What's Your Word for the Day? Showing 2,901-2,950 of 3,049

[Ken, Moderator]

Nope, it's "wee" he uses, as in "whistles far and wee...." As for twee, it's perfect for Henry James's books.

[Ruth]

Twee sounds just like what it means.

[Ken, Moderator]

Some words are like that. Pitch perfect in their auditory way....

[Stephen]

I'd like to nominate devestate as our word for the day.

Borrowing from Latin dēvastātus, perfect passive participle of dēvastō, from dē- (augmentative prefix) + vastō (“I destroy, I lay waste to”).

devastate (third-person singular simple present devastates, present participle devastating, simple past and past participle devastated)
To ruin many or all things over a large area, such as most or all buildings of a city, or cities of a region, or trees of a forest.
To destroy a whole collection of related ideas, beliefs, and strongly held opinions.
To break beyond recovery or repair so that the only options are abandonment or the clearing away of useless remains (if any) and starting over.

Unfortunately it's auditory fraternal twin, decimate, seems to have somehow usurped the connotative meaning of it's brother.

decimate has the much more memorable etymology. Somehow a line of Roman soldiers with every tenth one being killed as punishment for of a unit's cowardice has made the word more memorable than it's more destructive twin.

The misuse and misunderstanding of decimate has long been a pet peeve. But to hear several well respected folk who I previously deemed to be careful of their grammar misuse the D word today grated intolerably.

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

I know twee....common usage downunder.....my mother always used it dismissively in the same context as saying that art was like a chocolate box lid....twee.

[Ken, Moderator]

Stephen wrote: "I'd like to nominate devestate as our word for the day.

Borrowing from Latin dēvastātus, perfect passive participle of dēvastō, from dē- (augmentative prefix) + vastō (“I destroy, I lay waste to..."

We refer to New York as the devestate.

[Stephen]

Newengland wrote: "...We refer to New York as the devestate. "

As a New Yorker at heart I'm decimated... er devastated by that.

Now an F. Scott Fitzgerald style word...
belletristic - written and regarded for aesthetic value rather than content.

[Ken, Moderator]

fulsome (adj.) -- too obviously extravagant to be genuine or sincere.

[Mark]

I wanted to nominate "anosognosia," but I couldn't remember it.

[Ken, Moderator]

I've forgotten post 3263 already.

[Ruth]

Say what?

[Ken, Moderator]

I'm feigning ignorance. No acting required, but....

[Mark]

Newengland wrote: "I'm feigning ignorance. No acting required, but...."

I would fain feign ignorance, but I dinnae know a thing about it.

[Ken, Moderator]

I think it's one of the Seven Sisters in Greek mythology.

[Mark]

Um.. Asterope, Merope, Electra, Sleepy, Dopey, Wellesley... and Rudolph? I'm never sure which one was supposed to represent uncertainty of which one was supposed to represent uncertainty of which one...

[Ken, Moderator]

Something about the magical numbers 3, 7, and 9. Lots of sets of all three, classical-allusion wise....

[Mark]

Well, they're all prime, except for the 9, and their product is 189, which when represented in hexadecimal is BD, which obviously stands for blu-ray disc, or bis die (twice a day), so I'm sure it's all quite explicable. To all those Ancient Greek pharmacists who had DVD players, anyway.

[Mark]

Also, of course:
Three rings for the Elven kings, under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf lords, in their halls of stone,
Nine for mortal men, doomed to die...

I wonder why no one is obsessed with 34. Or 2,968.

[Ken, Moderator]

Three... blind mice, amigos, pigs, Musketeers, coins in a fountain, branches of govt, ...

Seven... wonders of the ancient world, hills of Rome, sisters, dwarfs, cities of Cibola, samurai...

Nine... circles of hell in Dante's magnum burning opus, planets, ...

[Ruth]

Seven come eleven

[Ken, Moderator]

Oh, I forgot the seven deadly sins.

[Mark]

It's okay. The House GOP is busy committing them for you.

Also seven: gables, brides for seven brothers, habits of highy-effective sociopathic toads, years of famine, -year itch, -percent solution, and up.

[Mark]

Oh, and the seals in the Book of Revelation.

[Ken, Moderator]

There are seals there? In that case, the Great White won't be far behind....

[Mark]

I think they were borrowed from Sea World. Or possibly the Navy.

[Ruth]

Bell bottom trousers, buttons made of brass
Loose around the ankles, tight around the ass

[Mark]

Thirty cents per gallon, was the price of gas.

[Ruth]

Those were the days...

[Stephen]

Ruth wrote: "Bell bottom trousers, buttons made of brass
Loose around the ankles, tight around the ass"

Yep, but (at least in the US) those have thirteen buttons...

[Ken, Moderator]

"Bell-bottom Blues"

[Mark]

New words: simantrophobia, cyanophobia

[Ken, Moderator]

Old words: the, a

[Ruth]

uh

[Mark]

...

[Mark]

Word for the week: hebdomadal

[Ken, Moderator]

Don't forget to provide part of speech, definition, and word used in a sentence (or at least the first two) when fascinating us with a new or unusual word. I don't want to make looking everything up a hebdomadal activity....

[Mark]

Newengland wrote: "Don't forget to provide part of speech, definition, and word used in a sentence (or at least the first two) when fascinating us with a new or unusual word. I don't want to make looking everything u..."

Sorry, I came in late to the thread and missed the protocols. Anyway:

Hebdomadal, from the French "hebdomadaire," even as Paris Match is a magazine that is hebdomadaire, is an adjective meaning "weekly," and though you've already done the work for me, I would hate to have to define the word hebdomadally.

[Mark]

Also, retroactively:

cyanophobia, noun, fear of the color blue. Chicken Little was suffering from cyanophobia.

simantrophobia, noun, fear of bells (usually, church bells). "In the icy air of night, how they scream out their affright" suggests that Poe was suffering from simantrophobia.

anosognosia, noun, an inability to remember, among other things, words like anosognosia, and the need to provide definitions for them. I am not wholly aphasic, but may have anosognosia. "Anodognosia," by contrast, is a fear of the cold proboscises (or, more strictly, proboscides) of canines. I have forgotten that the previous sentence is a lie.

[Carol]

tes·sel·late[tes-uh-leyt]- verb (used with object)-lated-lating1. to form in a mosaic pattern of small squaresOrigin:1785–95; < L tessellātus mosaic, equiv. to tessell(a) small square stone (dim. of tessera tessera) + -ātus -ate1Source:Dictionary.com UnabridgedBased on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2011.

This word was used in a sentence to describe the skin of an old man. I had always associated it with math or artistic designs.

"He looked down and saw tessellating skin."- Rachel Joyce

[Mark]

Carol wrote: "tes·sel·late[tes-uh-leyt]- verb (used with object)-lated-lating1. to form in a mosaic pattern of small squaresOrigin:1785–95; < L tessellātus mosaic, equiv. to tessell(a) small square stone (dim. o..."

Mondrian saw tessellating *everything*.

[Mark]

New word: desuetude, noun, a state of disuse or inactivity. "The 'what's your word of the day?' thread had succumbed to a state of desuetude.

[Ken, Moderator]

Posters must be suffering from ennui, which I think means boredom in Rouen.

[Mark]

Seems redundant. Who wouldn't be bored in Rouen? :)

[Ken, Moderator]

I haven't been there to find out. Only Paree for me, so far, and there's never a dull moment there. (Note: I hid out on the quieter left bank, where all the introverts go.)

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Anywhere is more exciting than New Zealand......

[Ken, Moderator]

And yet so many people (non-hobbits) want to visit it! The grass is always greener on the other side of the ocean, eh?

[Stephen]

At the risk of offending Erma Bombeck who asserts that The Grass Is Always Greener over the Septic Tank, I'm guessing that introverts from Rouen would assert that the grass is always greener on the inside.

[Mark]

Stephen wrote: "At the risk of offending Erma Bombeck who asserts that The Grass Is Always Greener over the Septic Tank I'm guessing that introverts from Rouen would assert that the grass is always greener on the ..."

A vertiginous interpretation that makes me green with envy! I'm sure Erma Bombeck will roue the jour she said that. :)

[Stephen]

I nominate pash as the word for the day. It's antipodean for snog (talk about your lingua franca) or as Gene Simmons would say KISS

[Debbie, sardonic princess of cheerfulness]

Hahaha! Only westies say pash now.....it dates back to the 60's/70's! If you pashed a boy when I was at high school you were seriously racy....because pashing was with ...shhhh....tongues!