GAME: Word of the Day (WOTD)

Post by **Ghost** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 9:33 am

Word of the Day for Monday February 21, 2005

faineant \fay-nay-AWN\, adjective: Doing nothing or given to doing nothing; idle; lazy.

noun: A do-nothing; an idle fellow; a sluggard.

Yet if nonhunters ever knew how many properly dressed, entirely palatable big-game carcasses wind up in dumpsters because someone was simply too faineant to butcher and cook and eat an animal he could find the time and energy to shoot and kill, hunting would be in even greater jeopardy than it is today.
--Thomas McIntyre, "The meaning of meat," Sports Afield, August 1, 1997

According to Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Charles II was no faineant half-wit but a conscientious and reflective king.
--David Gilmour, "The falsity of 'true Spain,'" The Spectator, July 22, 2000

A faineant government is not the worst government that England can have. It has been the great fault of our politicians that they have all wanted to do something.
--Anthony Trollope, Phineas Finn

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Faineant is from French, from Middle French fait, "does" + nÃ©ant, "nothing."

/now get off your butt and go do something!

Aunflin · Post by **Aunflin** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 10:36 am

Now, that's the word for me: I was too faineant to read the EAP story of the week: "William Wilson."

Post by **Ghost** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 8:23 am

Word of the Day for Tuesday February 22, 2005

perforce \pur-FORS\, adverb: By necessity; by force of circumstance.

It will be an astonishing sight, should it come to pass, and even those of us who have followed every twist and turn of this process will perforce rub our eyes.
--"Unionists sit tight as the poker game nears its climax," Irish Times, July 10, 1999

. . . the error of supposing that, because everything indeed is not right with the world, everything must accordingly be wrong with the world; the error of supposing that, because we are plainly not a race of angels, we must perforce be a race of beasts.
--James Gardner, "Infinite Jest (book reviews)," National Review, June 17, 1996

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Perforce comes from French par force, "by force."

/me mother would often say, "don't perforce me to beat you

!"

Post by **Ghost** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 8:31 am

Word of the Day for Wednesday February 23, 2005

mellifluous \muh-LIF-loo-us\, adjective: Flowing as with honey; flowing sweetly or smoothly; as, a mellifluous voice.

The balladeer whose mellifluous voice serenaded two generations of lovers.
--Margo Jefferson, "Unforgettable," New York Times, December 26, 1999

The tones were high-sounding, mellifluous, as if the speaker was reading from a book of old English verse while holding back any trace of sentiment or emotion.
--Ken Gormley, Archibald Cox: Conscience of a Nation

I picked up more mellifluous words when a family friend came over to teach me some Chilean music on my guitar.
--Edward Hower, "No Frogs Allowed," New York Times, January 30, 2000

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Mellifluous comes from Latin mellifluus, from mel, "honey" + fluus, "flowing," from fluere, "to flow."

felonius · Post by **felonius** » Thu Feb 24, 2005 8:15 am

"Try to maintain high mellifluousness without becoming too superfluous," President Bush's PR man advised just as GW was about to step onto the podium.

"Superfluous?" asked George W, raising his eyebrows. "What are you talking about - I feel perfectly fine!"

"Uh...that's great, sir. Knock 'em dead. And remember to watch those verb tenses. We'd just use the Cheney wire again - but people have started to notice that you never speak when Dick's taking a drink of water."

Post by **Ghost** » Thu Feb 24, 2005 8:18 am

Word of the Day for Thursday February 24, 2005

eschew \es-CHOO\, transitive verb: To shun; to avoid (as something wrong or distasteful).

In high school and college the Vassar women had enjoyed that lifestyle, but afterward they had eschewed it as shallow.
--Nina Burleigh, A Very Private Woman

While teaching in Beijing, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang in the late 1920s, he helped launch what became known as the "new poetry" movement, which eschewed traditional forms and encouraged topics based on everyday life.
--Bruce Gilley, Tiger on the Brink

Finally, the first American diplomats . . . made a point of eschewing fancy dress, titles, entertainments, and all manner of protocol, so as to be walking, talking symbols of republican piety.
--Walter A. McDougall, Promised Land, Crusader State

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Eschew comes from Old French eschiver, ultimately of Germanic origin.

/me doesn't want to go there

Post by **laurie** » Thu Feb 24, 2005 9:39 pm

Ghost eschewed commenting on Felonius' little one-scene drama.

Post by **Ghost** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 8:11 am

Word of the Day for Friday February 25, 2005

blackguard \BLAG-uhrd\, noun: 1. A rude or unscrupulous person; a scoundrel. 2. A person who uses foul or abusive language.

adjective: Scurrilous; abusive; low; worthless; vicious; as, "blackguard language."

transitive verb: To revile or abuse in scurrilous language.

Douglas was not a saint, though, so his behaviour and attitude were, as he wrote, 'neither better nor worse than my contemporaries -- that is to say, a finished young blackguard, ripe for any kind of wickedness'.
--Douglas Murray, Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas

The years, as time went on, imparted to him that peculiar majesty that white-haired blackguards, successful (and unpunished) criminals, seem generally to possess.
--Saul David, Prince of Pleasure

Monroe wondered, but did not ask, what could have driven a young lady of such fine bearing and aristocratic attraction to leave home at a tender age and follow the fortunes of a blackguard like Reynolds.
--William Safire, Scandalmonger

When we want to talk friendly with him, he will not listen to us, and from beginning to end his talk is blackguard.
--Tecumseh, quoted in Tecumseh: A Life, by John Sugden

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Blackguard is from black + guard. The term originally referred to the lowest kitchen servants of a court or of a nobleman's household. They had charge of pots and pans and kitchen other utensils, and rode in wagons conveying these during journeys from one residence to another. Being dirtied by this task, they were jocularly called the "black guard."

Post by **Ghost** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 8:28 am

Word of the Day for Monday February 28, 2005

incipient \in-SIP-ee-uhnt\, adjective: Beginning to exist or appear.

Also, improved diagnostic techniques can alert individuals to incipient illnesses.
--James Flanigan, "Patients' Rights and Health-Care Costs Are Expanding Together," Los Angeles Times, May 2, 1999

Shiv gradually became aware that he was onto something big, bigger than anything he had ever done before. He was nudged by an incipient awareness that perhaps it was even too big for him.
--Ken Kalfus, Pu-239 and Other Russian Fantasies

She sighed for him; so young, and yet so passÃ©, and with an incipient beer belly.
--Shena MacKay, The Artist's Widow

Sir George devoted much of his energies to worrying about money and was preoccupied by thoughts of his incipient pauperdom.
--Philip Ziegler, Osbert Sitwell

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Incipient is derived from Latin incipere, "to undertake, to begin" (literally "to take in"), from in-, "in" + capere, "to take." It is related to inception, "beginning, commencement."

Post by **Ghost** » Tue Mar 01, 2005 8:14 am

Word of the Day for Tuesday March 1, 2005

salubrious \suh-LOO-bree-us\, adjective: Favorable to health; promoting health; healthful.

A physician warned him his health was precarious, so Montague returned to the United States, shelved his legal ambitions and searched for a salubrious climate where he might try farming.
--"Teeing Off Into the Past At Oakhurst," New York Times, May 2, 1999

For years, her mother has maintained that the sea air has a salubrious effect on both her spirits and her vocal cords.
--Anita Shreve, Fortune's Rocks

Uptown, however, the tanners' less salubrious quarter is notorious for its stench.
--"Byzantium," Toronto Star, February 7, 1999

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Salubrious is from Latin salubris, "healthful," from salus, "health."

/me feels much better now - thank you

.

Post by **laurie** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 10:28 pm

Ghost wrote: /me feels much better now - thank you.

Are you sure about that, Ghostie? You seem to have omitted a WOTD for today ...

felonius · Post by **felonius** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 6:57 am

Perhaps yesterday's WOTD was lugubrious.

Post by **Ghost** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 9:08 am

laurie wrote:
Ghost wrote: /me feels much better now - thank you.
Are you sure about that, Ghostie? You seem to have omitted a WOTD for today ...

Oops

felonius wrote:Perhaps yesterday's WOTD was lugubrious.

Actually the WOTD for yesterday was languorous

!

Word of the Day for Thursday March 3, 2005

gelid \JEL-id\, adjective: Extremely cold; icy.

The weather is gelid on a recent Thursday night--so uninviting that it's hard to imagine anyone venturing out.
--Letta Tayler, "The Accent's on Brooklyn," Newsday, April 6, 2000

Last January a major crisis arose when the Argentine naval supply ship Bahia Paraiso foundered near an island off the Antarctic Peninsula, creating a diesel-oil spill that inflicted untold damage on the ecosystems clinging to the edges of the icy continent or swimming in its gelid seas.
--Christopher Redman Paris, "Could anything be more terrible than this silent, windswept immensity?" Time, October 23, 1989

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Gelid comes from Latin gelidus, from gelu, "frost, cold."

ChoChiyo · Post by **ChoChiyo** » Thu Mar 03, 2005 10:21 am

Lounging languorously in his in his cushy recliner, wearing a satin smoking jacket, Ghost refrained from posting a WOTD at the IBDoF.

Post by **Ghost** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 8:22 am

Word of the Day for Friday March 4, 2005

billet \BIL-it\, noun: 1. Lodging for soldiers. 2. An official order directing that a soldier be provided with lodging. 3. A position of employment; a job.

transitive verb: 1. To quarter, or place in lodgings. 2. To serve (a person) with an official order to provide lodging for soldiers.

intransitive verb: To be quartered; to lodge.

When he was well enough, he was retrieved back to his billet in the American zone.
--Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold War

Louisa stayed at the hospital to be near him, while the younger children were billeted at a nearby house with their Irish governess.
--Douglas Botting, Gerald Durrell

We arrived jet-lagged at Tan Son Nhut airport where someone met us and hurried us off to wherever we were billeted, usually a villa on one of the wide residential boulevards that reminded everyone of a French provincial city.
--Ward Just, A Dangerous Friend

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Billet is from Medieval French billette, from Old French bullette, diminutive of bulle, "a document," from Medieval Latin bulla, "a document."

/me always thought Bullette was another name for landshark

.

Post by **Ghost** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 8:13 am

Word of the Day for Monday March 7, 2005

fey \FAY\, adjective: 1. Possessing or displaying a strange and otherworldly aspect or quality; magical or fairylike; elfin. 2. Having power to see into the future; visionary; clairvoyant. 3. Appearing slightly crazy, as if under a spell; touched. 4. (Scots.) Fated to die; doomed. 5. (Scots.) Marked by a sense of approaching death.

. . . the former a gang of dangerous delinquents, fearless, macho, vulgar . . . , the latter a group of mischievous schoolboys, whimsical, fey, sophisticated and daringly experimental.
--Sean Kelly, "What Did You Expect, the Spanish Inquisition?" New York Times, July 25, 1999

Beneath a fey manner, his mother was highly competitive.
--Evan Thomas, The Very Best Men

Leo, suddenly fey, sports a rhinestone ascot and black velvet waistcoat, homburg and walking stick.
--Edward Karam, "Fast and louche," Times (London), March 29, 2001

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Fey comes from Middle English feye, feie, from Old English fÃ¦ge, "fated to die."

/me -->

felonius · Post by **felonius** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 9:29 am

Perhaps this explains the moniker of Feyd from the first Dune novel?

Post by **clong** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 10:10 am

But at that same moment there was a flash, as if lightning had sprung from the earth beneath the City. For a searing second it stood dazzling far off in black and white, its topmost tower like a glittering needle; and then as the darkness closed again there came rolling over the fields a great boom.

At that sound the bent shape of the king sprang suddenly erect. Tall and proud he seemed again; and rising in his stirrups he cried in a loud voice, more clear than any there had ever heard a mortal man achieve before:

Arise, arise, Riders of ThÃ©oden!
Fell deeds awake; fire and slaughter!
spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,
a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!
Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!

With that he seized a great horn from GuthlÃ¡f his banner-bearer, and he blew such a blast upon it that it burst asunder. And straightway all the horns in the host were lifted up in music, and the blowing of the horns of Rohan in that hour was like a storm upon the plain and a thunder in the mountains.

Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!

Suddenly the king cried to Snowmane and the horse sprang away. Behind him his banner blew in the wind, white horse upon a field of green, but he outpaced it. After him thundered the knights of his house, but he was ever before them. Ã‰omer rode there, the white horsetail on his helm floating in his speed, and the front of his Ã©ored roared like a breaker foaming to the shore, but ThÃ©oden could not be overtaken. Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins, and he was borne up on Snowmane like a god of old, even as OromÃ« the Great in the battle of the Valar when the world was young. His golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it shone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed. For morning came, morning and a wind from the sea; and darkness was removed, and the hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them. And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.

â€”The Lord of the Rings, Book V, â€œThe Ride of the Rohirrimâ€

felonius · Post by **felonius** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 10:27 am

CLONG: My man!

Post by **Ghost** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 10:34 am

clong: That was unbelievable

and worthy of a Sherlock (which I now bestow upon thy -

)

tollbaby · Post by **tollbaby** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 10:43 am

Ghost wrote:clong: That was unbelievable and worthy of a Sherlock (which I now bestow upon thy - )

"thee" would be the demonstrative...

"thy" is possessive.

Post by **Ghost** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 11:03 am

I could try the excuse that I havenâ€™t had my caffeine yet

(as someone else used

), but I don't drink coffee.

The mistake is obviously because I havenâ€™t finished my morning glass of cool water.

/Or because me "ole english" is hoary.

tollbaby · Post by **tollbaby** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 1:39 pm

hm... I'm not sure if it's your "ole english" or my tired old brain which is demonstrating a tendency towards hoariness.... maybe that's why they call it the "gray matter", after all

Post by **Ghost** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 8:16 am

Word of the Day for Tuesday March 8, 2005

ambuscade \AM-buh-skayd; am-buh-SKAYD\, noun: An ambush.

transitive verb: To attack by surprise from a concealed place; to ambush.

But so great were his fears for the army, lest in those wild woods it should fall into some Indian snare, that the moment his fever left him, he got placed on his horse, and pursued, and overtook them the very evening before they fell into that ambuscade which he had all along dreaded.
--Mason Locke Weems, The Life of Washington

The storm is distant, just the lights behind
The eyes are left of lightning's ambuscade.
--Peter Porter, "The Last Wave Before the Breakwater"

No more ambuscades, no more shooting from behind trees.
--William Murchison, "What the voters chose," Human Life Review, January 1, 1995

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Ambuscade comes from Middle French embuscade, from Old Italian imboscata, from past participle of imboscare, "to ambush," from in, (from Latin) + bosco, "forest," of Germanic origin.

Post by **Ghost** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 8:30 am

Word of the Day for Wednesday March 9, 2005

gourmand \goor-MAHND; GOOR-mahnd; GOOR-mund\, noun: 1. One who eats to excess. 2. A lover of good food.

A gourmand who zealously avoids all exercise as "seriously damaging to one's health," he had caviar for breakfast and was now having oysters for lunch, whetted with wine, as he fueled himself for a postprandial reading at the Montauk Club in Brooklyn.
--"The Man Who Put Horace Rumpole on the Case," New York Times, April 12, 1995

Her husband was stigmatised as a 'gourmand' who excessively enjoyed 'the pleasures of the table'.
--Andrew Motion, Keats

Fifine was a frank gourmand; anybody could win her heart through her palate.
--Charlotte BrontÃ«, Villette

Jos, that fat gourmand, drank up the whole contents of the bowl.
--William Thackeray, Vanity Fair

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Gourmand is from French gourmand, "greedy."

[SIDE NOTE: A gourmet is one who has discriminating taste in food and wine. A gourmand is one who enjoys food of fine quality, and also one who enjoys food in great quantities. Glutton signifies one who simply eats to excess, without reference to the quality of the fare consumed.]