This Week in Word of the Day/12-30-12
glissade \gli-SAHD\, verb:
1. To perform a glissade, a sliding or gliding step.
noun:
1. A skillful glide over snow or ice in descending a mountain, as on skis or a toboggan.
2. Dance. A sliding or gliding step.
Ron was haunted every anniversary by the memories of the wedding reception where a few too many glasses of champagne led him to tap into the long dormant well of breakdance moves such as the Running Man, Chinese Typewriter, Worm, Busstop and the Glissade he hadn’t utilized since watching “Breakin’ 2: Electrical Boogaloo” as an impressionable young child. Viewings of the horrifying wedding video was a family tradition Ron could do without.
tidings \TAHY-dingz\, noun:
News, information, or intelligence: sad tidings.
Good tidings were hard to come by from the lonely divorcee as he puttered around his house on his very first Christmas alone. Settling in for a proper, day long mope, he chilled some wine, sorted his video game collection and shut the door to the kids room to dampen the deafening echo of their absence.
avidity \uh-VID-i-tee\, noun:
1. Enthusiasm or dedication.
2. Eagerness; greediness.
With tremendous avidity, the boys ripped open the package containing a green screen and grabbed toy shotguns to begin preproduction of the post apocalyptic epic “Brains! And Other Delicacies”.
stridulous \STRIJ-uh-luhs\, adjective:
1. Also, strid·u·lant. Making or having a harsh or grating sound.
2. Pathology. Pertaining to or characterized by stridor.
Their eHarmony accounts matched on so many levels, they loved the same stupid movies and listened to the same obscure music, she shared his passion for gun control and space exploration. Yet, when they finally met and she first opened her mouth, the voice that came out was so high-pitched, projected and stridulous that distant hounds began howling and his wine glass shattered in his hand.
antepenultimate \an-tee-pi-NUHL-tuh-mit\, adjective:
1. Third from the end.
2. Of or pertaining to an antepenult.
noun:
1. An antepenult.
Always endeavoring to be honest, despite his many other faults, Ed jokingly told his family this would be his antepenultimate attempt at sobriety. They smirked and nodded, but understood. They knew Ed was not a bad person, they knew the demons chasing him deep into whiskey bottles and down dark alleyways with the wrong kind of folks, so they were willing to wait out as many failed attempts it would take him to finally pull his life together.
fastigiate \fa-STIJ-ee-it\, adjective:
1. Rising to a pointed top.
2. Zoology. Joined together in a tapering adhering group.
3. Botany. A. Erect and parallel, as branches. B. Having such branches.
A stern woman, in all respects, the children detested the librarian and ruthlessly joked about her bizarre hair style that was a towering, fastigated steeple of brown curls that closely resembled a birdhouse. Yet, when Carl’s dad came to school drunk, angry and hoping to take his child to Florida on a whim, the strict woman took a ruler to the massive bear of a man and beat him into sobbing and penitent submission.
anthropogenic \an-thruh-puh-JEN-ik\, adjective:
Caused or produced by humans: anthropogenic air pollution.
Julia thought that the historic meeting between humans and the alien race known as the Zaimus was going swimmingly. As lead ambassador, Julia discussed film, politics, art, music, and all the other successes of 6,000 years of culture. Little did she know that the Zaimus king decided to secretly research humanity’s “greatest anthropogenic achievement”: the internet. After eight hours of talking cats, shots to the groin, and German porn, the Zaimus quietly left Earth in their spacecraft and blew it up from a distance to keep it from infecting the rest of the universe.
