GAME: Word of the Day (WOTD)

[felonius]

No, by the holy rood, thou know'st it well,
Thou camest on earth to make the earth my hell.
A grievous burthen was thy birth to me;
Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy;
Thy school-days frightful, desperate, wild, and furious,
Thy prime of manhood daring, bold, and venturous,
Thy age confirm'd, proud, subtle, sly and bloody!

-- Duchess of York (to Richard) Richard III

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Wednesday September 13, 2006

erudite \AIR-yuh-dyt; -uh-dyt\, adjective: Characterized by extensive reading or knowledge; learned.

In front of imposing edifices like the Topkapi Palace or Hagia Sophia are guides displaying Government-issued licenses. Many of these guides are erudite historians who have quit low-paying jobs as university professors and now offer private tours.
-- "What's Doing in Istanbul", New York Times, February 23, 1997

The works of Baudrillard, Deleuze, Guattari and Virilio are filled with seemingly erudite references to relativity, quantum mechanics, chaos theory, etc.
-- Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont, Fashionable Nonsense

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Erudite comes from Latin eruditus, from e-, "out of, from" + rudis, "rough, untaught," which is also the source of English rude. Hence one who is erudite has been brought out of a rough, untaught, rude state.

[Darb]

/* Psst ... Felon ... belated props on the "Self Help for Librarians" post. */

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Thursday September 14, 2006

fanfaronade \fan-fair-uh-NAYD; -NOD\, noun: 1. Swaggering; empty boasting; blustering manner or behavior; ostentatious display. 2. Fanfare.

George Manahan made his debut this week as music director of New York City Opera, and it is difficult to imagine someone laying claim to a major podium with less of a fanfaronade.
-- Justin Davidson, "A Director's Toil Pays Some Dividends", Newsday, September 21, 1996

But like a demure singer in a long gown who is surrounded by chorus girls in sequined miniskirts, the statue may seem slightly lost amid the fanfaronade.
-- Richard Stengel, "Rockets will glare and bands blare to celebrate the statue", Time, July 7, 1986

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Fanfaronade derives from Spanish fanfarronada, from fanfarrón, "braggart," from Arabic farfar, "garrulous."

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Friday September 15, 2006

riparian \rih-PAIR-ee-uhn; ry-PAIR-ee-uhn\, adjective: Of or pertaining to the bank of a river or stream.

Riparian areas are the green, vegetated areas on each side of streams and rivers. They serve many important functions, including purifying water by removing sediments and other contaminants; reducing the risk of flooding and associated damage; reducing stream channel and streambank erosion; increasing available water and stream flow duration by holding water in stream banks and aquifers; supporting a diversity of plant and wildlife species; maintaining a habitat for healthy fish populations; providing water, forage, and shade for wildlife and livestock; and creating opportunities for recreationists to fish, camp, picnic, and enjoy other activities.
-- Jeremy M. Brodie, "Ribbons of Green", Bureau of Land Management Environmental Education Home Page

Along its serpentine course, the Charles River widens and narrows, and its riparian sounds swell to crescendos in places or relax to the low purr of a river at peace.
-- Craig Lambert, Mind Over Water: Lessons on Life from the Art of Rowing

[The vireo's] comeback may prove that habitat along streams in Southern California is recovering from the effects of pollution caused by decades of urban development. That is a critical indicator of environmental health in a state that has lost 97% of its riparian woodlands, more than any other state.
-- Gary Polakovic, "Songbird's Numbers Crescendo", Los Angeles Times, August 22, 1999

[What about your social circle?] "A steady stream of brilliant American intellectuals visiting me in the riparian solitude of a beautifully reflected sunset."
-- Vladimir Nabokov, "Nabokov on Nabokov and Things", New York Times, May 12, 1968

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Riparian is from the Latin, ripari-us + -an, from Latin ripa, the bank of a river.

[Aunflin]

Here at the Ibdof, we have many riparian writings.... (Mine included... )

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Monday September 18, 2006

commodious \kuh-MOH-dee-us\, adjective: Comfortably or conveniently spacious; roomy; as, a commodious house.

Then there are the trousers, black check or blue check, with commodious pockets.
-- Richard F. Shepard, "For Caring Chefs, Crowning Glory Is the Headgear", New York Times, August 15, 1990

This brought John to accept Benjamin Franklin's invitation to reside in his commodious quarters in Passy, a suburb at the city's edge.
-- Paul C. Nagel, John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life

Fed by the melting ice packs, the ocean rose again, inundating coastal lowlands and pouring back through the Narrows, creating the commodious Upper Bay that would serve as the harbor of New York.
-- Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898

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Commodious derives from the Latin commodus, "conforming to measure, hence convenient or fit for a particular purpose," from com-, "with" + modus, "measure."

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Tuesday September 19, 2006

improvident \im-PROV-uh-duhnt; -dent\, adjective: Lacking foresight or forethought; not foreseeing or providing for the future; negligent or thoughtless.

Elizabeth's husband . . . had been a reckless, improvident man, who left many debts behind him when he died suddenly of a consumption in September 1704.
-- David Nokes, Jane Austen: A Life

Lily is spoiled, pleasure-loving, and has one of those society mothers who are as improvident as a tornado.
-- Elizabeth Hardwick, Sight-Readings: American Fictions

He called the decision "an exercise in raw judicial power" that was "improvident and extravagant."
-- Linda Greenhouse, "White Announces He'll Step Down From High Court", New York Times, March 20, 1993

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Improvident derives from Latin improvidens, improvident-, from im- (for in-), "not" + providens, provident-, present participle of providere, "to see beforehand, to provide for," from pro-, "before, forward" + videre, "to see."

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Wednesday September 20, 2006

cataract \KAT-uh-rakt\, noun: 1. A great fall of water over a precipice; a large waterfall. 2. A downpour; a flood. 3. A clouding or opacity of the lens or capsule of the eye, which obstructs the passage of light.

Niagara is no virgin. Today, its cataract can be stopped with the pull of a lever, and less than half its natural flow pours over the precipice.
-- Thurston Clarke, "Roll Out the Barrel", New York Times, February 16, 1997

Bartram was an ace self-dramatizer and avid explorer of nature, whose journals are full of blood and thunder and such dramatic observations of animals as this one of the American crocodile: "His enormous body swells. His plaited tail brandished high, floats upon the lake. The waters like a cataract descend from his opening jaws. Clouds of smoke issue from his dilated nostrils."
-- Diane Ackerman, "Nature Writers: A Species Unto Themselves", New York Times, May 13, 1990

So ambitious is he to detail the full background of every individual, group, institution or phenomenon that figures in his chronicle . . . that a reader sometimes founders in the cataract of details.
-- Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, review of Common Ground, by J. Anthony Lukasm, New York Times, September 12, 1985

A cataract of names spills over the pages: Henry Kissinger, G. Gordon Liddy, Betty Ford, Frank Sinatra, Alice Roosevelt Longworth.
-- Richard F. Shepard, "How '60 Minutes' Ticks", New York Times, December 25, 1985

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Cataract is from Latin cataracta, "a waterfall, a portcullis," from Greek kataraktes, katarrhaktes, from katarassein, "to dash down," from kata-, "down" + arassein, "to strike, dash."

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Thursday September 21, 2006

solace \SOL-is\, noun: 1. Comfort in time of grief; alleviation of grief or anxiety. 2. That which relieves in distress; that which cheers or consoles; a source of relief. transitive verb: 1. To comfort or cheer in grief or affliction; to console. 2. To allay; to soothe; as, "to solace grief."

Surrounded by unhappiness at home, John Sr. early on found solace and certainty in the realm of science and technology.
-- Sylvia Nasar, A Beautiful Mind

But immediately afterwards he dispels the agony by finding his customary solace in tales of chivalry.
-- Andre Philippus Brink, The Novel: Language and Narrative from Cervantes to Calvino

It provided some solace that three large, highly conservative insurance companies were willing to bet on my life.
-- Michael D. Eisner with Tony Schwartz, Work in Progress

Lillian's Lutheranism, with its harsh creed that suffering was a sign of God's favor, solaced her.
-- Lois W. Banner, Finding Fran

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Solace comes from Latin solacium, from solari, "to comfort; to console."

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Monday September 25, 2006

militate \MIL-ih-tayt\, intransitive verb: To have force or influence.

In our current era of politics, many factors militate against changes in policies.
-- Reed Hundt, You Say You Want a Revolution

Even though Simpson's youth, limited professional experience, lack of reputation, unmarried status, and modest social origins all militated against success, the twenty-eight-year-old Simpson applied for the post.
-- Donald Caton, What a Blessing She Had Chloroform

By 2003 many of the uncertainties which militate against a "yes" might be resolved.
-- Anatole Kaletsky, "Why Brown is right to put off the euro test", Times (London), June 21, 2001

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Militate comes from Latin militatus, past participle of militare, "to serve as a soldier," from miles, milit-, "a soldier."

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Thursday September 28, 2006

aesthete \ES-theet\, noun: One having or affecting great sensitivity to beauty, as in art or nature.

Beijing, with its stolid, square buildings and wide, straight roads, feels like the plan of a first-year engineering student, while Shanghai's decorative architecture and snaking, narrow roads feel like the plan of an aesthete.
-- "Sky's the Limit in Shanghai", Los Angeles Times, April 25, 1999

But he was also an aesthete with a connoisseur's eye for the wild modernist innovations with letterforms and layout of the 1920s.
-- Rick Poynor, "Herbert Spencer", The Guardian, March 15, 2002

Where the standard Oxford aesthete of the 1920s had been showily dissipated, full of wild talk about decadence and beauty, Auden was preaching a new gospel of icy austerity and self-control.
-- Ian Hamilton, Against Oblivion

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Aesthete is from Greek aisthetes, "one who perceives," from aisthanesthai, "to perceive."

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Friday September 29, 2006

monomania \mon-uh-MAY-nee-uh; -nyuh\, noun: 1. Pathological obsession with a single subject or idea. 2. Excessive concentration of interest upon one particular subject or idea.

One of the themes in the book was the necessity for a leader to be passionate about the work. And sometimes in a corporate setting, passion becomes monomania.
-- "Balancing the Personal and the Professional", New York Times, October 10, 1999

It is a monomania that approaches a frenzy in which girlfriends or wife, family and sleep, mean nothing.
-- Newgate Callendar, "Crime", New York Times, January 4, 1987

He was . . . a rather impossible person -- self-absorbed to the point of monomania (when lesser beings presumed to take part in his monologues, he would say "Quite" and then continue along his solitary path).
-- Thomas M. Disch, "Later Auden", Washington Post, July 4, 1999

After visiting American prisons Tocqueville and his traveling companion, Gustave de Beaumont, wrote that social reformers in the United States had been swept up in "the monomania of the penitentiary system," convinced that prisons were "a remedy for all the evils of society."
-- Eric Schlosser, "The Prison-Industrial Complex", The Atlantic, December 1998

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Monomania is derived from the Greek elements mono-, "one, single, alone" + mania, "madness, frenzy, enthusiasm."

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Monday October 2, 2006

recalcitrant \rih-KAL-sih-truhnt\, adjective: Stubbornly resistant to and defiant of authority or restraint.

If they lingered too long, Clarice hurried them along in the same annoyed way she rushed recalcitrant goats through the gate.
-- Kaye Gibbons, On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon

As Mr. Lincoln and his Union generals insisted on unconditional surrender, the end of slavery, and the specter of an egalitarian nation where race and class were in theory to be subordinate ideas, so recalcitrant Southerners by the summer of 1864 dug in deeper for their Armageddon to come.
-- Victor Davis Hanson, The Soul Of Battle

This recalcitrant fellow was the only dissenter in an otherwise unanimous recommendation.
-- Sherwin B. Nuland, "Indoctrinology", New Republic, February 19, 2001

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Recalcitrant derives from Latin recalcitrare, "to kick back," from re-, "back" + calcitrare, "to strike with the heel, to kick," from calx, calc-, "the heel."

[felonius]

Are there monomaniacal monogamists?

Alternative definition for recalcitrant: the name given to a calcium ion serving sentence in a correctional facility for truancy.

[Darb]

Are there monomaniacal monogamists?

Indeed there are.

In fact {looks both ways} I'm a serial monogamist, and I was quite monomaniacal about it. Heh heh heh. For years, I dated one woman after another ... and the authorities never caught me.

Alternative definition for recalcitrant: the name given to a calcium ion serving sentence in a correctional facility for truancy.

Alternate definition: the term used for a yo-yo dieter who's forever relapsing on their calorie-restricted diet ?

[felonius]

Oh man. I always have fun in this thread, but sometimes we're really sad...

[Darb]

Sadly, for an aesthete like me, my joining the ranks of the happily married put an end to my indiscretions (as a closet serial monogamist), and militated against my ever resuming them.

Solace has 6 letters, 5 fingers, and an improvident nature, my friend.

p.s.

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Tuesday October 3, 2006

indomitable \in-DOM-ih-tuh-buhl\, adjective: Incapable of being subdued or overcome; unconquerable.

Now, late in his career, when he could no longer pull off all of the individual moves that had once set him apart, it had become increasingly obvious that what had distinguished him was his indomitable will, his refusal to let either opposing players or the passage of time affect his need to win.
-- David Halberstam, Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made

Because of his strength and toughness as well as his constant attention to the welfare of his army, his soldiers affectionately called him Old Hickory. Hickory was as tough a substance as they knew, and General Andrew Jackson was, in their minds, indomitable.
-- Robert V. Remini, The Battle of New Orleans

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Indomitable is from Latin indomitabilis, from in-, "not" + domitare, from domare, "to tame."

[Darb]

Fat Bastard and MiniMe circled each other in the Sumo ring, each fully bent on the other's overthrow and humiliation. Fat Bastard clearly had the advantage of size and weight, but MiniMe was rapidly gaining cult status among Japanese fans for his speed, cunning, tiny stature, and most of all, his indomitable will.

Fat Bastard: Ahm gonna EAT ya ... GET IN MEH BELLY !!
MiniME: Eeeeeeee !!
Fat Bastard: {lunges}
MiniMe: {Tumbles between legs, and punches upwards}
Fat Bastard: {pain} OOOOOH ... RIGHT IN THA MOMMEH-DADDEH BUTTON !!
MiniMe: {kicks the back of Fat Bastard's knee, cutting him down like a tree, and causing him to topple into the front row of spectators.

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Thursday October 5, 2006

tutelary \TOO-tuh-lair-ee; TYOO-\, adjective: Having the guardianship or charge of protecting a person or a thing; guardian; protecting; as, "tutelary goddesses."

For the first time in history, a republic welcomed, perhaps even required, the release of the individual from tutelary powers, and in particular from religious authority.
-- Diana Schaub, "On the Character of Generation X", Public Interest, Fall 1999

God is perceived less as a savior that cleanses one's sins than as a tutelary god who provides guidance and help.
-- Kwai Hang Ng, "Seeking the Christian tutelage", Sociology of Religion, Summer 2002

The archetypal demon of Japanese folklore had always had two faces, being not only a destructive presence but also a potentially protective and tutelary being.
-- John W. Dower, War Without Mercy

In its twentieth-century incarnation, then, Western imperialism assumed a tutelary capacity: its benevolent mission was to teach formerly subject peoples the Western art of self-government.
-- Charlotte Weber, "Unveiling Scheherazade", Feminist Studies, Spring 2001

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Tutelary derives from Latin tutelaris, from tutela, protection, guardianship, from tutus, past participle of tueri, to look at, to regard, especially to look at with care or for the purpose of protection. It is related to tutor, to have the guardianship or care of; to teach; to instruct.

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Friday October 6, 2006

privation \pry-VAY-shun\, noun: 1. An act or instance of depriving.
2. The state of being deprived of something, especially of something required or desired; destitution; need.

The late Georges Bernanos complained that the isolated labor of writing deprived novelists of essential human contacts. This is, indeed, a bitter and painful privation, even if it is in some instances a temperamental preference of novelists.
-- Saul Bellow, "My Man Bummidge", New York Times, September 27, 1964

The Carsons were more often poor than of modest means, and this privation shaped Rachel's opportunities and her personality from the outset.
-- Linda Lear, Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature

Poverty had by no means been eliminated, but the extreme privation that had earlier characterized large sections of the country had disappeared.
-- Fred Warner Neal, "Yugoslavia at the Crossroads", The Atlantic, December 1, 1962

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Privation derives from Latin privatio, from privatus, past participle of privare, "to strip, to deprive of," originally, "to separate from, to put aside, to exempt," from privus, "single, private."

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Monday October 9, 2006

braggadocio \brag-uh-DOH-see-oh; -shee-oh; -shoh\, noun: 1. A braggart. 2. Empty boasting. 3. A swaggering, cocky manner.

. . .all charm and "aw shucks" humility one moment, full of braggadocio the next.
-- David S. Broder, "An Opportunity Missed", Washington Post, January 26, 1995

David was charming, offsetting his usual braggadocio with vulnerability.
-- Tom King, The Operator

She came storming out of east Texas like a whirlwind, a raw-boned tomboy with more than enough braggadocio to go with her matchless athleticism, commanding Olympian headlines in 1932 and holding the spotlight as the world's greatest female golfer for 25 years.
-- Shav Glick, "Babe in the Woods", Los Angeles Times, December 29, 1999

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Braggadocio is from Braggadocchio, a boastful character in Spenser's Faerie Queene.

[Darb]

Ignoring the privations inflicted on his own people through the ongoing abuse of his tutelary powers, and taking full advantage of a nuclear reactor largely funded by the Clinton Administration, Kim Jong-Il, in a brazen display of reckless political braggadocio, pressed the button that detonated the nuclear test device.

[Ghost]

Word of the Day Tuesday October 10, 2006

perorate \PUR-uh-rayt\, intransitive verb: 1. To conclude or sum up a long discourse. 2. To speak or expound at length; to declaim.

These people don't talk, they perorate, pontificate, bombast.
-- Jean Charbonneau, "Biographer's quest becomes self-searching journey", Denver Post, January 28, 2001

Our mother favored a staccato, stand-up style; if our father could perorate, she could condense.
-- Annie Dillard, "The Leg In The Christmas Stocking: What We Learned From Jokes", New York Times, December 7, 1986

You may perorate endlessly.
-- Richard Elman, "A Rap on Race", New York Times, June 27, 1971

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Perorate comes from Latin perorare "to speak at length or to the end," from per-, "through, throughout," + orare, "to speak."