What's Your Word for the Day? Showing 2,201-2,250 of 3,049

[Savvy]

No Problema Professor!

Here are 15 plus I'll see you 2!

On this bodacious arvo by the fen, a jocular, riggite, sesquipedalian suzerain, free of veisalgia and never pusillanimously vertiginous or deplete of vulpine quiddity couldn't crassly cachinnate or be raunchy as a voracious bibliophile seldom foozles!

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Suzereign rocks!

[Carol]

That's one for the girls. Nought for the boys

[Ken, Moderator]

It's almost like another language. Excuse me, ma'am. Do you speak L&G?

[Carol]

Minim
minim
\ MIN-uhm \ , noun;
1.
the least quantity of anything.
2.
the smallest unit of liquid measure, 1/60 of a fluid dram, roughly equivalent to one drop.
3.
Music. A note, formerly the shortest in use, but now equivalent in time value to one half of a semibreve; half note.
4.
Something very small or insignificant.

[Ruth]

I've always been rather fond of the word meniscus
1 : a crescent or crescent-shaped body
2 : a concavo-convex lens
3 : the curved upper surface of a column of liquid
4 : a fibrous cartilage within a joint especially of the knee

When using a graduate one reads at the bottom of the meniscus.

[Carol]

You know I have always liked Montego Bay . I love how it rolls off the tongue

[Savvy]

I liked being IN Montego Bay! :-)
beautiful beaches....

[Carol]

Casuistry
cas·u·ist·ry
   /ˈkæʒuəstri/ Show Spelled[kazh-oo-uh-stree:] Show IPA
–noun, plural -ries.
1.
specious, deceptive, or oversubtle reasoning, esp. in questions of morality; fallacious or dishonest application of general principles; sophistry.
2.
the application of general ethical principles to particular cases of conscience or conduct.

[Tyler]

Casuistry -- four syllables, then.

I come across this word quite often used in the first sense.

I'll have to be mindful of the second definition because I read a fair amount on the subject of ethics.

[Savvy]

Tyler, Can you use this in a sentence for me???


Tyler wrote: "Casuistry -- four syllables, then.

I come across this word quite often used in the first sense.

I'll have to be mindful of the second definition because I read a fair amount on the subject o..."

[Savvy]

BOMBINATE

bom·bi·nate   /ˈbɒmbəˌneɪt/
–verb (used without object), -nat·ed, -nat·ing.

to make a humming or buzzing noise.

Origin:
1875–80; < NL bombinātus, ptp. of bombināre, appar. coined by Rabelais on basis of L bombilāre to hum, buzz < Gk bombyliázein, deriv. of bómbos; see bomb

—Related forms
bom·bi·na·tion, noun

[Ruth]

Now that's a new one for me.

But it makes me think of

Bombazine

a fabric originally made of silk or silk and wool, and now also made of cotton and wool or of wool alone. Quality bombazine is made with a silk warp and a worsted weft. It is twilled or corded and used for dress-material. Black bombazine was once used largely for mourning wear, but the material had gone out of fashion by the beginning of the 20th century.

The word is derived from the obsolete French bombasin, applied originally to silk but afterwards to tree-silk or cotton. Bombazine is said to have been made in England in Elizabeth I’s reign, and early in the 19th century it was largely made at Norwich.

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

A bombination!!! Hahahahaha!!!!

[Carol]

Bzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Tyler]

Tyler, Can you use this in a sentence for me?

Something like, "If arguments for the instigation particular moral systems aren't to break down into casuisty, they must take into account the ethical status of particular individuals."

[Savvy]

DARIOLE,

(I like the first one best!)

Definitions
■(noun) A French cheese-cake.

■(noun) A cooking mold.

■(noun) A dish of vegetables, fish, custard, and pastry.

Notes
■'Dariole' is from the Old French 'dorer,' to gild.

Examples
■“Make a good risotto, and when cooked pour it into a fireproof dish, let it get cold, and then cut it out with a dariole mould, or else form it into little balls about the size of a pigeon's egg.”

■“A dariole is a small straight-sided tin mould, holding rather less than a gill.”

■“Pour the mixture into ramekins or dariole moulds, cover and chill for eight hours or overnight.”

[Ken, Moderator]

Sounds like oriole, of course. I just learned ramekin a few years ago because I asked the Good Wyfe what these little jobbers in the cabinet were for and why we never used them.

[Ruth]

I learned dariole when I was writing a poem and needed some examples of medieval cooking.

[Ken, Moderator]

Man, no one cooked like those medieval types!

[Carol]

Name your poison.

[Carol]

Chiaroscuro


Pronunciation: \-ˈskyu̇r-(ˌ)ō, -ˈsku̇r-\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -ros
Etymology: Italian, from chiaro clear, light + oscuro obscure, dark
Date: 1686

1 : pictorial representation in terms of light and shade without regard to color
2 a : the arrangement or treatment of light and dark parts in a pictorial work of art b : the interplay or contrast of dissimilar qualities (as of mood or character)
3 : a 16th century woodcut technique involving the use of several blocks to print different tones of the same color; also : a print made by this technique
4 : the interplay of light and shadow on or as if on a surface
5 : the quality of being veiled or partly in shadow

[Savvy]

One of my 'FAVORIST' words! :-)

[Carol]

I had not heard it used in a sentence .
It was a lovely description of over night snow fall.


The neutral-colored lakeland had transformed to the chiaroscuro of winter.

[Ruth]

I loved explaining this word to my Art History classes. Isn't it lovely?

[Carol]

It bursts forth with lots of imagery for me. I love it.

[Ken, Moderator]

Where are the visuals when you need them?

[Carol]

Is that enough?

[Ken, Moderator]

Black and white, is all? Those two "colors" always offer "light" and "shadow."

[Carol]

[image error]

John Constable

Is this better?

[Carol]

Don't you love the child drinking from the stream. Guess no one ever told him to cup his hands and watch for danger. eh!

[Ruth]

Chiaroscuro means more than just using black and white. It's the use of value to define form. Value is how light or dark a something is, and applies to color images as well as to grey-scale images.

Here's a good example in grey scale.

Martha Alf
Pears # 1

and in color,


Exaggerated chiaroscuro is called tenebrism. Caravaggio's work is a good example of tenebrism.
[image error]
Crucifixion of Peter

[Carol]

Thanks Professor. I knew you would come through.

[Ken, Moderator]

Ah. Light games. Thanks. No Art History here -- ever (but you knew that).

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Chiaroscuro is the name of the tragic rat in The Tale of Despereaux........

[Savvy]

It's also how sometimes things are perceived after a little too much fermented grape juice! :-)

or maybe that's just oscuro???

[Ken, Moderator]

Obscuro?

[Ruth]

obscuro = Spanish
oscuro = Italian

[Scout]

obfuscation = confusion

[Tyler]

To be sure, the pictures were worth a thousand words.

[Scout]

I like willy-nilly, originally meaning "whether it is with or against your will" and now usually meaning "haphazard." Both meanings apply in the following example:

Politics and news coverage proceed in a willy-nilly fashion.

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

willy-nilly
c.1600, contraction of will I, nill I, or will he, nill he, or will ye, nill ye, lit. "with or without the will of the person concerned." See nill + will (v.).
nill
O.E. nylle, nelle “to be unwilling,” from ne “no” (see no) + will (v.). Often paired with will; the construction in nill he, will he, once common, attested from c.1300, surviving principally in willy-nilly, which, however, reverses the usual ME word order. Latin expressed a similar idea in nolens volens.

[Ken, Moderator]

For some reason, the word makes me think of "Will" Clinton and his "brain," Willy, which went "nilly" while he was in the White House (and probably before and after, for that matter).

[Kate]

I'm heading off topic (I'm new here . . .) but I've always loved defenestrate (to hurl oneself out a window). Wait, is that what Willy Will felt like doing when he got caught? What Monica wanted to do when the punchlines started? What Hillary wished they would both do??

[Scout]

Thanks for the laugh, Kate. Looking forward to knowing you.

[Savvy]

New one for me...

FELO-DE-SE

Definitions
■(noun) A crime committed against oneself, in particular an early twentieth-century euphemism for suicide.

Notes
■'Felo-de-se' comes from Latin and means literally 'felon of himself.'

Examples
■“The corpse of every one guilty of felo-de-se should be buried either in a remote spot not customarily used as a place of burial, or near to a cross road; but if the relatives of any such unhappy person insist on having the remains interred in the ordinary place of sepulchre, they are expected to carry the corpse over the burying-ground wall, and inter it after sunset.”

■“He was cut down before life was extinct, and on recovery was prosecuted for felo-de-se.”

■“On Thursday there was a snowstorm, and he had no boots at all on; and after that I did not see him, and I wondered if he had committed suicide -- in which case I thought the jury might almost have brought in a verdict of 'justifiable felo-de-se.'”

[Ruth]

That's a new one for me, too.

[Carol]

Me three.

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

....and I four.

[Ruth]

I5 runs right by my house.