What's Your Word for the Day? Showing 2,701-2,750 of 3,049

[Ken, Moderator]

Trenches aren't that expensive.

[Stephen]

It's been a few days so I think its time for a new word of the day.

I recently browsed a copy of the primer that I'd used in 6th grade and came across the word sculpin which was defined in the in-book glossary as "a worthless no-account person" I looked it up on dictionary.com and the only definition referred to small fish. I'm guessing that the word's derogatory meaning came about as fishermen tagged some people as worth less than the small fish they regularly threw away.

Guess "chum" was already taken!

BTW... If anyone ever comes across a copy of Runaway Home (The Alice and Jerry Books) I'm amazed at how well the story value has held up. My sixth grade teacher apologized for the book's being "old-fashioned" back when she assigned it 1967. It's much better than some of the drek that's been used lately.

[Ken, Moderator]

scolionophobia -- a fear of school.

... except in school, we call these kids "school-phobic," is all. How unprofessional is that?

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Can teachers be scolionophobic?

[Ken, Moderator]

God, I hope not. But in June, anything's possible.

[Tracey]

Ooh, may I? My word of the day, found when looking something else up:

Onychomancy - Divination by the finger-nails. It is practiced by watching the reflection of the sun in the nails of a boy, and judging the future by the shape of the figures which show themselves on their surface.

[Ken, Moderator]

A boy? Why a boy? Why not a girl? Or a middle-aged man?

My nails used to get white marks that eventually grew up and out with the nail. My grandmother said they were marks of intelligence. My mother said they were evidence of where I'd banged the quick of my nail before the nail moved up.

[Tracey]

Newengland wrote: "A boy? Why a boy? Why not a girl? Or a middle-aged man?..."

That's one thing that's so fascinating - it's so specific.

My mother said they were evidence of where I'd banged the quick of my nail before the nail moved up.

Divination of the past instead of the future!

[Ken, Moderator]

Often confused words of the day:

augur -- as a noun, it means a soothsayer, or an annoying person who continually goes around saying, "Sooth, sooth," or possibly "Forsooth!" As a verb, it means to forebode or presage. Things tend to either augur well or ill.

Not to be confused with auger, which is a tool used for boring holes. I had a lot of augers for professors at university. The class full of 'holes was often bored to death (not to mention hung over).

[Ruth]

Quick! Without googling, who knows what an octothorpe is?

[Stephen]

Got that one! It's the little tic tac toe symbol - to the right of the zero on most phone pads and a shifted 3 on a computer keyboard. It's also commonly called a pound sign.

[Ken, Moderator]

In truth, Octothorpe is the name of the guy who started the penal colony of Georgia. It was on his mind.

[Stephen]

Are you sure? I thought it was the name of that olympic athelete that won 8 gold medals... But had to give em back because he's been paid for playing some other sport.

[Tyler]

No, an octothorpe is some sort of animal with eight wings, or eight feet, or eight of something. I think it's a bird; it may even be extinct. It's probably ugly.

If it referred to the Olympics, it would have to mean something like, "An athlete, very much in the spirit of Jim Thorpe, who has won something eight times." That seems complicated. I like my much simpler definition.

[Tracey]

Stephen wrote: "Are you sure? I thought it was the name of that olympic athelete that won 8 gold medals... But had to give em back because he's been paid for playing some other sport."

That's a close relative of the Octophelps, I believe: the Olympic athlete who won 8 gold medals and then disgraced himself by being an idiot kid?

[Tyler]

Octothorpe is the name of the guy who started the penal colony of Georgia. It was on his mind.

No, that was Oglethorpe. He was originally a Smithers. He was caught using his lorgnette to peek up Lady Thorpe's dress at the royal masquerade ball of 1732. That's why Georgia was founded as a penal colony in 1733, with Oglethorpe, née Smithers, its first prisoner.

[Hillary]

My word is higgledy-piggledy
--just cause that's how I'm feeling lately and it's a silly sounding word.

: in a confused, disordered, or random manner

[Tracey]

Hillary wrote: "My word is higgledy-piggledy ..."

That always makes me think of Bloom County. "Higgledy-Piggledy means 'a real mess'!"

[Carol]

My word is satire. You all are a bunch of satirists.LOL

[Stephen]

Hillary wrote: "My word is higgledy-piggledy
--just cause that's how I'm feeling lately and it's a silly sounding word. : in a confused, disordered, or random manner"

I'm feeling a bit silly today too... but isn't higgledy-piggledy a chain of grocery stores?

[Carol]

I think it is Piggly Wiggly, but then I do not live in the south eastern US.

[Ruth]

I think Stephen was joking, Kitty. Sort of like my grandmother when she said she had to go to the Hay and Pee.

[Carol]

Oh. LOL

[Hillary]

:-) I want to say the word out loud now to someone I now! It's going to sound so funny!

ha ha and definitely feeling a real mess today!

[Ken, Moderator]

petrichor (PET-ri-kuhr) noun

The pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a dry spell.

[From petro- (rock), from Greek petros (stone) + ichor (the fluid that is supposed to flow in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology). Coined by researchers I.J. Bear and R.G. Thomas.]

"Petrichor, the name for the smell of rain on dry ground, is from oils given off by vegetation, absorbed onto neighboring surfaces, and released into the air after a first rain." Matthew Bettelheim; Nature's Laboratory; Shasta Parent (Mt Shasta, California); Jan 2002.

"But, even in the other pieces, her prose breaks into passages of lyrical beauty that come as a sorely needed revivifying petrichor amid the pitiless glare of callousness and cruelty." Pradip Bhattacharya; Forest Interludes; Indianest.com; Jul 29, 2001.

[Susan]

This word is new to me....but I do know that lovely smell.

When I first lived in Sri Lanka, it didn't rain at all during my first six weeks there.
I shall never forget waking up one Sunday morning to the sound of torrential rain....and 'that' smell. It was wonderful!

[Ken, Moderator]

I like it best when it rains and then quickly stops as the sun returns. Ah, the steam easing out of the earth! The sweet, sweet petrichor!

BTW: "petrichor" appears to be a made-up word. Two researchers trying to play Shakespeare and introduce words into the lexicon, is all.

[Ruth]

I hope it doesn't catch on. I love that smell and it deserves a prettier word.

[Susan]

Clagy......Adhesive. (sticky)

As in for example....Clagy toffee (at least where I grew up!)

Apparently used to describe the roof of a mine to which the coal adheres.

[Ken, Moderator]

skunked term -- according to Bryan Garner, "When a word undergoes a marked change from one use to another -- a phase that might take ten years or a hundred -- it's likely to be the subject of dispute. Some people (Group 1) insist on the traditional use; others (Group 2) embrace the new use, even if it originated purely as the result of word-swapping or slipshod extension."

Examples:

hopefully
data
decimate
effete
enormity
fulsome
impassionate
intrigue
transpire

[Susan]

Interesting. I hadn't come across that phrase before.
The English language is evolving 'as we speak'.

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

I thought Octothorpe was that Aussie swimmer who went so fast through the water that it was generally assumed he had twice the number of limbs than most humans......

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

PS....I googled (sorry)....Stephen was right.....

[Ken, Moderator]

Stephen is always right.

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Got this in an email today.....so my word of the day is......up.
UP
Read until the end ... you'll laugh.

This two-letter word in English has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that word is 'UP.' It is listed in the dictionary as an [adv], [prep], [adj], [n] or [v].



It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP ?



At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP, and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report? We callUP our friends, brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock the house and fix UP the old car.

At other times, this little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.


To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.


And this is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.

We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!


To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look UP the word UP in the dictionary. In the Oxford Encyclopedic dictionary it takes UP almost 1/2 of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.


If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.


When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out, we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it soaks UP the earth. When it does not rain for a while, things dry UP. One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now . . . my time is UP!


Oh . . . one more thing: What is the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night?

U

P!


Did that one crack you UP?

Don't screw UP. Send this on to everyone you look UP in your address book . . . or not . . .. it's UP to you.

Now I'll just shut UP!

[Susan]

Up untill now, I hadn't realised this little word was so interesting!

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Heehee!

[Ruth]

That is a lot of nonsense up with which I will not put.

[Tyler]

That makes "up" among the most versatile of words in the English language. Great WFTD.

[Ken, Moderator]

cameo -- no, not a car, but a description of appearances by ephemeral ones who used to be stalwarts. See "Tippecanoe" and "Tyler (above)," too.

[Ken, Moderator]

We all know certain animal adjectives, like assinine (like an ass), canine (like a dog), and feline (like a cat), but how about some less familiar ine's:

vespine -- like a wasp

soricine -- like a shrew (how insulting to women in "sororities"!)

ovine -- like sheep (or, oftentimes, people!)

larine or laridine -- like a gull

crotaline -- like a rattlesnake

anserine -- like a goose (you silly...)

cancrine -- like a crab (think astrology: Cancer)

caprine -- like a goat (ditto: Capricorn)

cervine or damine -- like a deer

One of the most famous that we see in books of old is aquiline (like an eagle), frequently used to describe noses (and usually as a compliment, if you can figure THAT one out).

Finally, the catch-all is ferine (like any wild animal) which matches nicely with the familiar word feral (of or from the wild, as in "feral child").

[grebrim]

Words of nova-angline erudition.

As I like wolves, I permit myself to add

lupine - like a wolf

[Ken, Moderator]

Yes! And vulpine for the crafty fox...

[Ruth]

When I used to live on Lupin (the flower) Lane, you wouldn't believe how much mail came to Lupine Lane.

[Sonali]

Newengland wrote: "We all know certain animal adjectives, like assinine (like an ass), canine (like a dog), and feline (like a cat), but how about some less familiar ine's:

vespine -- like a wasp

soricine -- like a..."
Very very interesting.I knew the usual ones but NE's list is enlightening.

[Susan]

I would prefer not to be porcine, but fear I am sometimes.

[Ken, Moderator]

I'm guilty of being bovine when running by cows. I moo at them.

[Stephen]

Better than tipping them I suppose!

[grebrim]

I'm porcine when it comes to ancient philosophy.

[Ken, Moderator]

A pig for the ancients?

Today's WOD:

con·cat·e·nate
   [kon-kat-n-eyt]

–verb (used with object)
1. to link together; unite in a series or chain.

–adjective
2. linked together, as in a chain.

Origin:
1425–75; late Middle English < Late Latin concatēnātus (past participle of concatēnāre), equivalent to con- con- + Latin catēn ( a ) chain + -ātus -ate1

—Related forms
con·cat·e·na·tor, noun
un·con·cat·e·nat·ed, adjective
un·con·cat·e·nat·ing, adjective