GAME: Word of the Day (WOTD)

[Ghost]

Word of the Day for Monday February 13, 2006

concupiscence \kon-KYOO-puh-suhn(t)s; kuhn-\, noun: Strong desire, especially sexual desire; lust.

The "Tretis" is an argument in favor of chastity and contrasts the "Wise Virgins" who devote themselves to God with the "Foolish Virgins" who taste "the fruits of forbidden concupiscence" and, of course, pay for it.
-- Michael Gorra, "Loved for his Diphthongs," New York Times, November 27, 1983

Within three years Rorik's queen was dead, taking with her into silence her midnight cries of release from that captivity of concupiscence which Eve's curious sin has laid upon mankind.
-- John Updike, Gertrude and Claudius

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Concupiscence is from Late Latin concupiscentia, from the present participle of Latin concupiscere, "to desire eagerly," from com-, intensive prefix + cupere, "to desire." The adjective form is concupiscent. The name of the ancient Roman god of love, Cupid, comes from the same root.

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Word of the Day for Tuesday February 14, 2006

spoony \SPOO-nee\, adjective: 1. Foolish; silly; excessively sentimental. 2. Foolishly or sentimentally in love.

Nevertheless, because we're spoony old things at heart, we like to believe that some showbiz marriages are different.
-- Julie Burchill, "Cut!," The Guardian, February 7, 2001

So when your fervor cools, you think that this suddenly familiar and lusterless partner couldn't possibly be the one you're destined to be with; otherwise you'd still be all spoony, lovey-dovey and bewitched.
-- John Dufresne, "What's So Hot About Passion?," Washington Post, February 9, 2003

We know they aren't doing it for love, otherwise it wouldn't take $50 million to sucker them into getting spoony for a construction worker.
-- "Say it isn't so 'Joe'," USA Today, December 30, 2002

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Spoony is from the slang term spoon, meaning "a simpleton or a silly person."

[blueworld]

Since we didn't get the words til now, can we still use those two in Volleyballl for points? I may have to write something just to use "concupiscence."

[Ghost]

Since we didn't get the words til now, can we still use those two in Volleyballl for points? I may have to write something just to use "concupiscence."

If you can get the WOTDs in before I score the VB post you can, and at the rate I'm recovering you'll have the time.

[Ghost]

Word of the Day for Thursday February 16, 2006

stertorous \STUR-tuh-ruhs\, adjective: Characterized by a heavy snoring or gasping sound; hoarsely breathing.

In the cinder-block motel room he set the alarm, but his own stertorous breathing woke him before it rang.
-- E. Annie Proulx, "The Half-Skinned Steer," The Atlantic, November 1997

As pianist Dezso Ranki pounds and weaves at the keys, his breathing is at times so stertorous one could swear that someone in the audience is snoring.
-- Josie Glausiusz, "Joining Hands," Discover, July 2000

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Stertorous derives from Latin stertere, "to snore."

[Darb]

{Mistress Laurie picked up the phone and, for the 7th time, heard the all-too-familiar stertorous breathing at the other end.}

"Brad, you spoony concupiscent bastard, how many times do I have to tell you - this is *NOT* the 'goats gone wild' hotline !" she shouted.

"You need to dial 1-800-GOAT-SEX" she finished, in an excoriating tone.

[laurie]

Brad, if you make me laugh like that one more time, I'm sending you the bill for cleaning the tea/soda/juice off my laptop!

[Ghost]

Word of the Day for Friday February 17, 2006

imbue \im-BYOO\, transitive verb: 1. To tinge or dye deeply; to cause to absorb thoroughly; as, "clothes thoroughly imbued with black."
2. To instill profoundly; to cause to become impressed or penetrated.

Beauty is equal parts flesh and imagination: we imbue it with our dreams, saturate it with our longings.
-- Nancy Etcoff, Survival of the Prettiest

Along with the rest of us he would certainly applaud attempts to imbue the young with the spirit of fair play.
-- John Bryant, "Football should heed the Corinthian spirit," Times (London), February 17, 2000

He wanted to remake American cinema into a positive force for good, to imbue it with a transcendent sense of virtue and order.
-- Thomas Doherty, Pre-Code Hollywood

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Imbue comes from Latin imbuere, "to wet, to steep, to saturate."

[Ghost]

Word of the Day for Monday February 20, 2006

titivate \TIT-uh-vayt\, transitive and intransitive verb: To smarten up; to spruce up.

It's easy to laugh at a book in which the heroine's husband says to her, "You look beautiful," and then adds, "So stop titivating yourself."
-- Joyce Cohen, "review of To Be the Best, by Barbara Taylor Bradford," New York Times, July 31, 1988

In The Idle Class, when Chaplin is titivating in a hotel room, the cloth on his dressing table rides up and down, caught in the same furious gusts.
-- Peter Conrad, Modern Times, Modern Places

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Titivate is perhaps from tidy + the quasi-Latin ending -vate. When the word originally came into the language, it was written tidivate or tiddivate. The noun form is titivation.

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Word of the Day for Tuesday February 21, 2006

jovial \JOH-vee-uhl\, adjective: Merry; joyous; jolly; characterized by mirth or jollity.

One pupil of the sixteen-year-old Custer remembered him as "socially inclined," jovial, and full of life.
-- Louise Barnett, Touched by Fire

The Puritans took a dim view of the jovial, amiable cleric who liked to have a pot of ale at one of Purleigh's pubs.
-- Willard Sterne Randall, George Washington: A Life

He smiled, joked and at times seemed downright jovial.
-- "Piazza Booed Again (Till He Homers)," New York Times, August 22, 1998

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Jovial ultimately derives from the Latin jovialis, "of or pertaining to Jupiter." (The planet Jupiter was thought to make those born under it joyful or jovial.)

[Ghost]

Word of the Day for Wednesday February 22, 2006

salutary \SAL-yuh-ter-ee\, adjective: 1. Producing or contributing to a beneficial effect; beneficial; advantageous. 2. Wholesome; healthful; promoting health.

Alexis de Tocqueville famously observed during his sojourn in this country that America was teeming with such associations -- charities, choral groups, church study groups, book clubs -- and that they had a remarkably salutary effect on society, turning selfish individuals into public-spirited citizens.
-- Fareed Zakaria, "Bigger Than the Family, Smaller Than the State," New York Times, August 13, 1995

Surviving a near-death experience has the salutary effect of concentrating the mind.
-- Kenneth T. Walsh and Roger Simon, "Bush turns the tide," U.S. News, February 28, 2000

And they washed it all down with sharp red wines, moderate amounts of which are known to be salutary.
-- Rod Usher, "The Fat of the Land," Time Europe, January 8, 2000

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Salutary derives from Latin salutaris, from salus, salut-, "health."

[Ghost]

Word of the Day for Thursday February 23, 2006

alacrity \uh-LACK-ruh-tee\, noun: A cheerful or eager readiness or willingness, often manifested by brisk, lively action or promptness in response.

As for his homemade meatloaf sandwich with green tomato ketchup, a condiment he developed while working in New York, I devoured it with an alacrity unbecoming in someone who gets paid to taste carefully.
-- R.W. Apple Jr., "Southern Tastes, Worldly Memories," New York Times, April 26, 2000

Arranged in long ranks, ten-, twelve-, or thirteen-year-old girls, pale and hollow-eyed, their pinned-back hair sprouting tendrils limp with perspiration, operated the machinery with such alacrity that arms and hands were a flying blur.
-- Patricia Albers, Shadows, Fire, Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti

So, I am sure that I was thrilled when I got the letter offering me the fellowship and equally sure that I wrote back to accept with alacrity.
-- Joan L. Richards, Angles of Reflection

Never was a sinking ship abandoned with such alacrity and unanimity, never was an experiment condemned so conclusively.
-- Ernest Gellner, The End of Utopia by Russell Jacoby

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Alacrity comes from Latin alacritas, from alacer, lively.

[Ghost]

Word of the Day for Friday February 24, 2006

munificent \myoo-NIF-i-suhnt\, adjective: Very liberal in giving or bestowing; very generous; lavish.

Another munificent friend has given me the most splendid reclining chair conceivable.
-- George Eliot, Letters

The fleeting movement of air inside the black tunnel before and after the passage of a train made it a source of refreshment more munificent than a roaring window air conditioner.
-- Norma Field, From My Grandmother's Bedside: Sketches of Postwar Tokyo

John Sr.'s paycheck, while hardly munificent, was steady, and frugality did the rest.
-- Sylvia Nasar, A Beautiful Mind

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Munificent is from Latin munificus, "generous, bountiful," from munus, "gift." The quality of being munificent is munificence.

[Ghost]

Word of the Day for Monday February 27, 2006

posit \POZ-it\, transitive verb: 1. To assume as real or conceded.
2. To propose as an explanation; to suggest. 3. To dispose or set firmly or fixedly.

It is not necessary to posit mysterious forces to explain coincidences.
-- Bruce Martin, "Coincidences: Remarkable or Random?," Skeptical Inquirer, September/October 1998

Among other things, the researchers posit that the behavior of the muscles during laughter probably explains why phrases like "weak with laughter" pops up in many different languages.
-- "How Muscles Can Go Weak With Laughter," New York Times, September 14, 1999

Some scientists subscribe to this "catastrophic" view of evolutionary history and posit such events as meteoritic collisions with earth, viral epidemics, and explosive evolutionary changes as responsible for species extinctions in the past.
-- Noel T. Boaz Ph.D., Eco Homo

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Posit is from Latin positus, past participle of ponere, "to put, to place, to set."

[Darb]

This is like watching someone build a house of cards ... Mr. Boo keeps laying down cards, and the house gets higher and higher ... and then someone comes along and blasts the pile to smithereens with a clever post that clears the backlog.

[Ghost]

Word of the Day for Tuesday February 28, 2006

scion \SY-uhn\, noun: 1. A detached shoot or twig of a plant used for grafting. 2. Hence, a descendant; an heir.

Convinced he was the scion of Louis Alexandre Lebris de Kerouac, a noble Breton, he was off to do genealogical research in the Paris libraries and then to locate his ancestor's hometown in Brittany.
-- Ellis Amburn, Subterranean Kerouac

Sassoon, scion of a famously wealthy Jewish banking family, had never needed to earn his living.
-- Philip Hoare, Oscar Wilde's Last Stand

Gates is the scion of an old, affluent Seattle family; Jobs is the adopted son of a machinist in Northern California.
-- "Steve Jobs, Hesitant Co-Founder, Makes New Commitment to Apple," New York Times, August 7, 1997

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Scion derives from Old French cion, of Germanic origin.

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Word of the Day for Wednesday March 1, 2006

doula \DOO-luh\, noun: A woman who assists during childbirth labor and provides support to the mother, her child and the family after childbirth.

Chris Morley launched Tender Care Doula Service in Valencia, California, seven years ago to provide nonmedical postpartum care workers (or doulas) to frazzled new moms.
-- Roy Huffman, "Healthy returns," Entrepreneur Magazine, February 1, 1996

Unlike midwives, who deliver babies and are licensed to perform medical tasks, labor doulas provide emotional and physical support to the laboring parents.
-- Stephen L. Richmond, "One Labor-Intensive Job," Time, March 12, 2001

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Doula derives from Greek doula, "servant-woman, slave," akin to hierodule.

[Ghost]

Word of the Day for Thursday March 2, 2006

largess \lar-ZHES; lar-JES; LAR-jes\, noun: 1. Generous giving (as of gifts or money), often accompanied by condescension. 2. Gifts, money, or other valuables so given. 3. Generosity; liberality.

Four years after her marriage she exclaimed giddily over her father-in-law's largess: "He has given Waldorf the Waldorf Astoria Hotel for a birthday present!"
-- Stacy Schiff, "Otherwise Engaged," New York Times, March 19, 2000

The recipients of Johnson's largesse were understandably indifferent to what propelled him.
-- Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961-1973

A swelling chorus has arisen recently to complain that the PRI has been up to its old tricks, showering voters with largesse (ranging from washing machines to bicycles and cash).
-- "Mexico's vote," Economist, June 24, 2000

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Largess is from Old French largesse, "largeness, generosity," from large, from Latin largus, "plentiful, generous."

[Ghost]

Word of the Day for Friday March 3, 2006

dilettante \DIL-uh-tont; dil-uh-TONT; dil-uh-TON-tee; -TANT; -TAN-tee *\, noun: 1. An amateur or dabbler; especially, one who follows an art or a branch of knowledge sporadically, superficially, or for amusement only. 2. An admirer or lover of the fine arts.

adjective: 1. Of or characteristic of a dilettante; amateurish.

As he had put it, it was a matter of principle, not money: Mistler family trusts, over which he exercised discretionary powers, had not been established to support dilettantes or would-be litterateurs waiting for inspiration.
-- Louis Begley, Mistler's Exit

His writings, which began as a schoolboy's jottings for the amusement of classmates, continued into adulthood, although he describes his youthful work as the musings of a dilettante.
-- David Gonzalez, "Eye on the Universe: A Poet Views It All From the Bronx," New York Times, December 25, 1991

At first his colleagues tended to dismiss this witty young dilettante poet as a scientific lightweight, even if he was an agreeable addition to their dinner table.
-- "Dr Alex Comfort," Times (London), March 28, 2000

She was, in the parlance of the time, a 'sermon taster', going to any church where the preaching was supposed to be good; for a dilettante churchgoer Brighton was then an exciting place to be.
-- Matthew Sturgis, Aubrey Beardsley: A Biography

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Dilettante comes from the present participle of Italian delittare, "to delight," from Latin delectare, "to delight," frequentative of delicere, "to allure," from de- + lacere, "to entice."



* I hate when they do this - say it anyway you want.

[felonius]

What are you insinuating??

[Darb]

Dilettante = a jack of many trades, and master of none {of them}.

I've had that in my user profile since I first came here in 2003.

[Ghost]

Word of the Day for Monday March 6, 2006

countermand \KOWN-tuhr-mand; kown-tuhr-MAND\, transitive verb:
1. To revoke (a former command); to cancel or rescind by giving an order contrary to one previously given. 2. To recall or order back by a contrary order.

noun: 1. A contrary order. 2. Revocation of a former order or command.

And given the mixed results, a constitutional amendment that could countermand both the law and the original order by Vermont's Supreme Court seems unlikely.
-- Stanley Kurtz, "Florida? Try Vermont," National Review Online, November 13, 2000

Her aunt and uncle kept hoping her father would countermand his orders since his promises to her seemed to be without effect.
-- Dumas Malone, quoted in The Long Affair, by Conor Cruise O'Brien

Based in a futuristic radar room near Dulles Airport, it has become a master center, with electronic vision that sees every airplane in the system and the authority to question and, in some circumstances, countermand decisions made by individual controllers.
-- William Langewiesche, "Slam and Jam," The Atlantic, October 1997

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Countermand derives from Old French contremander, from contre-, "counter" (from Latin contra) + mander, "to command" (from Latin mandare).


/no, no me changed me mind

[Ghost]

Word of the Day for Tuesday March 7, 2006

expropriate \ek-SPROH-pree-ayt\, transitive verb: 1. To deprive of possession. 2. To transfer (the property of another) to oneself.

Very few voters, after all, really believe Europe's new generation of social democratic leaders are wild Bolsheviks plotting to expropriate their Toyotas.
-- Fintan O'Toole, "The last gasp of social democracy," Irish Times, March 19, 1999

The Spanish constitution declared the country "a democratic republic of workers of all classes" and laid down that property might be expropriated "for social uses."
-- Mark Mazower, Dark Continent

Farmlands that had belonged to Bosnia's Muslim beys . . . and agas were expropriated without compensation and handed over to their former tenant sharecroppers.
-- Chuck Sudetic, Blood and Vengeance

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Expropriate comes from Medieval Latin expropriatus, past participle of expropriare, "to deprive of property," from Latin ex- + proprius, "one's own." The act of expropriating is expropriation. One who expropriates is an expropriator.

[Ghost]

Word of the Day for Wednesday March 8, 2006

perambulate \puh-RAM-byuh-layt\, intransitive verb: 1. To walk about; to roam; to stroll; as, "he perambulated in the park."

transitive verb: 1. To walk through or over. 2. To travel over for the purpose of surveying or inspecting.

Every weekend, the police close off ten to fifteen blocks of some Manhattan avenue. The merchants line the curbs, and the New Yorkers slowly perambulate up and down.
-- Richard Brookhiser, "Island Bazaar," National Review, July 1, 2002

At Syon, we perambulate a succession of rooms of the greatest magnificence, beginning with the entrance hall, with an apse of columns -- characteristic of Adam, all dazzling whiteness.
-- A. L. Rowse, "At Home with History in London," New York Times, January 19, 1986

If you don't like boats -- and it's surprising how many people who come here don't like boats -- you can perambulate the shoreline, take a swim, sit in the lounge and read, or do nothing more than sit on the dock
-- Eric Kraft, Leaving Small's Hotel

She liked to perambulate the room with a duster in her hand, with which she stopped to polish the backs of already lustrous books, musing and romancing as she did so.
-- Virginia Woolf, Night and Day

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Perambulate comes from Latin per-, "through" + ambulare, "to walk." The noun form is perambulation.

[Ghost]

Word of the Day for Thursday March 9, 2006

contradistinction \kon-truh-dis-TINK-shuhn\, noun: Distinction by contrast; as, "sculpture in contradistinction to painting."

In the quarter-century since "Gravity's Rainbow," American novelists have increasingly fixed their boldest inventions in the past, usually their own early years or a time long before they were born -- in contradistinction to postwar writers who vigorously peeled away World War II and the social fabric of the 1950's.
-- Gary Giddins, "Escape to New York," New York Times, September 20, 1998

The music was breathing constantly, in contradistinction to the willfully suffocated feeling of most heavy music.
-- Ben Ratliff, "A Brazilian Band Emerges From the Loss of Its Leader," New York Times, July 28, 2000

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Contradistinction is contra-, from Latin contra, "against" + distinction, from Latin distinctio, from distinguere, "to distinguish."

[Ghost]

Word of the Day for Friday March 10, 2006

ululate \UL-yuh-layt; YOOL-\, intransitive: To howl, as a dog or a wolf; to wail; as, ululating jackals.

He had often dreamed of his grieving family visiting his grave, ululating as only the relatives of martyrs may.
-- Edward Shirley, Know Thine Enemy: A Spy's Journey into Revolutionary Iran

She wanted to be on the tarmac, to ululate and raise her hands to the heavens.
-- Deborah Sontag, "Palestinian Airport Opens to Jubilation," New York Times, November 25, 1998

She used harrowing, penetrating nasal tones and a rasp that approached Janis Joplin's double-stops; she made notes break and ululate.
-- Jon Pareles, "On the Third Day There Was Whooping and There Was Moshing," New York Times, August 18, 1998

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Ululate derives from Latin ululare, to howl, to yell, ultimately of imitative origin. The noun form is ululation; the adjective form is ululant.

/WOOF

[Ghost]

Word of the Day for Tuesday March 14, 2006

uxorious \uk-SOR-ee-us; ug-ZOR-\, adjective: Excessively fond of or submissive to a wife.

It is batty to suppose that the most uxorious of husbands will stop his wife's excessive shopping if an excessive shopper she has always been.
-- Angela Huth, "All you need is love," Daily Telegraph, April 24, 1998

Flagler seems to have been an uxorious, domestic man, who liked the comfort and companionship of a wife at his side.
-- Michael Browning, "Whitehall at 100," Palm Beach Post, February 22, 2002

Fuller is as uxorious a poet as they come: hiatuses in the couple's mutual understanding are overcome with such rapidity as to be hardly worth mentioning in the first place ("How easy, this ability / To lose whatever we possess / By ceasing to believe that we / Deserve such brilliant success").
-- David Wheatley, "Round and round we go," The Guardian, October 5, 2002

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Uxorious is from Latin uxorius, from uxor, wife.

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Word of the Day for Wednesday March 15, 2006

Ides \YDZ\, plural noun: In the ancient Roman calendar the fifteenth day of March, May, July, and October, and the thirteenth day of the other months.

In one measure of how fast this calendar has become in recent years, by the Ides of March 1984, seven states had held primaries, said Rhodes Cook, the author of "Race for the Presidency".
-- Robin Toner, "Both Parties Seek Ways to Tame Fast and Furious Primary Process.," New YorkTimes, January 24, 2000

Oh he is a very fast horse, and on the Ides of November you will know just how fast he is.
-- "The Aristocracy of the Democratic Party.," New York Times, November 9, 1864

A soothsayer bids you beware of the Ides of March.
-- William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

There is a poem inviting Philodemos to dinner which he is supposed to have written himself, and one of the other guests is Artemidorus, very likely the same son of Theopompos of Cnidos who warned Caesar about the Ides of March in 44 BC on his way to his assassination.
-- Peter Levi, Virgil: His Life and Times

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Ides comes from Latin idus, probably from an Etruscan word meaning "division" of a month.

[Ghost]

Word of the Day for Thursday March 16, 2006
megalomania \meg-uh-lo-MAY-nee-ah; -nyuh\, noun: 1. A mania for grandiose or extravagant things or actions. 2. A mental disorder characterized by delusions of grandeur.

Eighteen months generally elapse nowadays between the time a publisher accepts a manuscript and its appearance in book form -- the gestation period of an elephant. During that year and a half of waiting, a writer is visited by every emotion in the fun house, from rosy anticipation to exultation, megalomania, brooding, dread, cringing humility, avarice, guilt and, finally, stolid acceptance.
-- Phillip Lopate, "Waiting for the Book: Storms Before the Calm," New York Times, May 24, 1987

He too often allows us to laugh off notions that science might occasionally be the handmaiden of megalomania, greed, and sadism.
-- David J. Skal, Screams of Reason: Mad Science and Modern Culture

Mao was a man of considerable charisma and megalomania.
-- Seth Faison, "Deng Xiaoping, Architect of Modern China, Dies at 92," New York Times, February 20, 1997

Megalomania is an occupational hazard for judges, said Prof. Paul Carrington of the Duke University Law School, noting that a trial judge inevitably has a great deal of power over everyone in the courtroom. "Judges can get awfully full of themselves," he said.
-- Neil A. Lewis, "You're Out of Order, Your Honor," New York Times, July 12, 1998

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Megalomania is Scientific Latin, from the Greek elements megal-, great + mania, madness.