GAME: Word of the Day (WOTD)

[ChoChiyo]

I am shocked at how many words I know--and how many I could figure out by knowing the meanings of the prefixes or latin roots.

[felonius]

I had the same thought - mind you, with language, it's one thing to pick a correct answer from four given choices, another thing entirely to supply the meaning on your own.

It's quite addictive though, no argument...

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Tuesday January 29, 2008

sylvan \SIL-vuhn\, adjective: 1. Of or pertaining to woods or forest regions. 2. Living or located in a wood or forest. 3. Abounding in forests or trees; wooded.
noun: 1. A fabled deity or spirit of the woods. 2. One that lives in or frequents the woods or forest; a rustic.

They probably picture it as a kind of modest conservatory, set in sylvan splendour in some charmingly landscaped garden.
-- Sally Vincent, "Driven by daemons", Guardian, November 10, 2001

They choose to live where they do because of the beauty and peacefulness that a sylvan setting affords.
-- Henry Petroski, "Step Lively", Washington Post, June 30, 2002

Following the course of the brook, and especially in the ravines, are many poplars and other tall trees, which, together with the bushes and the shrubs, form a dark and labyrinthine wood. . . . It would, in truth, be difficult to imagine anything more secluded and sylvan, more solitary, peaceful, and silent than this spot.
-- Juan Valera, Pepita Jimenez

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Sylvan derives from Latin silva, sylva, "a wood or grove."

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Wednesday January 30, 2008

canorous \kuh-NOR-us; KAN-or-uhs\, adjective: Richly melodious; pleasant sounding; musical.

I felt a deep contentment listening to the meadowlark's complex melody as he sat on his bragging post calling for a mate, and the soft canorous whistle of the bobwhite as he whistled his name with intermittent lulls.
-- Donna R. La Plante, "Remember When: The prairie after a spring rain", Kansas City Star, March 16, 2003

But birds that are canorous and whose notes we most commend, are of little throats, and short necks, as Nightingales, Finches, Linnets, Canary birds and Larks.
-- Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica

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Canorous comes from the Latin canor, "melody," from canere, "to sing." It is related to chant, from French chanter, "to sing," ultimately from Latin canere.

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Friday February 1, 2008

mien \MEEN\, noun: 1. Manner or bearing, especially as expressive of mood, attitude, or personality; demeanor. 2. Aspect; appearance.

He raised and answered the question with the dispassionate mien of a professor advising a student on a course of study.
-- Edith Anderson, Love in Exile

For her part, Amy soon learned to cloak her self-assurance and pride in her achievements in a modest mien.
-- Adrienne Fried Block, Amy Beach: Passionate Victorian

Here Mnemosyne shows her true face, and she is no young beauty. Not for her the unlined mien of the younger Muses.
-- Vera Schwarcz, Bridge Across Broken Time

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Mien perhaps derives from French mine, "bearing, expression," from Breton min, "beak, snout," hence "a person's face."

[felonius]

His mien was eager as he took a seat before the steaming plates of food, asking: "Ching gei wo mien?"

(please give me noodles.)

[ChoChiyo]

My father looked up. His mein was such that I knew I needed to send my soul to heaven as my arse was doomed.

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Monday February 11, 2008

ersatz \AIR-sahts; UR-sats\, adjective: Being a substitute or imitation, usually an inferior one.

Meanwhile, a poor copy was erected in the courtyard; many an unsuspecting traveler paid homage to that ersatz masterpiece.
-- Edith Pearlman, "Girl and Marble Boy", The Atlantic, December 29, 1999

All we can create in that way is an ersatz culture, the synthetic product of those factories we call variously universities, colleges or museums.
-- Sir Herbert Read, The Philosophy of Modern Art

Then there was the sheaf of hostile letters larded with ersatz sympathy, strained sarcasm or pure spite.
-- "Time for GAA to become a persuader", Irish Times, April 13, 1998

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Ersatz derives from German Ersatz, "a substitute."

[felonius]

We all knew Father's jovial mien at the breakfast table that morning was quite ersatz - he'd probably blown all his money on the horse races again and was scared of Mum finding out. But it was too late: her tightly-pressed lips spoke volumes.

[ChoChiyo]

The poser, feigning a fecund mind, merely made a fool of himself, causing others to roll their eyes at the ersatz "genius."

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Tuesday February 12, 2008

copacetic \koh-puh-SET-ik\, adjective: Very satisfactory; fine.

Although all will seem copacetic on the CBS broadcast from Madison Square Garden in New York, there will be a big black cloud hanging over the glitzy proceedings.
-- Patrick MacDonald, "Major labels struggling with huge slump out of tune with listeners", Seattle Times, February 20, 2003

Everything seemed copacetic until a favorite store -- the anchor of the street -- closed suddenly.
-- Heidi Benson, "Yes, We Want No Banana", San Francisco Chronicle, September 30, 2001

Terry Glenn will return to the Patriots on Monday, but don't think that everything is copacetic as far as the oft-troubled receiver is concerned.
-- Michael Felger, "Glenn out to right wrongs; Ready to return to Pats, despite 'bad blood'", Boston Herald, October 3, 2001

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The origin of copacetic is unknown.

[felonius]

Didn't we all start singing Barry Manilow songs the last time this one came up?

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Wednesday February 13, 2008

perdurable \pur-DUR-uh-bul; pur-DYUR-\, adjective: Very durable; lasting; continuing long.

The idea of a classic is historically bound up with the view . . . that there are certain perdurable human truths and values, immune from geographical or historical vitiation.
-- John Romano, "A Novel of Hope and Realism", New York Times, April 4, 1982

In her first book, Lisa See . . . tackles a family -- her own -- whose intricate genealogy, bravura entrepreneurship, bitter adulteries and perdurable rivalries might have intimidated a lesser chronicler into euphemism.
-- Elizabeth Tallent, "Chinese Roots", New York Times, August 27, 1995

A Colombian poet's perdurable love for a woman is tested by "life's changing conditions."
-- "Best Sellers List: January 1 1989", New York Times, January 1, 1989

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Perdurable ultimately comes from Late Latin perdurabilis, from Latin perdurare, to last a long time, to endure, from per-, throughout + durare, to last.

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Thursday February 14, 2008

amative \AM-uh-tiv\, adjective: Pertaining to or disposed to love, especially sexual love; full of love; amorous.

Theoretically, any given left-kisser should meet more right-kissers and, over an amative lifetime, or even good year in junior high, be subtly pressured to shift to the right in order to land a wet one -- or just avoid a broken nose. No?
-- Donald G. McNeil Jr., "Pucker Up, Sweetie, and Tilt Right", New York Times, February 13, 2003

In the spring a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of another nap even more often than it does to amative imaginings, Tennyson to the contrary notwithstanding.
-- "Touch of Spring Fever Makes Whole World Kin", Science News, May 23, 1931

Well, poetry has been erotic, or amative, or something of that sort -- at least a vast deal of it has -- ever since it stopped being epic.
-- Helen Deutsch, "Death, desire and translation: on the poetry of Propertius", TriQuarterly, March 22, 1993

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Amative comes from Medieval Latin amativus, "capable of love," from the past participle of Latin amare, "to love."

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Tuesday February 19, 2008

abominate \uh-BOM-uh-nayt\, transitive verb: To hate in the highest degree; to detest intensely; to loathe; to abhor.

I had no wish to study or learn anything, and as for Latin, I abominated it.
-- Charles Tyng, Before the Wind

Sir Laurence, he said, smiling wanly, "I detest literature. I abominate the theatre. I have a horror of culture. I am only interested in magic!"
-- John Lahr (editor), The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan

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Abominate comes from Latin abominari, "to deprecate as a bad omen, to hate, to detest," from ab- + omen, "an omen."

[KeE]

"I simply abominate the perdurable rumours of a yeti reaching the summit before me", E. Hillary is reported to have said after a wet night in Katmandu.

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Wednesday February 20, 2008

factitious \fak-TISH-uhs\, adjective: 1. Produced artificially, in distinction from what is produced by nature. 2. Artificial; not authentic or genuine; sham.

The extreme arbitrariness of this color in relation to the "real" colors of the human figure indicates that Picasso's initial analysis turned on a redesignation of the idea of local color, displacing it from the surfaces of the natural world to the wholly factitious veneers in the world of cultural artifacts.
-- David Carrier, "Modernist art and its market", Art Journal, Winter 1998

When a significant level of distrust evolves among segments of the public, for genuine or factitious reasons, police may be seen as "them" as opposed to the "us" of the general populace.
-- Woody West, "Cops Get Caught in a Catch-22", Insight on the News, July 17, 2000

I sensed that it was time to step back, take stock, and try to untangle and think through a series of events, a great many of which I had either undergone with impassioned abandon or been asked to write about with factitious enthusiasm (a constant temptation for cultural critics who are expected to celebrate the new).
-- James Miller, Flowers in the Dustbin

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Factitious comes from Latin facticius, "made by art, artificial," from the past participle of facere, "to make."

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Thursday February 21, 2008

relegate \REL-uh-gayt\, transitive verb: 1. To assign to an inferior position, place, or condition. 2. To assign to an appropriate category or class. 3. To assign or refer (a matter or task, for example) to another for appropriate action. 4. To send into exile; to banish.

Employment discrimination locked them out of better paying jobs and relegated them to menial occupations.
-- Dennis C. Dickerson, Militant Mediator: Whitney M. Young Jr.

Worse, the party that had come to mean power itself had been relegated to a minority in the Congress as well, and lost a key governorship.
-- Geoffrey Mohan, "Mexico Power Shift", Newsday, July 4, 2000

The EPA, meanwhile, has been developing new rules that essentially would relegate agricultural runoff to the same category as pollution from concentrated sources such as factories and sewage plants.
-- John Lancaster, "For Big Hog Farms, Big Subsidies", Washington Post, August 17, 2001

Their daily care was relegated to Donato, the dozen servants, and a succession of governesses.
-- Tag Gallagher, The Adventures of Roberto Rossellini

The history of ideas can't be done without actually applying ideas; and unless we agree to relegate the writing of our history to Martians, we have to admit that a history of points of view -- which may well be religions -- can't be done without favoring at least one point of view.
-- William R. Everdell, "Joyful Noises", New York Times, December 26, 1999

When, in the minority of Carlos II., the regent mother, Maria Anna of Austria, made her German Jesuit confessor Nithard inquisitor-general, it required a popular uprising to get rid of him and relegate him to Rome, for he was speedily becoming the real ruler of Spain.
-- Henry Charles Lea, "The Decadence of Spain", Atlantic Monthly, July 1898

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Relegate is from the past participle of Latin relegare, "to send away, to remove, to put aside, to reject," from re- + legare, "to send with a commission or charge."

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Friday February 22, 2008

dissolute \DIS-uh-loot\, adjective: Loose in morals and conduct; marked by indulgence in sensual pleasures or vices.

I had heard talk that Tosca, for all the dissolute life she led, was a pious person who frequented churches with scrupulous regularity, yet in this conduct I had always suspected a pose, an affectation.
-- Paola Capriolo, Floria Tosca (translated by Liz Heron)

In 1788 . . . George III succumbed to the first attack of madness, the violent symptoms of which required the appointment of his oldest son, the Prince of Wales, as Regent. The King regained his reason the following year and resumed power, but already the high living "Prinnie" and his dissolute friends had changed the tone of the court.
-- Benita Eisler, Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame

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Dissolute comes from the past participle of Latin dissolvere, "to loosen," from dis- + solvere, "to release."

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Monday February 25, 2008

lissom \LISS-uhm\, adjective; also lissome: 1. Limber; supple; flexible. 2. Light and quick in action; nimble; agile; active.

Raphaelle Boitel moves with the lissom, contortionist plastique of a snake-woman.
-- Nadine Meisner, "Clowns real and imagined", Independent, April 20, 2001

Her foot touches the plate and sets off the trap, but so swift and lissome is she that her ankles evade the clash of the serrated iron jaws as they spring together.
-- John Bayley, Iris and Her Friends

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Lissom is an alteration of lithesome, which derives from Old English lithe, "flexible, mild, gentle."

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Tuesday February 26, 2008

aplomb \uh-PLOM\, noun: Assurance of manner or of action; self-possession; confidence; coolness.

Then, unexpectedly, she picked up a microphone and began to sing. She sang several songs, handling herself with the aplomb of a professional entertainer.
-- "Rediscovering Japanese Life at a Bike's Pace", New York Times, April 24, 1988

For all the slings and arrows, he seems almost preternaturally good-natured; set upon by a group of drunken revelers at dinner in Des Moines, . . . he weathers their boozy blandishments and inevitable potato jokes with admirable grace and aplomb.
-- "Quayle Running Against His Own Image", Los Angeles Times, August 1, 1999

His initial broadcasting success was due at least as much to his considerable professional aplomb as it was to his father's broadcasting connections.
-- John A. Jackson, American Bandstand: Dick Clark and the Making of a Rock 'n' Roll Empire

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Aplomb is from the French word meaning "perpendicularity, equilibrium, steadiness, assurance," from the Old French phrase a plomb, from a, "according to" (from Latin ad) + plomb, "lead weight" (from Latin plumbum, "lead").

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Wednesday February 27, 2008

temerarious \tem-uh-RAIR-ee-uhs\, adjective: Recklessly or presumptuously daring; rash.

Becket's slayers insist that the king had indeed authorized or directed murder, an interpretation fortified by Henry's known enmity toward the temerarious priest for protesting the subordination of ecclesiastical to secular authority.
-- Bruce Fein, "Free speech or call to violence?", Washington Times, April 10, 2001

I have confessed myself a temerarious theologian, and in that passage from boyhood to manhood I ranged widely in my search for some permanently satisfying Truth.
-- H. G. Wells, The New Machiavelli

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Temerarious comes from Latin temerarius, "rash," from temere, "rashly, heedlessly."

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Thursday February 28, 2008

fallible \FAL-uh-bul\, adjective: 1. Liable to make a mistake. 2. Liable to be inaccurate or erroneous.

But human beings are fallible. We know we all make mistakes.
-- Robert S. McNamara, "et al.", Argument Without End

Jack Kerouac was neither a demon nor a saint but a fallible, notably gentle, deeply conflicted and finally self-destructive person whose dream from childhood was to be a writer.
-- Morris Dickstein, "Beyond Beat", New York Times, August 9, 1998

On the other hand, mathematics does not rely on evidence from fallible experimentation, but it is built on infallible logic.
-- Simon Singh, Fermat's Enigma

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Fallible derives from Medieval Latin fallibilis, from Latin fallere, "to deceive." It is related to fail, false (from falsum, the past participle of fallere), fallacy ("a false notion"), fault (from Old French falte, from fallere), and faucet (from Old Provençal falsar, "to falsify, to create a fault in, to bore through," from fallere).

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Friday February 29, 2008

supererogatory \soo-puhr-ih-ROG-uh-tor-ee\, adjective: 1. Going beyond what is required or expected. 2. Superfluous; unnecessary.

As a result, Crane's moral reflections range from the pre-ethical (duties toward animals) to the properly ethical (conduct toward humans in ordinary situations) to the optional and supererogatory (heroic actions above and beyond ethical obligation).
-- Patrick K. Dooley, "The humanism of Stephen Crane", The Humanist, January 11, 1996

He deemed the leading of an ascetic life ultimately as a supererogatory act, since baptism was the sole criterion by which one's Christian identity could be defined.
-- Willemien Otten, "Augustine on marriage, monasticism, and the community of the church", Theological Studies, September 1, 1998

Remember that Stencil has not given up his search for further evidence at the novel's end, but that evidence, while adding possible refinement to his thesis, has become supererogatory to the proof of its overall correctness.
-- Kenneth Kupsch, "Finding V", Twentieth Century Literature, December 22, 1998

The interpretive stance here is complex, persuasive, and for the most part refreshingly free of supererogatory theoretical gestures.
-- Alice Falk, "Victorian Poetry: Poetry, Poetics, and Politics", College Literature, June 1, 1995

The best opera directors accept this primacy of music in creating theatrical illusion; the worst ones swamp it with overblown stage effects which make the music, as it were supererogatory.
-- Terry Teachout, "Words, music, opera", Commentary, December 1, 1995

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Supererogatory comes from Latin supererogare, "to spend over and above," from super, "over, above" + erogare, "to ask for," from e-, "out" + rogare, "to ask, to request."

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Monday March 3, 2008

recherche \ruh-sher-SHAY\, adjective: 1. Uncommon; exotic; rare.
2. Exquisite; choice. 3. Excessively refined; affected. 4. Pretentious; overblown.

. . .recherche topics interesting only to university specialists.
-- Katharine Washburn and John F. Thornton, Dumbing Down

She was mocking the pretensions of the cookery writer who insists on recherche ingredients not because of their qualities but their snob value.
-- Angela Carter, Shaking a Leg

In recent years, Garber's appetite for the rigors of theory seems to have diminished. The books have kept coming, but the italics-heavy meditations and the recherche terminology have receded.
-- Zoë Heller, "House Arrest", The New Republic, July 3, 2000

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Recherche comes from French, from rechercher, "to seek out," from re- + chercher, "to look for, to seek."