haptic clues.

Did you know?
"Haptic" (from the Greek "haptesthai," meaning "to touch") entered English in the late 19th century as a medical synonym for "tactile." By the middle of the 20th century, it had developed a psychological sense, describing individuals whose perception supposedly depended primarily on touch rather than sight. Although almost no one today divides humans into "haptic" and "visual" personalities, English retains the broadened psychological sense of "haptic" as well as the older "tactile" sense. - from merriam-webster.com

moony
(adjective)
[MOO-nee]

1. dreamy in mood or nature: "Maybe we should discuss possible baby names when you are feeling a little less moony."

2. relating to or resembling the moon or moonlight

adverb form: moonily
noun form: mooniness

Origin:
Approximately 1585; English 'moon' + '-y.' - from vocabvitamins.com

wormhole \WERM-hohl\ noun
1 : a hole or passage burrowed by a worm
2 : a hypothetical structure of space-time envisioned as a long thin tunnel connecting points that are separated in space and time

Example sentence:
Some science fiction writers speculate that wormholes will become the intergalactic highways of the future.

Did you know?
If you associate "wormhole" with quantum physics and sci-fi, you'll probably be surprised to learn that the word has been around since Shakespeare's day -- although, admittedly, he used it more literally than most modern writers. To Shakespeare, a "wormhole" was simply a hole made by a worm, but even the Bard subtly linked "wormholes" to the passage of time; for example, in The Rape of Lucrece, he notes time's destructive power "to fill with worm-holes stately monuments." To modern astrophysicists, a wormhole isn't a tunnel wrought by a slimy invertebrate, but a theoretical tunnel between two black holes or other points in space-time, providing a shortcut between its end points. - from merriam-webster.com

fancy (verb)

Pronunciation: ['fæn-see]

Definition: (1) To imagine, to fantasize about; (2) to guess, suppose; (3) to like.

Usage: Today's word is one that only partially made the trip across the Atlantic. While in the US we use this word as an adjective, we never use it as a verb the way, say, Lewis Carroll did when he wrote, "She tried to fancy what the flame of a candle looks like after the candle is blown out," in 'Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.' Have you ever been confused by a Caribbean woman's fancy man who seemed rather plain? That is possible since a fancy man is a man fancied (liked) by a woman and who needs not dress or otherwise be fancy.

Suggested Usage: If you are a North American traveling abroad, prepare yourself for utterances like, "I fancy you would fancy a new fancy man." Yes, that is your native tongue—translation: "I suppose you would like a new boy-friend." It is a common word in England and Australia but a missed opportunity in the US.

Etymology: Everyone reading this tries to speak immaculate English, yet it is amazing how many words in our language result from mangling the spoken word. "Curtsy" is "courtesy" chewed up and today's word entered Middle English as "fantasie" and came out "fantsy." The original "fantasie" (now "fantasy") came via Latin "phantasia" from Greek phantasia "appearance, imagination," the noun of phantazesthai "to appear," a verb derived from the adjective phantos "visible." Its cousins include Greek phos (phot-) "light," that we find in "photograph" and "photon," and the English distant cousins "beckon" and "beacon." The original Proto-Indo-European root (*bha-) meant "be bright, to shine." - from yourdictionary.com

naga
noun (in some Hindu sects) a naked wandering ascetic, in particular one belonging to a sect whose members carry arms and serve as mercenaries.
— origin from Hindi naga naked. - from askoxford.com

sanguine \SANG-gwin\ adjective
1 : bloodred
2 of the complexion : ruddy
3 : confident, optimistic

Example sentence:
The coach remained sanguine about his team's chances in the playoffs, even though his star player was injured.

Did you know?
"Sanguine" has quite a few relatives in English, including a few that might sound familiar to Word of the Day readers. "Sangfroid" ("self-possession especially under strain") and "sanguineous" ("bloodthirsty") are consanguineous with "sanguine." ("Consanguineous," meaning "descended from the same ancestor," is another former Word of the Day.) The tie that binds these words is "sanguis," the Latin word for blood. "Exsanguination" ("the draining or losing of blood"), "sanguinary" ("murderous" or "bloody"), and the rare "sangsue" ("leech") and "sanguinolent" ("tinged with blood") are also "sanguis" relatives. That's something you can raise a glass of "sangaree" or "sangria" ("a usually iced punch made of red wine, fruit juice, and soda water") to! - from merriam-webster.com

cosmopolite \koz-MOP-uh-lyt\, noun:

1. One who is at home in every place; a citizen of the world; a cosmopolitan person.
2. (Ecology) An organism found in most parts of the world.

At first, Audubon made comparatively little impression in America, but he was an immediate success in Britain, where he presented himself alternately as a rustic backwoodsman and a sophisticated cosmopolite.
-- Alan Fern, "A Great Original's Great Originals", New York Times, December 12, 1993

He was a big-city sophisticate and moved easily in international film circles but, like his exact contemporary, the Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima (also a globetrotting cosmopolite), Pasolini rejected the glossy consumer culture that had made him famous in favor of the standards of an earlier, more rigid and more traditional society.
-- Edmund White, "Movies and Poems", New York Times, June 27, 1982

Behind the professional caution is a figure of storied warmth and charm, an American-educated cosmopolite as comfortable in the Midwest as in the Middle East.
-- Paula Span, "Man of Many Worlds", Washington Post, February 28, 1998

Cosmopolite comes from Greek kosmopolites, from kosmos, "world" + polites, "citizen," from polis, "city." - from dictionary.com

usurp \yoo-SERP\ verb
: to seize and hold by force or without right

Example sentence:
In her first managerial position, Hannah was hesitant to delegate critical tasks for fear that a subordinate might usurp her position.

Did you know?
"Usurp" was borrowed into English in the 14th century from the Anglo-French word "usorper," which in turn derives from the Latin verb "usurpare," meaning "to take possession of without a legal claim." "Usurpare" itself was formed by combining "usu" (a form of "usus," meaning "use") and "rapere" ("to seize"). Other descendants of "rapere" in English include "rapacious" ("given to seizing or extorting what is coveted"), "rapine" ("the seizing and carrying away of things by force"), "rapt" (the earliest sense of which is "lifted up and carried away"), and "ravish" ("to seize and take away by violence"). - from merriam-webster.com

assonance

Pronunciation: æs-ê-nêns

Part of Speech: Noun, mass

Meaning: 1. The repetition of identical vowel sounds (not letters) separated by differing consonants, as in the stealthy leopard lept the crevice deftly. 2. Roughly in agreement, generally but not exactly alike.

Notes: Do not confuse assonance with alliteration, the repetition of the same consonant sound that we find in tongue-twisters like Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Assonance is the repetition of a vowel in a line. The suffix -ce is the regular suffix that creates nouns from adjectives ending on -ent and -ant, so we aren't surprised to find that this word is derived from the adjective assonant. If you use this adjective adverbially, don't forget to insert the meaningless suffix -al before the adverb marker -ly: assonantally.

In Play: To be in consonance on a topic is to be in complete accord but to be in assonance is to share opinions that are not exact: "I feel a good deal of assonance with the Tory position on the issue but I still cannot agree with it wholly." A complete lack of accord, of course, is dissonance. Here is another example of assonance as repeated vowels: "I think the after-class track fad will diminish once winter sets in."

Word History: Today's word is French assonance from a Latin noun derived from assonare "to respond to", made up of ad "to(ward)" + sonare "to sound", a verb from the noun sonus "sound'. The D of ad 'assimilates' to the consonant following it, so before the S of sonare, it becomes S, too. We find the root son- in many words borrowed by English from Latin: consonant, sonorous, and resonate. We also find son in Old English meaning "sound" but it sounded so much like sound "a channel between an island and the mainland" and sound "healthy", that its spelling and pronunciation gravitated to theirs. - from alphadictionary.com

scruple (verb)

Pronunciation: ['skru-pêl]

Definition: To restrain oneself for the sake of conscience; to have qualms or scruples (see Usage) about undertaking an action, as to scruple to take the last dumpling on the plate.

Usage: The verb is transitive, so may be used with a direct object, "She would not scruple the occasional description of things she had not seen." But it may also be used with an infinitive phrase. The noun has the same form but is used only in the plural: "scruples." The adjective is scrupulous, meaning both "having principles" and, oddly, "meticulous, extremely careful."

Suggested Usage: Today’s word may be used with a direct object (see above) or with an infinitive phrase: "He would not scruple to take the last seat and leave an expectant girl, arms loaded with packages, standing." John Dennis is a man who holds a high standard for puns and had this to say for someone whose effort fell below it: "A man who could make so vile a pun would not scruple to pick a pocket."

Etymology: From Latin scrupulus "small sharp or pointed stone" from scrupus "rough stone." "Scrupulus" later picked up the meaning of a pricking, stinging, uneasy feeling, such as might be caused by small, sharp stones. Akin to English "scrape" (from Old Norse skrapa "scratch"), "scrub" (from Middle Dutch schrobben "to scrape"), "shrub," and "sharp." - from yourdictionary.com

Chinese puzzle
PRONUNCIATION:
(CHAI-neez PUZ-uhl)

MEANING:
noun: A very intricate puzzle or problem.

ETYMOLOGY:
From the allusion to the complexity of puzzles from China.

USAGE:
"In this psychological mystery, a Chinese puzzle of a movie, Deneuve plays dual roles."
Kevin Thomas; Deneuve Triumphs in 'Crime'; Los Angeles Times: Apr 10, 1998. - from wordsmith.org

parure
noun a set of jewels intended to be worn together.
— origin early 19th cent.: from French, from parer adorn. - from askoxford.com

polemic

Pronunciation: pê-lem-ik

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: A heated controversy, especially an argument over doctrine or ideology.

Notes: Today's Good Word comes with all the family a word needs. The adjective is polemical; the adverb, polemically. A person who engages in polemics is a polemicist [pê-lem-ê-sist] who polemicizes. A good polemicist is one who argues rationally. Polemicists engage in polemics, the art of arguing controversial points about politics or religion. Polemics is a singular noun in a class with linguistics and physics, so it may be used with a singular verb: "Polemics is not my cup of tea."

In Play: Often we think of polemics as a derogatory term but it isn't by any means: "Martin Luther King is remembered as a courageous and articulate polemicist who fought indefatigably for minority civil rights." We in the US have heard enough polemics for this year during the two political conventions: "It is difficult to distinguish the two political parties in the US on the basis of their polemics."

Word History: Today's word came to English from Greek polemikos "hostile" via Latin and directly from French polémique "combative". Greek polemikos was the adjective from polemos "war". Questions still surround the origin of polemos but it probably comes from a root meaning "to hit, strike, beat" related to Latin pellare with precisely this meaning. The past participle of this word is pulsus from which English borrowed pulse, the sensation of the beating heart. As expected in English, the P became F and, with a suffix -t, the same root became felt, a fabric made by compressing rather than weaving wool fibers. - from alphadictionary.com

pawn (noun)

Pronunciation: [pan or pawn]

Definition: (1) A chess piece of the lowest value, hence a dispensable individual used to advance the interests of another party. (2) An object given to secure a loan, a pledge.

Usage: Today's word is actually two: one with the with the original sense of an ordinary foot soldier and the other with the original sense of a security pledge (see Etymology). The noun may be used as a verb in sense (2), as to pawn a valuable watch for cash or pawn one's good reputation for gold (or, these days, a golden parachute).

Suggested Usage: In its human reference, "pawn" is a word referring to someone used to advance the ulterior designs of another: "Morris doesn't really love Leanne; she is just a pawn in his attempt to get a promotion from her father." Cute, young human beings are particularly adept at recognizing pawns, "She uses her grandfather as a willing pawn to get all the things her parents don't allow.""

Etymology: Pawns are rather pedestrian people and well they should be—lexically, that is, for they share the same root, Old French "peon" from Medieval Latin pedon- "foot soldier" based on Latin pes, pedis "foot." The same Old French stem is found in peonier, "foot soldier" whence English "pioneer" and, of course, "peon" has also entered English from Spanish, and now refers to a menial day-laborer. The root of all these words is *ped-/pod- "foot" about which we have written before. It emerges in English as "foot" and "fetch" and has been borrowed from Latin in "pedal" and "pedestrian," and from Greek in "tripod." The Russian variant, pod, means "under, below." The word meaning a security pledge is suspected to have originated in Latin pannus "rag," but the evidence is very slender. - from yourdictionary.com

satire (noun)

Pronunciation: ['sæ-tIr]

Definition: Artistic work that ridicules human failings through humor and wit; the type of observation that uses wit to ridicule behavior.

Usage: The satire and the lampoon are two similar weapons in the smart aleck's arsenal. A lampoon attacks an individual, while satire makes broader fun of humanity’s vices and follies, as well as the inefficiencies and problems of institutions. Oftentimes, when it's taking aim at an organization, a satire means to provoke change. There are two types of satire: Horatian, which criticizes gently, and Juvenalian, which is harsh. The most famous example of the latter is Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal," which advocates that English landlords pay their Irish tenants to fatten their babies in order to butcher them and sell them on the English market. The benefits, Swift asserts, would be twofold: 1) to provide Ireland with a reliable crop and commodity; and 2) to provide the English with even more produce taken from Ireland since, according to Swift, the English were already eating the Irish farmers alive with their rents. The verb is "satirize;" the adjective, "satirical" [sæ-'ti-ri-kl].

Suggested Usage: We don't have quite enough details about the scandal yet, but the recently interrupted romance between Enron executives and members of Congress is sure to provide late-night talk show hosts in the U.S. with much material for satire. Monty Python's Flying Circus, of course, defined the pinnacle of satire for the 20th century

Etymology: Middle French, from Latin satura or satira, which is probably an alteration of (lanx) satura, "fruit (plate) mixture" from satur, "sated." The Greek words satyr "satyr" (the Greek sylvan deity, part man, part horse or goat, fond of sensual revelry) and satyros "burlesque of a myth" no doubt influenced the development the Latin word's meaning. The PIE root *sa- means "to satisfy" whence the Latin satura, "fruit plate mixture." (Although presumably, satire satisfies the writer more than the target. See our FAQ sheet for more on PIE.) - from yourdictionary.com

Toronto blessing
PRONUNCIATION:
(tuh-RON-toh BLES-ing)

MEANING:
noun: A form of religious rapture marked by outbreaks of mass fainting, laughter, shaking, weeping, fainting, speaking in tongues, etc.

ETYMOLOGY:
After Toronto, Canada, where the phenomenon was experienced in a church in Jan 1994.

USAGE:
"[The movie Pan's Labyrinth] was received in awestruck rapture by the world's press, and left me feeling a little like a Roman Catholic prelate at a pentecostal ceremony, smiling with thin politeness while all around congregants were getting a Toronto Blessing full in the face."
Peter Bradshaw; Hellboy II: The Golden Army; The Guardian (London, UK); Aug 15, 2008.

"We'd have the Toronto Blessing 24/7, hooting away at our own puffed-up selves, and our imagined separation from others -- and laughing in the final realization that we're all in this together." Geoff Olson; The Great Whatever; Vancouver Sun (Canada); Apr 14, 2001. - from wordsmith.org

lupara
noun a sawn-off shotgun, especially as used by the Mafia.
— origin Italian, slang term from lupa she-wolf. - from askoxford.com

regale \rih-GAY(uh)L\, transitive verb:

1. To entertain with something that delights.
2. To entertain sumptuously with fine food and drink.
3. To feast.
4. A sumptuous feast.
5. A choice food; a delicacy.
6. Refreshment.

If I've been away, and the boys do remember to ask about my trip, I remark on their thoughtfulness by saying, 'Thanks for asking!' and then regale them with stories about my journey.
-- Lucy Calkins, Raising Lifelong Learners: A Parent's Guide

He might also regale them with tales of how his Magic team beat Jordan's Bulls, 108-102, in Game 6 to win their four-of-seven-game Eastern Conference semifinal series before a stunned crowd of 24,332 tonight at the United Center.
-- "Bulls Burst in the Air as Magic Moves On", New York Times, May 19, 1995

Levin settled his guests in the dense, cool shade of the young aspens on a bench and some stumps purposely put there for visitors to the bee-house who might be afraid of the bees, and he went off himself to the hut to get bread, cucumbers, and fresh honey, to regale them with.
-- Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, translated by Constance Garnett

Regale comes from French régaler, "to entertain." It is related to gallant. - from dictionary.com

fribble

Pronunciation: fri-bêl

Part of Speech: Noun, Verb

Meaning: 1. [Noun] A trivial, frivolous person or thing, a triviality or triviality itself, nonsense. 2. [Verb, intransitive] To trifle, to fiddle around, waste time, to twiddle your thumbs. 3. [Verb, transitive] To fritter (away), to waste something frivolously.

Notes: A person who fribbles is a fribbler, though the -er suffix isn't really necessary; he or she is also just a fribble. Anything trivial or frivolous is also fribblish, the adjective accompanying today's word. By the way, in the theater this word is used to indicate ad-libbing to cover up lapses of memory, as to fribble your way through a scene.

In Play: Any trifle that is insignificant will pass for a fribble: "Don't worry about that piece of crystal, my dear; it's just a little fribble I picked up at Cartier's last fall." The verb refers to wasting something on unimportant things: "Ty Kuhn fribbled away his fortune on a year-log tour of the posh casinos of Europe and Asia."

Word History: In all probability, fribble was originally a mispronunciation of frivol that stuck. The noun-adjective frivol, whence today's frivolous, was in use by 1470 while fribble first appeared in print in 1627, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Frivol is Latin frivolus "of little value" without its noun ending, -us. It seems to have been derived from friare "to rub, crumble", also the origin of English friable. Friare comes from a Proto-Indo-European root bhrei- "break, cut", which went into the making of German brechen and its English counterpart, break. French briser "to break" may well have been borrowed from a Germanic language, perhaps from an earlier form of German brechen. - from alphadictionary.com



Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee and I'll forgive Thy great big one on me. - Robert Frost

There is a harmony in autumn, and a luster in its sky, which through the summer is not heard or seen, as if it could not be, as if it had not been! - Percy Bysshe Shelley

Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature. - Tom Robbins

The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights. - William Blackstone

When you get in a tight place and everything goes against you, until it seems as if you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time when the tide will turn. - Harriet Beecher Stowe

California is a tragic country - like Palestine, like every Promised Land. - Christopher Isherwood

What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books. - Thomas Carlyle

The only good in pretending is the fun we get out of fooling ourselves that we fool somebody. - Booth Tarkington

You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you. - John Wooden

There's a helluva distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words. - Dorothy Parker

Yogi ordered a pizza. The waitress asked How many pieces do you want your pie cut? Yogi responded, Four. I don't think I could eat eight. - Yogi Berra

Always have your hook baited; in the pool you least think, there will be a fish. - Ovid

The big thieves hang the little ones. - Czech proverb

When his head is broken he puts on his helmet. - Italian proverb