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October 06, 2012

Word of the Day

• conjecture
• \kun-JEK-cher\

• DEFINITION

verb

1

: to arrive at or deduce by surmise or guesswork : guess

2

: to form a supposition or inference

• EXAMPLES

Some scientists have conjectured that the distant planet could sustain life.

"[Kim Kardashian's] changing wardrobe, everyone conjectured, must be Kanye's influence—he's a bona fide designer these days with affinity for top models like Chanel Iman and Anja Rubik and top labels like Givenchy, Celine and Hermes." —From an article in the Style section of The Huffington Post, August 24, 2012

• DID YOU KNOW?

When the noun "conjecture" entered English in the 14th century, it referred to the act of interpreting signs or omens (as for making prognostications). That sense is now obsolete, but by the 16th century both the noun and verb "conjecture" had acquired the meanings of speculation and inference that we use today. "Conjecture" derived via Middle English and Middle French from the Latin verb "conicere" ("to throw together"), a combination of "com-" ("together") and "jacere" ("to throw").

Read more at http://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/2012/10/06/#M21iXuRK2Uu8ylxf.99 

Word of the Day for Friday, October 5, 2012

hirtellous \hur-TEL-uhs\, verb:

Minutely hirsute.

Any noticeable hirsute or even hirtellous shadings visible upon the represented, unclothed, female form, anywhere below the eyebrows, say, is, in the judgment of this Department…
-- Frank Yerby, Tobias and the Angel

A small annual herb commonly 20 to 40 cm. tall, sparingly branched above, hirtellous on the stems with small downwardly curled hairs…
-- Carnegie Institution of Washington, Botany of the Maya Area

Hirtellous comes from the Latin word hirt meaning "hairy." The suffix -ellus is a diminutive adjective suffix.

Word of the Day for Thursday, October 4, 2012

agita \AJ-i-tuh\, noun:

1. Agitation; anxiety.
2. Heartburn; indigestion.

And my being named after the patron saint of love, St. Valentine, when I've had nothing but agita in romance just makes it more painfully ironic.
-- Rosanna Chiofalo, Bellla Fortuna

I'm eighty-two years old and I don't need this agita in my life!
-- Rita Lakin, Getting Old Is Murder

Agita was coined in America in the 1980s. It comes from the Italian word agitare meaning "to bother."

Word of the Day for Wednesday, October 3, 2012

true \troo\, verb:

1. To make true; shape, adjust, place, etc., exactly or accurately: to true the wheels of a bicycle after striking a pothole.
2. (Especially in carpentry) to make even, symmetrical, level, etc. (often followed by up): to true up the sides of a door.

Have your shop replace the spoke and true the wheel, and make sure they check all spokes for signs of damage or wear.
-- Wes Hobson, Clark Campbell, Michael F. Vickers, Swim, Bike, Run

…fresh new magazines, in stacks lovingly squared and trued, waited on shelves cunningly sited just inside the front door.
-- Robert Sampson, Yesterday's Faces

But in its inner chamber, it's about the way the mind fetishizes the smallest acts—the gears that keep life trued—even as our bodies enter a final winter.
-- Paul Harding, Tinkers

True, in the common sense of "real and authentic," has been in the English language since at least the 1200s. The less-common verb form of the word was first used in the 1840s, particularly with reference to mechanics.

Word of the Day for Tuesday, October 2, 2012

hamartia \hah-mahr-TEE-uh\, noun:

Tragic flaw.

What is Oedipus' hamartia that leads to his self-fulfilling self-reversal?
-- Laszlo Versényi, Man's Measure

We called it by many different things, such as hubris or hamartia, but given the way you butcher Latin, let's stick with English.
-- Stephanie Draven, The Fever and the Fury

Hamartia stems from the Greek word hamartánein which meant "to err." However, it entered English in the late 1800s.

Word of the Day for Monday, October 1, 2012

utile \YOO-til\, adjective:

Useful.

They have been accredited variously to the respective signs of the Zodiac, but to the end that resultant opinions have failed to be utile value.
-- John Hazelrigg, Astrosophic Principles And Astrosophic Tractates

It was located in an industrial warehouse but he had tricked it out smartly. It was altogether utile but not precisely cozy.
-- Eve Howard, Shadow Lane Volume 8

Utile comes directly from the French word of the same spelling which also means "useful." It entered English in the late 1400s.

Word of the Day for Sunday, September 30, 2012

thetic \THET-ik\, adjective:

Positive; dogmatic.

Thetic constructions, on the other hand, are not subject to this sort of contextual requirements.
-- Andreas Dufter and Daniel Jacob, Focus and Background in Romance Languages

His genius was not thetic, but synthetic, not creative but constructive.
-- Andrew Martin Fairbairn, "The Primitive Polity of Islam," The Contemporary Review

Thetic is derived from the Greek word thetikós from the root thet meaning "placed, set."

Word of the Day for Saturday, September 29, 2012

catholicon \kuh-THOL-i-kuhn\, noun:

A universal remedy; panacea.

And then they sweep out again, leaving the fevered peasants their catholicon of faith, while, overhead, vultures ebonize the sky.
-- Thomas H. Cook, The Orchids

At any rate, this same humor has something, there is no telling what, of beneficence in it, it is such a catholiconand charm—nearly all men agreeing in relishing it, though they may agree in little else—and in its way it undeniably does such a deal of familiar good in the world, that no wonder it is almost a proverb, that a man of humor, a man capable of a good loud laugh—seem how he may in other things—can hardly be a heartless scamp.
-- Herman Melville, The Confidence-Man

Catholicon stems from the Greek word katholikós which meant "according to the whole, universal."

Word of the Day for Friday, September 28, 2012

fiducial \fi-DOO-shuhl\, adjective:

1. Based on or having trust: fiducial dependence upon God.
2. Accepted as a fixed basis of reference or comparison: a fiducial point; a fiducial temperature.

Knowing the sincerity of her concern for my well-being as I did, I can say with fiducial confidence she was attached to the phone, where she'd no doubt made a beeline the very moment after I'd stormed out of the house, awaiting a call from me announcing I was alright.
-- William Cook, Love in the Time of Flowers

No, it was a par excellence speech, one that neither he nor anyone else was to give in front of an audience, one that wasn't going to be subjected to criticism, for how can you compare when you have no fiducial point?
-- Thomas Justin Kaze, The Year of the Green Snake

Fiducial comes from the Late Latin word fīdūciālis meaning "trust."

Word of the Day for Thursday, September 27, 2012

austral \AW-struhl\, adjective:

1. Southern.
2. (Initial capital letter) Australian.

That, at least, was not difficult to do; as they filtered through branches and thick treetops, the rays of the australsun covered bodies and houses and all the objects of the inhabited area with undulating patterns of light and shadow that blended spectrally into random jungle forms.
-- Carlos Fuentes, Terra Nostra

The church, from the north, seems a precious stone, on its austral side it is blood-colored, to the west white as snow, and above it shine countless stars more splendid than those in our sky.
-- Umberto Eco, Baudolino

Austral is derived from the Latin word austrālis meaning "southern."

Word of the Day for Wednesday, September 26, 2012

palter \PAWL-ter\, verb:

1. To talk or act insincerely or deceitfully; lie or use trickery.
2. To bargain with; haggle.
3. To act carelessly; trifle.

Since murder was that man's intention, why should he palter with small details?
-- Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad

Bathsheba would probably have terminated the conversation there and then by flatly forbidding the subject, had not her conscious weakness of position allured her to palter and argue in endeavors to better it.
-- Thomas Hardy, Far From the Maddening Crowd

Palter is of unknown origin. It first arose in the 1540s, and it may be a variation of the word falter.

Word of the Day for Tuesday, September 25, 2012

privity \PRIV-i-tee\, noun:

1. Participation in the knowledge of something private or secret, especially as implying concurrence or consent.
2. Private or secret knowledge.
3. Law. The relation between privies.
4. Obsolete. Privacy.

Kazbitch — at least I imagine so — thought that Azamat had robbed him of his horse, with his father's privity and consent.
-- Mikhail Y. Lermontov, A Hero of Our Own Times

But Judith had not meddled with the arrangement, and every necessary disposition was made without her privity or advice.
-- James Fenimore Cooper, The Leatherstocking Tales

Privity stems from the Old French words prive meaning "private, close friend, private place."

Word of the Day for Monday, September 24, 2012

sententious \sen-TEN-shuhs\, adjective:

1. Abounding in pithy aphorisms or maxims: a sententious book.
2. Given to excessive moralizing; self-righteous.
3. Given to or using pithy sayings or maxims: a sententious poet.
4. Of the nature of a maxim; pithy.

For he was a poet and drowned untimely, and his verse, mild as it is and formal and sententious, sends forth still a frail fluty sound like that of a piano organ played in some back street resignedly by an old Italian organ-grinder in a corduroy jacket.
-- Virginia Woolf, "Street Haunting: A London Adventure," Collected Essays

It was inconceivable that she was using the boring, sententious, contentious Shepherd for anything but a hollow threat to him, but this semblance of wrongdoing could now be turned to advantage.
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano

Sententious is related to sententia, the Latin root for the word sentence. The Latin word sententiosus meant "full of meaning, pithy."

Word of the Day for Sunday, September 23, 2012

pharisaic \far-uh-SEY-ik\, adjective:

1. Practicing or advocating strict observance of external forms and ceremonies of religion or conduct without regard to the spirit; self-righteous; hypocritical.
2. Of or pertaining to the Pharisees.

"And yet that reverend gentleman," said Pleydell, "whom I love for his father's sake and his own, has nothing of the sour or pharisaical pride which has been imputed to some of the early fathers of the Calvinistic Kirk of Scotland."
-- Sir Walter Scott, Guy Mannering or the Astrologer

"Of course," he said gloomily, "it is one of those Pharisaical cruelties of which only such heartless men are capable."
-- Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Pharisaic comes from the story in the Bible about the Pharisees, a religious sect who purportedly only practiced the doctrine and ritual of their faith without corresponding inner devotion.

Word of the Day for Saturday, September 22, 2012

hematic \hi-MAT-ik\, adjective:

1. Of or pertaining to blood; hemic.
2. Acting on the blood, as a medicine.

noun:
1. Hematinic.

However, if you think such drinks smack too much of medicine, you can console yourself with bread or tofu fortified with DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), a substance that is good for the retina and brain and the hematic level of cholesterol.
-- Carlo Petrini, Slow Food

A love transfusion is essentially the same as a blood transfusion. Just as humans are divided into four hematicgroups, they're also grouped into four erotic types…
-- Juan Filloy, Op Oloop

Hematic was invented in the 1850s. It comes from the Greek word haîma meaning "blood."

Word of the Day for Friday, September 21, 2012

strepitous \STREP-i-tuhs\, adjective:

boisterous; noisy.

But what strepitous sounds, what harmonious tumult diverts my attention to another part ?
-- José Francisco de Isla, The History of the Famous Preacher, Friar Gerund de Campazas

Here is no idyllic meditative retreat from the strepitous city but a scene of virile action—fields sounding with human labor, vibrating with human energy.
-- Beulah B. Amram, "Swinburne and Carducci," The Yale Review

Strepitous stems from the Latin word strepit which meant "noise."

Word of the Day for Wednesday, September 19, 2012

bollix \BOL-iks\, verb:

1. To do (something) badly; bungle (often followed by up): His interference bollixed up the whole deal.

noun:
1. A confused bungle.

People always bollix up the things that are most important to them.
-- Eric Gabriel Lehman, Summer's House

It was a sort of cruel fun watching this guy bollix up his life, like watching a cat fight duct tape.
-- Sarah Smith, Chasing Shakespeares

Bollix arose in the 1930s. It's a variation on the slang word bollocks.

Word of the Day for Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Tartuffery \tahr-TOOF-uh-ree\, noun:

Behavior or character of a Tartuffe, especially hypocritical piety.

When Terry had finished showing his contempt and had left the office in disgust at the head's Tartuffery, Jan had calmly got up from her seat and looked hard at the shell-shocked, speechless woman before addressing her.
-- Derryl Flynn, The Albion

Not the sophistry, the malevolence, the restless apathy of the masses, the arrogance and insensitivity of the ruling class, the vulgarity, the bigotry, the intemperance, the maniacal piety and the ungodly Tartuffery.
-- W.E. Gutman, Nocturnes

Tartuffery comes from the comedy by French playwright Molière. The central character of the eponymous play Tartuffe was a hypocritical pretender.

Word of the Day for Monday, September 17, 2012

diapason \dahy-uh-PEY-zuhn\, noun:

1. A full, rich outpouring of melodious sound.
2. The compass of a voice or instrument.
3. A fixed standard of pitch.
4. Either of two principal timbres or stops of a pipe organ, one of full, majestic tone (open diapason) and the other of strong, flutelike tone (stopped diapason).
5. Any of several other organ stops.
6. A tuning fork.

During the whole interval in which he had produced those diapason blasts, heard with such inharmonious feelings by the three auditors outside the screen, his thoughts had wandered wider than his notes in conjectures on the character and position of the gentleman seen in Ethelberta's company.
-- Thomas Hardy, The Hand of Ethelberta

And so those two, angry accuser and indifferent accused, faced each other for a moment; while, incessant, dull, might, the thunders of the great cataract mingled with the trembling diapason of the stupendous turbines in the rock-hewn caverns where old Niagara now toiled in fetters, to swell their power and fling gold into their bottomless coffers.
-- George Allan England, The Air Trust

Diapason was originally an abbreviation of the Greek phrase "hē dià pāsôn chordôn symphōnía" which meant "the concord through all the notes of the scale."

Word of the Day for Sunday, September 16, 2012

coetaneous \koh-i-TEY-nee-uhs\, adjective:
Of the same age or duration.
Bear with these distractions, with this coetaneous growth of the parts: they will one day be members, and obey one will. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance and Other Essays
We could say that all living people are contemporaneous but not necessarily coetaneous; they live at different age levels. -- Harold C. Raley, A Watch Over Mortality
Coetaneous stems from the Latin roots co- meaning "with, together with," ætat- meaning "age," and the suffix -aneus (which is an adjectival suffix meaning "resembling").

Word of the Day for Saturday, September 15, 2012

quail \kweyl\, verb:

To lose heart or courage in difficulty or danger; shrink with fear.

She would have quailed in the same way if the armored bear had looked at her like that, because there was something not unlike Lorek in Will's eyes, young as they were.

 -- Phillip Pullman, The Subtle Knife

I should have quailed in the absence of moonlight, for it was by the leading of stars only I traced the dim path; I should have quailed still more in the unwonted presence of that which tonight shone in the north, a moving mystery—the Aurora Borealis.

-- Charlotte Brontë, Villette

The verb quail is not related to the more common noun. It comes from the Middle Dutch word quelen meaning "to suffer, be ill." This sense of "to cower" was rare until the late 1800s.

Word of the Day for Friday, September 14, 2012

ecru \EK-roo\, adjective:

1. Very light brown in color, as raw silk, unbleached linen, etc.

noun:

1. An ecru color.
To complete the outfit, she selected an ecru cashmere sweater to drape over her shoulders and tie loosely around her neck.
 -- Pamela Hackett Hobson, The Bronxville Book Club
She was wearing an ecru gown, giving the illusion of her fading into the grayness of the wall.
 -- JoAnn Smith Ainsworth, Out of the Dark
Ecru stems from the French word of the same spelling which meant "raw, unbleached." It came from the Latin root crudus meaning "raw" and the prefix es- meaning "thoroughly."

Word of the Day for Thursday, September 13, 2012

heliotrope \HEE-lee-uh-trohp\, noun:

1. A light tint of purple; reddish lavender.
2. Any hairy plant belonging to the genus Heliotropium, of the borage family, as H. arborescens, cultivated for its small, fragrant purple flowers.
3. Any of various other plants, as the valerian or the winter heliotrope.
4. Any plant that turns toward the sun.
5. Surveying. An arrangement of mirrors for reflecting sunlight from a distant point to an observation station.
6. Bloodstone.

But the heliotrope envelope with the feminine handwriting and the strange odor immediately suggested queries along lines of investigation which had never before entered her thoughts.
-- George Gibbs, The Vagrant Duke

Blown by steady volumes of roaring wind, everyone's hair is riffled and tangled and leaping in antic wisps, and theheliotrope robes bulk like tumors but flip up in sudden swoops.
-- Edmund White, Forgetting Elena

Heliotrope literally meant "turn towards the sun" in Greek. Flowers that turned towards the sun became associated with this word.

Word of the Day for Wednesday, September 12, 2012

celadon \SEL-uh-don\, noun:

1. A pale gray-green.
2. Any of several Chinese porcelains having a translucent, pale green glaze.
3. Any porcelain imitating these.

adjective:
1. Having the color celadon.

The detail was striking and the cream, salmon, and celadon of the offset colors realistic, if slightly dated.
-- David Foster Wallace, The Pale King

Far out, the bay had a glaze like celadon.
-- Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

The word celadon stems from the name of a character in the 1610 book L'Astrée by Honoré d'Urfé. The character Céladon was a sentimental lover who wore bright green clothes.

Word of the Day for Tuesday, September 11, 2012

cerise \suh-REES\, noun:

moderate to deep red.

That it did not strike her, Molly Notkin, as improbable that the special limited-edition turkey-shaped gift bottle of Wild Turkey Blended Whiskey-brand distilled sprits with the cerise velveteen gift-ribbon around its neck with the bow tucked under its wattles on the kitchen counter...
-- David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

It was made of a purple satin sheath with layers of cerise tarleton underskirts.
-- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Cerise comes from the French word of the same spelling meaning "cherry." It entered English in the 1850s describing a shade of cherry red.

Word of the Day for Monday, September 10, 2012

primrose \PRIM-rohz\, noun:

1. Pale yellow.
2. Any plant of the genus Primula, as P. vulgaris (English primrose), of Europe, having yellow flowers, or P. sinensis (Chinese primrose), of China, having flowers in a variety of colors. Compare primrose family.
3. Evening primrose.

The thoughts circling Sarah's head kept time with the rhythm of her spoon as she stirred the pale-primrose mixture of egg yolks and cream in the pan.
-- India Grey, Powerful Italian, Penniless Housekeeper

The room was high and white and primrose gold, flanked by Greek columns that caught the lickety amber light of a thousand candles.
-- Don DeLillo, Underworld

Primrose literally meant "first rose" in Old French. It was so called because the yellow rose is one of the earliest blooming roses in the Spring.

Word of the Day for Sunday, September 9, 2012

spleenful \SPLEEN-fuhl\, adjective:

1. Ill-humored; irritable or peevish; spiteful; splenetic.

2. Full of or displaying spleen.

For a blink, Ratcliffe himself, who hated almost beyond telling this spleenful fellowman now well handcuffed and clamped at the ankles with cold stout bilboes, did believe in his intentions, and would have resigned all proceedings if he could; but once the doctor prescribes a purge, how can he countermand himself?
-- William T. Vollmann, Argall

Their attention was focused on Guy Fowler, a surly, spleenful man, but one of few old-salts of white blood.
-- Virginia Van Druten, Bound to Sea

The spleen was regarded as the seat of morose feelings and bad tempers in Medieval physiology. The adjective spleenful arose from this association in the late 1500s.

 Word of the Day for Saturday, September  8, 2012

manifold \MAN-uh-fohld\, adjective:

1. Of many kinds; numerous and varied: manifold duties.
2. Having numerous different parts, elements, features, forms, etc.: a manifold program for social reform.

noun:
1. Something having many different parts or features.
2. A copy or facsimile, as of something written, such as is made by manifolding

verb:
1. To make copies of, as with carbon paper.

The possible moves being not only manifold, but involute, the chances of such oversights are multiplied; and in nine cases out of ten, it is the more concentrative rather than the more acute player who conquers.
 -- Edgar Allen Poe, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

Whatever his arrangements are, however, they are always a pattern of neatness; and every one of the manifold articles connected with his manifold occupations is to be found in its own particular place.
 -- Charles Dickens, Master Humphrey's Clock

Manifold comes from the Old English word monigfald meaning "varied in appearance." The English suffix -fold originally meant "of so many parts."

Word of the Day for Friday, September  7, 2012

rollick \ROL-ik\, verb:

To move or act in a carefree, frolicsome manner; behave in a free, hearty, gay, or jovial way.

Also in old, jolly fishwives, squatted under arches, obscene old women, how deeply they laugh and shake and rollick, when they walk, from side to side, hum, ha!
 -- Virginia Woolf, "The String Quartet," Monday or Tuesday: Eight Stories

A deeper ripple of mirth this time and Bronzini was sad for the boy, skinny Alfonse, but did not rebuke them, kept talking, talked over the momentary rollick—skinny sorry Alfonse, grape-stained with tragic acne.
 -- Don DeLillo, Underworld

Rollick is a portmanteau of "frolic" and "romp." It arose in the 1820s.

 

 

Word of the Day for Thursday, September  6, 2012

piceous \PIS-ee-uhs\, adjective:

1. Inflammable; combustible.
2. Of, pertaining to, or resembling pitch.
3. Zoology. Black or nearly black as pitch.

In the silent and piceous hour just before dawn, they advanced at a slow trot, fanning out through the slave quarters and into the yard that divided the gin house, the mill, and the buildings where Canning and I slept unaware.
 -- Geraldine Brooks, March

Dark pink for the brick buildings, dark green for the doorjambs and the benches, dark iron for the hinges, dark stone for Nathaniel's Tomb; darkness in the piceous roots of trees that broke through the earth like bones through skin.
 -- Roger Rosenblatt, Beet

Piceous stems from the Latin word piceus meaning "made of pitch."            

Word of the Day for Wednesday, September 5, 2012

cacology \ka-KOL-uh-jee\, noun:

Defectively produced speech; socially unacceptable diction.

As to prose, I don't know Addison's from Johnson's; but I will try to mend my cacology.
-- Lord Byron, The Works and Letters of Lord Byron

Such cacology drives some people to distraction.
-- Linton Weeks, "R Grammar Gaffes Ruining the Language? Maybe Not", NPR

Cacology comes from the root caco- meaning "bad." This prefix occurs in loanwords from Greek. Similarly the suffix -logy is a combining form used in the names of sciences and bodies of knowledge.

Word of the Day for Tuesday, September 4, 2012

ramose \REY-mohs\, adjective:

1. Having many branches.

2. Branching.

The exquisite naivete with which, in this passage, the Greek and Anglican Churches are represented as springing into vigorous ramose existence at the precise moment of abscission was too much even for my Protestant simplicity.
-- James Kent Stone, The Invitation Heeded

The ramose or branched root is more frequent than any other.
-- James Lawson Drummond, First Steps to Botany

Ramose is derived from the Latin word rāmōsus which meant "full of boughs."