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the worthless word for the day is: gleek
to joke or jest
the worthless word for the day is: whelm
to cover or engulf completely with usually
disastrous effect
the worthless word for the day is: bezonian
a low fellow or scoundrel
the worthless word for the day is: geck
a dupe
Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd
Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,
And made the most notorious geck and gull
That e'er invention play'd on? tell me why.
- Malvolio, in Twelfth Night
the worthless word for the day is: furrahin
[Scot] the right-hand hindmost horse that
walks in the furrow in plowing
the worthless word for the day is: octothorp(e)
the symbol # on your telephone or keyboard
(hash mark, pound sign, number sign)
the worthless word for the day is: cafard
[F] severe depression or apathy
also, idiomatically, the blues
the worthless word for the day is: grimthorpe
to remodel or restore an old building without proper
grounding or knowledge of its authentic character or
without exercising care to remain faithful to its
original quality and uniqueness; after Baron
Grimthorpe, English lawyer and architect, restorer of
St. Alban's cathedral -- nice legacy...
the worthless word for the day is: enantiodromia
the changing of something into its opposite
here's an article proposing that words which
have developed diametrically opposed meanings
be referred to as enantiodromic [this interesting
article seems to be no longer available online,
probably due to the publication of Julain Burnside's
Wordwatching]
I have long sought a word to describe this
phenomenon; unfortunately this one doesn't cover
the special case where two different words with
opposite meanings have come to have the same
spelling -- cleave is an example of this.
the worthless word for the day is: subfusc
[Brit] drab, dusky
the worthless word for the day is: circumbendibus
an indirect or roundabout course, esp. in speaking
or writing: circumlocution
the worthless word for the day is: epeolatry
the worship of words
the worthless word for the day is: fardel
bundle; burden
When he himself might his Quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To groan and sweat under a weary life...
-Hamlet
the worthless word for the day is: quisquilious
of the nature of rubbish or refuse;
trashy, worthless
the worthless word for the day is: maunder
maunder \MON-duhr\, intransitive verb:
1. To talk incoherently; to speak in a rambling manner.
2. To wander aimlessly or confusedly.
Two drunken couples . . . maunder in an all-too-familiar vein about love.
-- Anatole Broyard, New York Times, April 15, 1981
It is a play with melodramatic themes, but García Lorca has put aside temptation to let it maunder, scream or otherwise let the emotions take over.
-- Richard F. Shepard, "Stage: 'Bernarda Alba' Produced in Spanish", New York Times, November 23, 1979
As in one of his earlier novels , . . . Kerr invents a credibly grim scenario for our future: most of the earth's inhabitants are infected with a deadly virus and maunder in fetid cities.
-- Charles Flowers, "Blood on the Moon (Really!)", New York Times, February 14, 1999
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maunder is perhaps a dialectal variant of meander (possibly influenced by wander).
the worthless word for the day is: sarculate
[fr. L. sarculum]
rare to hoe, weed (also sarcle)
hence sarculation, hoeing
"Their Sarculation was used but amongst small
Quantities of sown Corn."
- Jethro Tull(!!), The new horse-houghing* husbandry
(1733)
the worthless word for the day is: popination
[fr. L. popinari, to frequent eating-houses]
obs. rare
an outrageous drinking; a haunting of taverns
(barhopping, according to Beyond Balderdash®)
found in Bailey (1623) and Phillips (1658)
"When I first entered the bar,
I knew she was into popination."
(not related to soda pop, popery, or propination(!))
the worthless word for the day is: magiric
[f. ancient Gk. magiros(?), cook]
obs. rare
of or relating to cookery; the art of cooking
"From time to time, I actually don a white chef's
jacket and toque and, on those occasions, persons
who do not hold me in sufficient reverence have
been heard to suggest that I look a bit like the
Swedish chef. Given my magiric aspirations, I
take that as a compliment."
- Father Steve, AWADtalk Jan. 15, 2005
the worthless word for the day is: propination
[f. L. propinatio, a drink to one's health]
obs. rare
the action of offering drink to another in
pledging; the drinking to the health of someone
(not to be confused with popination..)
"'Props!' barked Kit Seelye, never looking up. I
snatched at the possibilities of meanings for the
plural noun... That's it: props, coined on the West
Coast in the music business, is a slang term for
"proper respect" and is now sweeping the country,
or at least my newsroom. (Consequently, propination
means "a toast to someone's health.")"
- William Safire, The New York Times, 30 June 2002
the worthless word for the day is: facundity
[f. L. facundus] archaic
eloquence; effective communication in speech
(not to be confused with fecundity)
"Two love sequences.. have a fine poetic
facundity, but that is all."
- Times Lit. Suppl. 17 Feb. 1921
the worthless word for the day is: disworth
obs. rare
to deprive of worth; to render worthless or unworthy
(from the archaic verb worth; to happen, to become
the stem is prob. the same as that of L. vertere, to
turn with the sense in Germanic having developed
into that of to turn into, to become)
"Nothing more disworthes man than Cowardice."
- Owen Feltham,
Resolves divine, morall, politicall (1627)
or, what do you make of this:
"My intent is not to render words worthless, or
disworth them, but rather to suggest to the reader
that some of these most obscure and neglected words
may actually be worthy of seeing the light of day."
- submitted as suggestion for new wwftd disclaimer
the worthless word for the day is: direptitious
obs. rare
(after surreptitious, f. L. direption, the sacking
or pillaging of a town, f. diripere, to tear asunder)
characterized by plundering or pillaging
hence direptitiously
"The grants surreptitiously and direptitiously
obtained." - R. Bowyer (recorded by Strype from 1532)
the worthless word for the day is: lixiviate
[fr. L. lixivus, made into lye; fr. lix, ashes, lye]
1) to impregnate with lixivium or lye
2) to subject to a washing process for the purpose
of separating soluble material from that which is
insoluble; to leach, as ashes, for the purpose of
extracting the alkaline substances
"Collect some charcoal ashes from the crucible
furnace and lixiviate them."
- Michael Faraday, Chemical Manipulation (1827)
"The great ocean lixiviates our earth."
- Chamber's Journal (1854)
the worthless word for the day is: desublimation
[fr. L. sublimare, to sublime + de-]
(to sublime is taken in the sense to convert
(something inferior) into something of higher worth)
a process by which things are undone that were
previously sublimated on a higher level of the
cultural scale [after Marcuse]
"...certain key notions and images of literature and
their fate will illustrate how the progress of
technological rationality is liquidating the
oppositional and transcending elements in the
'higher culture.' They succumb in fact to the process
of desublimation which prevails in the advanced regions
of contemporary society."
- Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (1964)
"Herbert Marcuse's once influential The Aesthetic
Dimension argues that aesthetic form allows a given
(social) reality (or the reification thereof) to be
sublimated and thus transcended. In turn, this process
engenders in an audience a rebellious subjectivity --
a desublimation of the audience's perceptions,
creating a potential indictment of the dominant
ideology. Art is thus a dissenting force."
- Words of Art, compiled by Robert J. Belton
the worthless word for the day is: aichmophobia
[fr. Gk. aichmê(?), spear point] /IKE mo ~/
the fear of sharp or pointed objects
"Fencing was a sport I really enjoyed... Some people
cannot stand knives, swords, bayonets, anything sharp;
psychiatrists have a word for it: aichmophobia. Idiots
who drive cars a hundred miles an hour on fifty-mile-
an-hour roads will nevertheless panic at the sight of
a bare blade."
- R. A. Heinlein, Glory Road
Aichmophobia's common in tots
When it comes time for getting their shots.
Immunizing is quick
But they're spooked by the prick.
Still, it's better than swellings and spots.
- Virge, courtesy of OEDILF
the worthless word for the day is: iridology
[a. Gk. irido, comb. form of iris, + -logy]
in alternative medicine, the study of the iris
as a basis for diagnosis
"In general iridology is not thought to be as
valuable as more orthodox forms of diagnosis."
- The Times, 17 Nov 1989
""The theory is simple. Flecks, streaks, spots,
or discolorations within a particular section of
the iris indicate that there is a trouble spot,
a weakness in a corresponding area of the body.
As a diagnostic tool, it far exceeds the reaches
of conventional medicine... Iridology is a science
that can see the future..."
A soothsayer, I think."
- Monique Truong, The Book of Salt
the worthless word for the day is: cogitabund
[fr. L. cogitabundus, thinking; fr. cogitare, to think]
archaic
given to deep thought, having the appearance of being
in deep meditation: pensive
"Thou art cogitabund; thy head is running upon thy
poetry." - Thomas Southerne, The Wive's Excuse (1692)
"Is not the humour of them elaborate, cogitabund,
fanciful?" - James H. L. Hunt, The Indicator (1821)
the worthless word for the day is: koan
[fr. Jp. ko, public + an, proposition] /KO an/
a paradox used in meditation for the training of
Zen Buddhist monks to abandon dependence on reason
and rather gain sudden intuitive enlightenment
Now we can do a more advanced exercise, based on
a Zen koan called "Ganto's Ax". Here is how it begins:
One day Tokusan told his student Ganto, "I have two
monks who have been here for many years. Go and
examine them." Ganto picked up an ax and went to the
hut where the two monks were meditating. He raised the
ax, saying, "If you say a word I will cut off your
heads; and if you do not say a word, I will also cut
off your heads."
- Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: an EGB
the worthless word for the day is: palpation
[fr. L. palpatio]
an examination by touch, esp. medical
(the verb palpate is probably by back-formation)
a retired doctor writes:
I once had an embarrassing faux pas in iridology.
I failed to detect a glass eye. I still feel the
shame of it. I had omitted palpation.
"Signs characteristic of tendinitis include lameness,
swelling, increased heat, and pain on palpation."
- TheHorse.com (KY) Feb 2, 2005
"After pregnancy had been confirmed by palpation,
the mares were randomly placed on either infected
or non-infected fescue pasture on Oct. 1, 1987."
- Les Sellnow(!), Western Horseman April 1999
---
the Zen koan called "Ganto's Ax" goes on:
Both monks continued their meditation as if he
[Ganto] had not spoken. Ganto dropped
the ax and said, "You are true Zen students."
the worthless word for the day is: abreaction
[part translation of German Abreagierung,
catharsis fr. L. reagere, to react]
(but contrast catharsis)
the expression and emotional discharge of
unconscious material (as a repressed idea or
emotion) by verbalization especially in the
presence of a therapist
the worthless word for the day is: gnome
[fr. Gk. gnome thought, judgement, opinion]
a short pithy statement of a general truth;
a proverb, maxim, aphorism, or apophthegm
"Many of the sublimer flights of meditation in
Sophocles are expansions of early Gnomes."
- J. A. Symonds, Studies of the Greek Poets
gnome is not to be confused with a dwarfish gnome;
the connection commonly assumed seems unlikely (per
the OED), even though they share the short aspect.
gnome [fr. L. gnomus] - an elemental being that
inhabits the earth
"I send you herewith a Gothic gnome for your
Greek nymph; but the gnome is interesting, I think,
and he came out of a deep mine, where he guards
the fountain of tears. It is not always the time to
rejoice. - Yours ever, <signed> R. L. S."
- Robert Louis Stevenson, a letter
the worthless word for the day is: muffish
[fr. colloq. muff, itself of uncertain origin,
but see Brewer for muff] Brit. colloq.
foolish; incompetent; clumsy
hence muffishness - foolishness; awkwardness
"By contrast everyone born since 1908 seems squat,
indigent, muffish." - Times Lit. Suppl. 14 Feb 1958
"No matter if, in the time of crinolines, she
sacrifices decency; in the time of trains,
cleanliness; in the time of tied-back skirts, modesty;
no matter either, if she makes herself a nuisance and
an inconvenience to every one she meets; the girl of
the period has done away with such moral muffishness
as consideration for others or regard for counsel and
rebuke." - Eliza Lynn Linton,
from The Girl of the Period (1868)
"Muff. A dull, stupid person. Sir Henry Muff, one of
the candidates in Dudley's interlude, called The Rival
Candidates (1774), is a stupid, blundering dolt."
- Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
the worthless word for the day is: dowsabel
[from the female name Dulcibella] obs.
sweetheart; perhaps first used in some pastoral
song, whence applied generically to a sweetheart
as a name:
To Adriana! that is where we din'd,
Where Dowsabel did claim me for her husband:
She is too big, I hope, for me to compass.
- W. Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors (1590)
as a noun:
"Give me her for my Dowsabel."
- Charles Cotton, Scoffer Scoft (1675)
sweet-heart itself is very old (predating Chaucer)
For-yeue it me myn owene swete herte.
- Chaucer, Troylus (c1374)
the worthless word for the day is: februation
[fr. L. februare, to purify (cf. L. Februarius,
the Roman festival of purification, held on the
15th of this month)]
now rare
a ceremonial purification or cleansing; a sacrifice
cf. februate - obs. to purify
"The passing of children through fire without either
slaying or burning; a februation by fire."
- James Martin, tr. Keil's Biblical commentary
on the prophecies of Ezekiel
the worthless word for the day is: lupercalian
[fr. L. Lupercus, god of flocks]
related to or characteristic of an ancient Roman
festival (Lupercalia) celebrated February 15 to
ensure fertility for the people, fields and flocks
ah, those fun-loving Romans, two festivals on one
day; the confusion is somewhat alleviated by this:
"After the sacrifice was over, the Luperci partook of
a meal, at which they were plentifully supplied with
wine. They then cut the skins of the goats which they
had sacrificed, into pieces; with some of which they
covered parts of their body in imitation of the god
Lupercus, who was represented half naked and half
covered with goat-skin. The other pieces of the skins
they cut into thongs, and holding them in their hands
they ran through the streets of the city, touching or
striking with them all persons whom they met in their
way, and especially women... This act of running about
with thongs of goat-skin was a symbolic purification of
the land, and that of touching persons a purification
of men, for the words by which this act is designated
are februare and lustrare. The goat-skin itself was
called februum, the festive day dies februata, the
month in which it occurred Februarius, and the god
himself Februus."
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities,
John Murray, London, 1875
the worthless word for the day is: okhrana
[fr. Russian oxrana, lit. guarding, protection,
security] /ah KRAH nuh/ also okhranka
in Imperial Russia: a secret police department
set up in 1881 (after the assassination of Tsar
Alexander II) to maintain state security and
suppress revolutionary activities, and abolished
after the February Revolution in 1917 (now Hist.)
the security services of the Soviet Union or its
successors
"The krysha (roof) is the protection racket...
The okhrana is the security outfit, official or
unofficial... Try telling the two apart."
- Guardian (Electronic ed.), 29 Apr. 2000
the worthless word for the day is: coulrophobia
[ostensibly fr. Gk. koulon, limb; related to
kolobathristes, one who goes on stilts]
an irrational fear of clowns
"...the show can still evoke chills from anyone
suffering even a touch of coulrophobia. (Yes, there
is a name for the fear of clowns.) Although a solitary
clown painting hanging on a basement wall is easily
passed off as kitsch, a roomful of clown paintings
is something to behold, if you can handle it."
- Charles Sheehan, Associated Press Aug 24, 2003
"You want coulrophobia, check out www.ihateclowns.com,
where the clown-queasy meet to swap horror stories
(and where you can buy a T-shirt that says:
"can't sleep, clowns will eat me...")."
- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Feb 9, 2005
the worthless word for the day is: therianthropic
[fr. Gk therianthropos, beast-man]
1) combining human and animal form
therianthropic deity
2) relating to religions in which the deities
worshiped are partly human and partly animal in form
thus, therianthropy - a transformation into animal
form, such as lycanthropy
"A controversial aspect of therianthropy is the
subject of shifting, which generally refers to any
manner by which a therianthrope's nature may become
evidenced internally (to themselves) or externally
to others."
- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
the worthless word for the day is: pluviose
[ad. L. pluviosus, rainy] /PLU vee ose/
rare marked by or regularly receiving heavy
rainfall : a pluviose period
fig. tearful
"I was moved to vent my pluviose indignation."
- Examiner (1824)
the worthless word for the day is: puggle
[chiefly dial., freq. of pug (poke)]
[v] to clear out or stir up by poking
"The man gave me a wire and told me to puggle
the pipe. I have puggled it several times, but
the water does not come."
- letter to Rev. C. B. Mount (1899)
not to be confused with:
[n] puggle, a cross between a pug and a beagle
the worthless word for the day is: disponible
[ad. L. disponere, to set in different places, place
here and there, arrange, dispose; cf. F. disponible]
capable of being assigned or disposed of as one
wishes: available
"He gave me the names of all the disponible ships with
their tonnage and the names of their commanders."
- Joseph Conrad, 'Twixt Land & Sea (1912)
"One's picture of the higher civil servant -- adroit,
informed, disponible, never in the way or out of it."
- Punch, 24 Mar. 1965
(not to be confused with deponible)
the worthless word for the day is: brassica
[L., cabbage] /BRASS ikuh/
plants of the mustard family, including cabbage,
cauliflower, broccoli, and turnip
"The brassica industry is utilising biological and
cultural pest management integrated with chemical
control."
- Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries
Queensland, 25 August 2004
"He remembered joining.. The Men Of The Furrow, in
some town out in the stalks.*... *In areas more
wooded, less dominated by the cabbage and general
brassica industry, it would, of course, have been
in the sticks." - Terry Pratchett, Going Postal
(not to be confused with brass bands, brass knuckles,
brass tacks, top brass, etc.)
the worthless word for the day is: retiracy
[U.S., from retire, after such pairs as
conspire : conspiracy]
/re TIRE uh see/
1) retirement, seclusion 2) sufficient means or
property to make possible retirement
"He left the house, and once more sought the retiracy
of the gardens." - Lewis Wallace, The Fair God (1873)
"It is said, in New England, of a person who left off
business with a fortune, that he has a retiracy; i.e.
a sufficient fortune to retire upon."
- J. R. Bartlett, Dict. of Americanisms (1848)
the worthless word for the day is: delitescent
[fr. L. delitescere, to hide]
/del eh TES sent/
lying hidden: obfuscated, latent
thus, delitescence:
latent state, concealment, seclusion
"The immense proportion of our intellectual
possessions consists of our delitescent cognitions."
- Sir W. Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics (1836-7)
"The obscuration, the delitescence of mental
activities." - op cit
the worthless word for the day is: rusticate
[fr. L. rusticari, to live in the country]
[vi] to retire into the country; to stay or sojourn
in the country; to assume rural manners, to live a
country life
"I am so sorry... Lady Elizabeth is not going [to
London] this year, so I am compelled to rusticate."
- Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Alice or The Mysteries
"So alarming did the state of my finances become, that
I soon realized that I must either leave the metropolis
and rusticate somewhere in the country, or that I must
make a complete alteration in my style of living. "
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet
the worthless word for the day is: superannuated
[fr. L. superannuatus]
[adj] of persons: disqualified or incapacitated by
age; old and infirm; of things: impaired by age,
worn out; antiquated, obsolete, out of date
"We shall be either superannuated or dead."
- Philip G. Hamerton, The intellectual life (1873)
"A nap, my friend, is a brief period of sleep which
overtakes superannuated persons when they endeavor
to entertain unwelcome visitors or to listen to
scientific lectures." - George Bernard Shaw
the worthless word for the day is: otium
[fr. classical L., leisure, ease, peace]
now rare leisure; free time; ease
"Mr. Morgan was enjoying his otium in a dignified
manner, surveying the evening fog, and smoking a
cigar."
- W. M. Thackeray, The history of Pendennis (1849)
otium cum dignitate
[fr. classical Latin cum dignitate otium]
leisure with dignity; spec. retirement from public life
"So we find words and expressions that were much better
known on the Continent than in either America or
Britain. Under the heading for Haste and Leisure, for
instance, we find brusquerie* and its Latin converse,
otium cum dignitate. (In the newest, fifth edition of
the International, published by Harper Collins in 1992,
both these obscure forms have vanished, though the
Latin term that was under the Leisure column has been
replaced by the Italian dolce far niente, which is
amply supplemented by the phrases ride the gravy train
and lead the life of Riley.)"
- Simon Winchester, The Atlantic Monthly May 2001
*brusquerie: [F] abruptness of manner
the worthless word for the day is: thylacine
[fr. NL Thylacinus, genus of marsupials,
from Greek thylakos sack, pouch]
the Tasmanian Wolf: a somewhat doglike
carnivorous marsupial that formerly inhabited
Tasmania but is now considered extinct --
called also Tasmanian Tiger
""I managed to get DH-82 to do a few tricks."
Dh-82 was [Mum's] rescue thylacine. Training
a usually unbelievably torpid thylacine to do
anything except eat or sleep on command
was almost front page news."
- Jasper Fforde, The Well of Lost Plots
the worthless word for the day is: judder
[imitative, probably from shudder] chiefly Brit
[v] to shake and vibrate with intensity
the engine stalled and kept juddering
[n] an instance of juddering
"Hopefully, Greenspan has had a similar meeting
recently with George W Bush to impress on him
the importance of action on the current level of the
US deficit. Correcting the problem without a major
judder to the whole of the world economy is going
to be a problem."
- Ken Symon, Sunday Herald 06 March 2005
"Billy's arm was twisted until he bent double and
for him reality juddered from the general to the
particular." Brian Carter, Nightworld
the worthless word for the day is: gunge
[of uncertain origin; perh. associated with
goo, grunge, gunk, ect.] Brit. slang
any messy or clogging substance, esp. one considered
otherwise unidentifiable; also, general rubbish,
clutter, filth
"If you cook, ask yourself how often you have ever
required to add bottled sauce to anything. Yet here
were the convenience food-makers exploiting its
piquant flavour in over 400 diverse versions of
gunge."
- Ian Bell, Sunday Herald 27 February 2005
"It was true. Goliath had been been attempting entry
into the BookWorld for many years with but little
success: all they had managed to do was extract a
stodgy gunge from volumes one to eight of The World
of Cheese."
- Jasper Fforde, The Well of Lost Plots
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