Sun-ray:
a ray of artificial ultraviolet light from a sunray lamp
Monday, May 31, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
scuttle: Dictionary.com Word of the Day
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Word of the Day for Sunday, May 30, 2010scuttle \SKUHT-l\, verb: 1. To run with quick, hasty steps; scurry. noun: verb: noun: The 49-unit apartment building in Bronx River has a tally of woes almost impressive in magnitude. It has 663 open violations. Its walls shed lead paint, rain seeps through collapsing ceilings, and cockroaches and rats scuttle across its buckled floors. Inside U:Us, one of the biggest stores here, the scenes are no less manic. Rapt-looking buyers, notebooks in hand, scuttle from stall to stall, striking and abandoning deals on bulk buys. Scuttle may be related to the similar verb scud, "to run or move quickly." Both words probably derive from the Middle English scottlen, "to move away." | |||||||||
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"pencil-neck" - Word of the Day from the OED
OED Online Word of the Day
Now available: the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary
This new print publication provides a unique resource for scholars researching linguistic and literary history, the history of the language, social history, and more. Read more and see a sample page.
"An indispensable tool for writers." –School Library Journal.
The updated Second Edition of the Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus is more exceptional than ever, solidifying its place as the one thesaurus writers at all levels will want to have. A perfect graduation gift!
pencil-neck, n. and adj. | DRAFT ENTRY Dec. 2005 |
slang (usu. depreciative). orig. U.S.1968 P. K. DICK Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? 79 I'll have to break your pencil neck. 1976 Washington Post 15 Mar. C9/1 Pinky's poor pencil neck isn't likely to develop added musculature. 2002 Sunday Times (Nexis) 16 June, I have a pencil neck but my shoulders are as wide as any man's.1968 C. F. BAKER et al College Undergraduate Slang Study (typescript) 169 Pencilneck, a person who studies a great deal. 1987 C. HIAASEN Double Whammy (1989) 244 Okay, pencil-neck, let's hear the bad news. 1990 N. BAKER Room Temperature ix. 73 They wouldn't even know what a pencil neck was until I ramped up and began a course of concentrated reading more fanatically comprehensive even than De Quincey's eighteen-hour-a-day burst at Oxford. 1991 Musclemag Mar. 109/1 Society has jobs for strong-men, just as it has jobs for pencil-necks. 2001 P. TSATSOULINE Russian Kettlebell Challenge i. 3 Poddubny made himself a 16kg cane
so he could amuse himself watching pencilnecks at coat checks drop it on their toes.1977 ‘J. LEGEND’ (title of song) Pencil neck geek. 1987 Los Angeles Times (Nexis) 30 Mar. III. 3/1 Let's face it, we're a nation of pencil-neck wimps. 1998 J. CAHILL Meadowlands in Sopranos (television shooting script) 1st Ser. 43 You pencil-neck fuck, I could pop your head like a blister.
Brit. /
A. n.
1. A long thin neck.
2. An excessively studious or effete person; a person with a poor physique (as exemplified by a thin or scrawny neck); a weakling. Hence as a general term of abuse.
soB. adj. (attrib.). Thin, scrawny; weak, effete.
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[Increase My Vocabulary]
Onager:
an engine that provided medieval artillery used during sieges; a heavy war engine for hurling large stones and other missiles
an engine that provided medieval artillery used during sieges; a heavy war engine for hurling large stones and other missiles
Saturday, May 29, 2010
AWADmail Issue 413
| Wordsmith.org | The Magic of Words |
This week's theme
Words having many unrelated meanings
This week's words
jactitation
bagman
cashier
meiosis
tabby
Next week's theme
Words not named after the person they should be
AWADmail archives
Index
Discuss
Feedback
RSS/XML
Words having many unrelated meanings
This week's words
jactitation
bagman
cashier
meiosis
tabby
Next week's theme
Words not named after the person they should be
AWADmail archives
Index
Discuss Feedback RSS/XML AWADmail Issue 413
May 30, 2010A Compendium of Feedback on the Words in A.Word.A.Day and Other Tidbits about Words and Language
This week's Email of the Week is from Jody Anderson (see below), who receives a Mr. Write Uppityshirt, the word-perfect choice for any old dad.
From: spaggis (via Wordsmith Talk bulletin board)
Subject: Unrelated meanings
When I first saw your opening statement, I immediately thought of a great quotation from Robert Heinlein:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
I doubt this week's words are THAT diversified, but still... grin.
Thank you, again, for so many great words and great quotations.
From: Jody Anderson (jodyand me.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--jactitation
Def: 1. A false boast or claim that is intended to harm someone, especially a malicious claim by a person that he or she is married to a particular person. 2. Involuntary tossing and twitching of the body and limbs.
Did you know I was once married to George Clooney? Woops, there go my limbs.
From: Kibbe Fitzpatrick (kibbef msn.com)
Subject: Re: jactitation
The Roman historian Suetonius quoted Caesar as saying alea iacta est (the die is cast) in 49 BCE when he crossed the Rubicon, the boundary between France and Italy, with his legions. Caesar knew that this act would plunge the Roman world into civil war. His utterance was defiant and meant that he had reached the point of no return. This, of course, is exactly how we use the phrase "the die is cast" today.
From: Lisette Fernandes (lisetteonline gmail.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--bagman
Def: 1. One who collects or distributes money from illicit activities, for example, in a protection racket. 2. UK: A traveling salesman. 3. Canada: A political fundraiser. 4. Australia: A tramp; swagman. 5. Golf: A caddie hired to carry a golf player's clubs.
Bagman: Any male accompanying a female when she shops.
From: Graham Mays (maysg callnetuk.com)
Subject: Bagman
Here in the south of England, a baglady is a down-and-out woman of no fixed abode who carries all her belongings in supermarket carrier bags. But strangely, men of a similar disposition are not referred to as 'bagmen'.
From: Joseph M. Schech (schechj dir6.nichd.nih.gov)
Subject: bagman, baglady
Baglady is commonly used to mean a homeless person who carries their belonging with them in a variety of shopping bags. Usually implies they're more than a little unhinged in the brain as well. Although I've heard "baglady" quite frequently, I've never known anyone to apply "bagman" to a similar male character. Another bit of sexual inequality in the US? Or do the homeless men prefer shopping carts?
From: Barbara Jackson LeMoine (bjlemoine comcast.net)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--bagman
When I worked in the Pharmacy, I used to carry around large bank bags with drugs in them. I went to a doctor once and when he walked in the door, he pointed and said, "You're the bag lady!"
From: Iain Harrison (iain hairydog.co.uk)
Subject: Bagman
It's not just in golf that a bagman carries stuff. In the UK, morris dance sides often have a bagman, who is responsible for equipment: as far as I know this involves more than just carrying it.
From: Thad McIlroy (thad thefutureofpublishing.com)
Subject: bagman
I don't think that your attribution "political fundraiser" should be Canadian per se.
In Canada a political bagman is by default an honest fundraiser (if that is not a contradiction!) although I suspect that has more to do with a less-well developed pattern of political corruption in this country than with the meaning of the word. In Canada the criminal sense of the word is also used. (link)
From: Jack Shoemaker (jshoe alum.mit.edu)
Subject: bagman
I'm not sure that definitions 1 and 3 are really that different. It is interesting to note the Canadian use of the term. I guess they just call a spade a spade up there.
From: Shakambharee Chandrasekaran (shakambharee gmail.com)
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--bagman
Yet another word that reminds me of Harry Potter! Ludo Bagman, Department of Magical Games and Sports, shows a lot of interest in gambling and betting. Every time I know the way she has named characters (like Severus, Minerva) it makes me marvel at her flair for writing.
From: Marvant Duhon (mduhon bluemarble.net)
Subject: bagman
In the US Armed Forces, it is forbidden to solicit funds from a subordinate, even for a sanctioned charity like Navy Relief. Nor was the senior allowed to know who had contributed how much. When there was an official charity drive (twice a year when I was in the Marines), a very junior enlisted man or woman would be appointed bagman for each unit. He or she also had to be capable of keeping records, honest, and very persuasive.
From: Thomas Brucks (tomtimm mac.com)
Subject: Bagman
In the 1950s I worked in a grocery store in Houston, Texas as a "bagboy". The job consisted of putting groceries into paper bags and often taking them to the awaiting car of the shopper. Plastic wasn't an option yet, and girls did not do the job. Later, things changed and "plastic or paper?" and baggirls hit the scene. The job category evolved into "baggers" and lost a lot of its appeal to many workers in the grocery store business. Thanks for bringing back fond memories with bagman. So, another possible meaning, allowing for the fact that one must be a boy before becoming a man.
From: Judith Paul (ianpaul worldonline.co.za)
Subject: meiosis
Def: 1. Understatement for rhetorical effect. 2. The process of cell division in which the number of chromosomes per cell is reduced to one half.
The British are the masters of meiosis. It can confuse other nations who may not be aware of this. I travelled with one such person who thought a particular Brit was rather simple until I explained the British use of the understatement, i.e. "a trifle hot" really means it is extremely hot.
From: Griselda Mussett (mussetts btinternet.com)
Subject: tabby
Def: 1. A domestic cat with a striped or brindled coat. 2. A domestic cat, especially a female one. 3. A spinster. 4. A spiteful or gossipy woman. 5. A fabric of plain weave. 6. A watered silk fabric. 7. A building material made of lime, oyster shells, and gravel.
The biography of the six daughters of King George III reveals from their diaries and letters that 'tabby' definitely signified a spinster or unmarried woman. Their devotion and duty to their father meant they led very cloistered lives. Only one (the oldest) married while he reigned, the others mournfully waited for marriage, or had clandestine affairs, or actually died -- none were in robust health. Maybe their frustration made them spiteful.
From: Charles Baldwin (charles.baldwin morganstanley.com)
Subject: Words with diverse meanings
One of my favorite such words is the word jack. I'm amazed at the number of diverse meanings, from an electrical connector to a mechanical lifting device to the small metal game piece (jacks) to a playing card etc. I even use it colloquially when I tell my colleagues they "don't know jack"...
From: Max Bennun (maxben iafrica.com)
Subject: Ockham's razor
To answer Dean Barnard's question in AWADmail 412, Medical students in South Africa are not taught that hoof beats are more likely from horses than zebras. We were told that a small bird seen on a twig was most probably a sparrow and far less likely to be a canary. Hence a rare and seldom encountered condition became known as a "canary".
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
A word is dead / When it is said, / Some say. / I say it just / Begins to live / That day. -Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886) This week's AWAD was sponsored by:
| | |
Books by Anu Garg
© 2010 Wordsmith.org
AWADmail Issue 413
| Wordsmith.org | The Magic of Words |
This week's theme
Words having many unrelated meanings
This week's words
jactitation
bagman
cashier
meiosis
tabby
Next week's theme
Words not named after the person they should be
AWADmail archives
Index
Discuss
Feedback
RSS/XML
Words having many unrelated meanings
This week's words
jactitation
bagman
cashier
meiosis
tabby
Next week's theme
Words not named after the person they should be
AWADmail archives
Index
Discuss Feedback RSS/XML AWADmail Issue 413
May 30, 2010A Compendium of Feedback on the Words in A.Word.A.Day and Other Tidbits about Words and Language
This week's Email of the Week is from Jody Anderson (see below), who receives a Mr. Write Uppityshirt, the word-perfect choice for any old dad.
From: spaggis (via Wordsmith Talk bulletin board)
Subject: Unrelated meanings
When I first saw your opening statement, I immediately thought of a great quotation from Robert Heinlein:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
I doubt this week's words are THAT diversified, but still... grin.
Thank you, again, for so many great words and great quotations.
From: Jody Anderson (jodyand me.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--jactitation
Def: 1. A false boast or claim that is intended to harm someone, especially a malicious claim by a person that he or she is married to a particular person. 2. Involuntary tossing and twitching of the body and limbs.
Did you know I was once married to George Clooney? Woops, there go my limbs.
From: Kibbe Fitzpatrick (kibbef msn.com)
Subject: Re: jactitation
The Roman historian Suetonius quoted Caesar as saying alea iacta est (the die is cast) in 49 BCE when he crossed the Rubicon, the boundary between France and Italy, with his legions. Caesar knew that this act would plunge the Roman world into civil war. His utterance was defiant and meant that he had reached the point of no return. This, of course, is exactly how we use the phrase "the die is cast" today.
From: Lisette Fernandes (lisetteonline gmail.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--bagman
Def: 1. One who collects or distributes money from illicit activities, for example, in a protection racket. 2. UK: A traveling salesman. 3. Canada: A political fundraiser. 4. Australia: A tramp; swagman. 5. Golf: A caddie hired to carry a golf player's clubs.
Bagman: Any male accompanying a female when she shops.
From: Graham Mays (maysg callnetuk.com)
Subject: Bagman
Here in the south of England, a baglady is a down-and-out woman of no fixed abode who carries all her belongings in supermarket carrier bags. But strangely, men of a similar disposition are not referred to as 'bagmen'.
From: Joseph M. Schech (schechj dir6.nichd.nih.gov)
Subject: bagman, baglady
Baglady is commonly used to mean a homeless person who carries their belonging with them in a variety of shopping bags. Usually implies they're more than a little unhinged in the brain as well. Although I've heard "baglady" quite frequently, I've never known anyone to apply "bagman" to a similar male character. Another bit of sexual inequality in the US? Or do the homeless men prefer shopping carts?
From: Barbara Jackson LeMoine (bjlemoine comcast.net)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--bagman
When I worked in the Pharmacy, I used to carry around large bank bags with drugs in them. I went to a doctor once and when he walked in the door, he pointed and said, "You're the bag lady!"
From: Iain Harrison (iain hairydog.co.uk)
Subject: Bagman
It's not just in golf that a bagman carries stuff. In the UK, morris dance sides often have a bagman, who is responsible for equipment: as far as I know this involves more than just carrying it.
From: Thad McIlroy (thad thefutureofpublishing.com)
Subject: bagman
I don't think that your attribution "political fundraiser" should be Canadian per se.
In Canada a political bagman is by default an honest fundraiser (if that is not a contradiction!) although I suspect that has more to do with a less-well developed pattern of political corruption in this country than with the meaning of the word. In Canada the criminal sense of the word is also used. (link)
From: Jack Shoemaker (jshoe alum.mit.edu)
Subject: bagman
I'm not sure that definitions 1 and 3 are really that different. It is interesting to note the Canadian use of the term. I guess they just call a spade a spade up there.
From: Shakambharee Chandrasekaran (shakambharee gmail.com)
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--bagman
Yet another word that reminds me of Harry Potter! Ludo Bagman, Department of Magical Games and Sports, shows a lot of interest in gambling and betting. Every time I know the way she has named characters (like Severus, Minerva) it makes me marvel at her flair for writing.
From: Marvant Duhon (mduhon bluemarble.net)
Subject: bagman
In the US Armed Forces, it is forbidden to solicit funds from a subordinate, even for a sanctioned charity like Navy Relief. Nor was the senior allowed to know who had contributed how much. When there was an official charity drive (twice a year when I was in the Marines), a very junior enlisted man or woman would be appointed bagman for each unit. He or she also had to be capable of keeping records, honest, and very persuasive.
From: Thomas Brucks (tomtimm mac.com)
Subject: Bagman
In the 1950s I worked in a grocery store in Houston, Texas as a "bagboy". The job consisted of putting groceries into paper bags and often taking them to the awaiting car of the shopper. Plastic wasn't an option yet, and girls did not do the job. Later, things changed and "plastic or paper?" and baggirls hit the scene. The job category evolved into "baggers" and lost a lot of its appeal to many workers in the grocery store business. Thanks for bringing back fond memories with bagman. So, another possible meaning, allowing for the fact that one must be a boy before becoming a man.
From: Judith Paul (ianpaul worldonline.co.za)
Subject: meiosis
Def: 1. Understatement for rhetorical effect. 2. The process of cell division in which the number of chromosomes per cell is reduced to one half.
The British are the masters of meiosis. It can confuse other nations who may not be aware of this. I travelled with one such person who thought a particular Brit was rather simple until I explained the British use of the understatement, i.e. "a trifle hot" really means it is extremely hot.
From: Griselda Mussett (mussetts btinternet.com)
Subject: tabby
Def: 1. A domestic cat with a striped or brindled coat. 2. A domestic cat, especially a female one. 3. A spinster. 4. A spiteful or gossipy woman. 5. A fabric of plain weave. 6. A watered silk fabric. 7. A building material made of lime, oyster shells, and gravel.
The biography of the six daughters of King George III reveals from their diaries and letters that 'tabby' definitely signified a spinster or unmarried woman. Their devotion and duty to their father meant they led very cloistered lives. Only one (the oldest) married while he reigned, the others mournfully waited for marriage, or had clandestine affairs, or actually died -- none were in robust health. Maybe their frustration made them spiteful.
From: Charles Baldwin (charles.baldwin morganstanley.com)
Subject: Words with diverse meanings
One of my favorite such words is the word jack. I'm amazed at the number of diverse meanings, from an electrical connector to a mechanical lifting device to the small metal game piece (jacks) to a playing card etc. I even use it colloquially when I tell my colleagues they "don't know jack"...
From: Max Bennun (maxben iafrica.com)
Subject: Ockham's razor
To answer Dean Barnard's question in AWADmail 412, Medical students in South Africa are not taught that hoof beats are more likely from horses than zebras. We were told that a small bird seen on a twig was most probably a sparrow and far less likely to be a canary. Hence a rare and seldom encountered condition became known as a "canary".
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
A word is dead / When it is said, / Some say. / I say it just / Begins to live / That day. -Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886) This week's AWAD was sponsored by:
| | |
Books by Anu Garg
© 2010 Wordsmith.org
epoch: Dictionary.com Word of the Day
| | ||||||||
Do you like today's word? | |||||||||
Word of the Day for Saturday, May 29, 2010epoch \EP-uhk\, noun: 1. The beginning of a distinctive period in the history of anything. As a result, lawmakers can now submit draft constitutional amendments to the Diet, a practice that had been frozen for three years since the national voting bill was enacted. This is an epoch-making event in the postwar history of our nation's constitutional politics. Indeed, I've seen this epoch as an increasingly intimate collaboration between our biological heritage and a future that transcends biology. Epoch has acquired a variety of precise meanings through the centuries: historical, in ancient Rome and Greece; geological and astronomical in modern times. | |||||||||
Suggest tomorrow's Word of the Day | |||||||||
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"depression" - Word of the Day from the OED
OED Online Word of the Day
Now available: the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary
This new print publication provides a unique resource for scholars researching linguistic and literary history, the history of the language, social history, and more. Read more and see a sample page.
"An indispensable tool for writers." –School Library Journal.
The updated Second Edition of the Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus is more exceptional than ever, solidifying its place as the one thesaurus writers at all levels will want to have. A perfect graduation gift!
depression | SECOND EDITION 1989 |
(
The action of depressing, or condition of being depressed; a depressed formation; that which is depressed: in various senses. (Opp. to elevation.)
1. lit. The action of pressing down, or fact of being pressed down; usually more widely: The action of lowering, or process of sinking; the condition of being lowered in position.
2. spec. a. Astron., etc. (a) The angular distance of a star, the pole, etc., below the horizon (opp. to altitude); the angular distance of the visible horizon below the true horizontal plane, the DIP of the horizon; in Surveying, etc., the angular distance of an object below the horizontal plane through the point of observation (opp. to elevation). (b) The lowest altitude of a circumpolar star (or of the sun seen from within the polar circle), when it is on the meridian beneath the pole (opp. to culmination). (c) The apparent sinking of the celestial pole towards the horizon as the observer travels towards the equator.
b. Gunnery. The lowering of the muzzle of a gun below the horizontal line.
c. Surg. The operation of couching for cataract.
3. concr. A depressed or sunken formation on a surface; a hollow, a low place or part.
4. fig. a. The action of putting down or bringing low, or the fact or condition of being brought low (in station, fortunes, etc.). Now rare.
5. a. A lowering in quality, vigour, or amount; the state of being lowered or reduced in force, activity, intensity, etc. In mod. use esp. of trade; spec. the Depression, the financial and industrial ‘slump’ of 1929 and subsequent years. Also attrib.
b. Lowering in pitch, flattening (of the voice, or a musical note).
c. A lowering of the column of mercury in the barometer or of the atmospheric pressure which is thereby measured; spec. in Meteorol. a centre of minimum pressure, or the system of winds around it (= CYCLONE 1c).
d. Path. Lowering of the vital functions or powers; a state of reduced vitality.
6. a. The condition of being depressed in spirits; dejection.
7b. Psychol. Freq. a sign of psychiatric disorder or a component of various psychoses, with symptoms of misery, anguish, or guilt accompanied by headache, insomnia, etc.
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About Me
- Ambarish Srivastava
- Learnt a lot from vicissitudes of life, I am a student of life, A work in progress, currently(sic) an overweight body but a beautiful mind, Another human seeking happiness. I believe in sharing and absorbing wisdom irrespective of the source. (aa no bhadraa kratavo...)