Word of the Day Thread

[The8th]

nosh \ nosh \ , verb;
1.
To snack or eat between meals.

2.
To snack on.

noun: 1.
A snack.



Quotes:
“Here are more munchies for you to nosh on. I know you're probably hungry.” Vincent added a platter of scrumptious fried calamari to the table.
-- Jessica Speart, Black Delta Night

"You got anything to nosh on?" "We're going to a good restaurant; leave your appetite alone."
-- William Goldman, Boys and Girls Together



Origin:
Nosh stems from the Yiddish word nashn from the German word meaning "to nibble." It entered English in the 1950s.



Will definitely be using this.

[ITS ME!]

besot \ bih-SOT \ , verb;
1.
To infatuate; obsess.

2.
To intoxicate or stupefy with drink.

3.
To make stupid or foolish: a mind besotted with fear and superstition.



Quotes:
We mustn't besot ourselves with big words like independence and sovereignty. We must begin with small concrete tasks.
-- Piotr Rawicz and Peter Wiles, Blood from the Sky

He tried to appear as besot with her as he was with her father's power and money.
-- Judith Pella and Tracie Peterson, A Hope Beyond



Origin:
The prefix be was used in Middle English to denote verbs, as in the contemporary words become and befriend. The word sot referred to an alcoholic.

[ITS ME!]

mensch \ mench \ , noun;
1.
A decent, upright, mature, and responsible person.



Quotes:
It's easy to be a mensch , his dad says. You honor your father and mother. You stay married, you set your kids a good example, you don't lie or cheat or steal. And every once in a while, Cookie, you gotta pick up the check, his father says, then winks.
-- Jane VanDenburgh, Physics of Sunset

A mensch is not usually interested in fame. You are liable to meet a mensch in almost any situation.
-- Ira Wood, The Kitchen Man



Origin:
Mensch entered English from Yiddish in the 1950s. In Yiddish, it meant "man, human being" and had the positive associations that carried into English. It is related to the German word mensch .

[ITS ME!]

sudorific \ soo-duh-RIF-ik \ , adjective;

1.
Causing sweat.


2.
Sudoriparous.

noun: 1.
A sudorific agent.



Quotes:
Having thrown him into a cold sweat by his spiritual sudorific , he attacks him with his material remedies, which are often quite as unpalatable.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Medical Essays, 1842-1882

Wracked by such sudorific thoughts, he tossed noisily about, maddened, aching.
-- Angela Huth, South of the Lights

Every sudorific hitherto employed had failed to produce this result upon a skin which horrible diseases had left impervious.
-- Honoré de Balzac, Cousin Pons



Origin:
Sudorific comes from the Latin word sūdor meaning "sweat." The word "sweat" is unrelated and comes from the Old English, swote .

[ITS ME!]

pother \ POTH-er \ , noun;
1.
A heated discussion, debate, or argument; fuss; to-do.

2.
Commotion; uproar.

3.
A choking or suffocating cloud, as of smoke or dust.

verb: 1.
To worry; bother.



Quotes:
"An' why all the pother ?" Mrs. Rickards emitted a series of sniffs and returned his scowl with a frosty glare.
-- Colin Arthur Roderick, The Lady and the Lawyer

I don't know what's so extraordinary about it, or why there should be such a pother .
-- William Dean Howells, Novels 1886-1888 , Volume 2



Origin:
Pother is of unknown origin. It is not related to the word bother which did not enter English until the 1700s and is related to the word both .

[ITS ME!]

cicatrix \ SIK-uh-triks \ , noun;

1.
New tissue that forms over a wound.

2.
Botany. A scar left by a fallen leaf, seed, etc.



Quotes:
A new relationship can develop. But the cicatrix of the old one remains. And nothing grows on a cicatrix . Nothing grows through it.
-- Elizabeth George, Playing for the Ashes

He discriminates also very properly between the cicatrix , which is produced by the healing of wounds which have penetrated the cutis, and those in which the surface only is affected.
-- James Moore, "Differtation on Healing of Wounds," The Analytical Review , Volume 5



Origin:
Cicatrix is derived from the Latin word cicatrix meaning "scar." The Latin word has no clear origin.

[ITS ME!]

obtest \ ob-TEST \ , verb;
1.
To supplicate earnestly; beseech.

2.
To invoke as witness.

3.
To protest.

4.
To make supplication; beseech.



Quotes:
I constrain, adjure, obtest and strongly command you.
-- Sir Walter Scott, Guy Mannering

And whosoever she be, even with the form of words which to miserable wretches is granted most exaudible, I pray, and do with those prayers most heartily obtest , which are in the ears of the hearers of them most effectual, that she may never taste of such bitter miseries.
-- Giovanni Boccaccio, Amorous Fiametta



Origin:
Obtest comes from the Latin roots ob- , a prefix meaning "toward", and the root test , meaning "witness."

[ITS ME!]

sibilant \ SIB-uh-luhnt \ , adjective;
1.
Hissing.

2.
Phonetics. Characterized by a hissing sound; noting sounds like those spelled with s in this .

noun: 1.
Phonetics. A sibilant consonant.



Quotes:
This is the way the presence of a ghost was detected: Some sound would be heard, such as a sibilant noise, a soft whistle, or something like murmurs, or some sensation in a part of the body might be felt.
-- George H. Ellis, Legends of Gods and Ghosts: Hawaiian Mythology

He just drank his coffee, making a little sibilant sound, and watched the earth mover lumber back and forth, back and forth, its shovel going up and down and over and up and down and over again.
-- Anna Quindlen, Object Lessons

The wind in the patch of pine woods off there—how sibilant.
-- Walt Whitman, Prose Works 1892: Specimen Days



Origin:
Sibilant stems from the Latin word sībilant- which meant "whistling or hissing." It is assumed to imitative of the sound itself.

[ITS ME!]

prorogue \ proh-ROHG \ , verb;
1.
To defer; postpone.

2.
To discontinue a session of (the British Parliament or a similar body).



Quotes:
It was enough to make him rise from his Governor's throne and tell them, in English instead of Latin just so the fools and dunderheads understood, that he was planning to prorogue Parliament within a week.
-- Julian Barnes, England, England

What I do hear is that Catulus—he's much better, so they say, he'll be back making a nuisance of himself in Senate and Comitia shortly—is organizing a campaign to prorogue all the current governors next year, leaving this year's praetors with no provinces at all.
-- Colleen McCullough, Caesar's Women



Origin:
Prorogue is derived from the Latin word prōrogāre from the roots pro- meaning "advancing towards" and rogāre meaning "to ask."

[ITS ME!]

matrilineal \ ma-truh-LIN-ee-uhl \ , adjective;

1.
Inheriting or determining descent through the female line.



Quotes:
In a matrilineal society, in a matriarchy, and especially in this particular matriarchy, the women, as I've already said, control the houses, the lineage of the children, and a lot of decisions about marriage and so forth.
-- Patrice E. M. Hollrah, The Old Lady Trill, the Victory Yell

Several of the women I talked to had decided to challenge the influence of the matrilineal clan and to bequeath part of their land to their sons. The ways they had chosen in this regard were however quite different.
-- Birgit Englert and Elizabeth Daley, Women's Land Rights & Privatization in Eastern Africa



Origin:
Matrilineal was first used in the early 1900s by anthropologists. It derives from the Late Latin roots matri- meaning "mother" and lineal meaning "line."

[tp2503]

prorogue. Ya.
We've got a jerkoff in Canada that has used this in the last 5 years or so.
Medieval dick-wad Stevie Harper

[ITS ME!]

intromit \ in-truh-MIT \ , verb;

1.
To introduce; to send, put, or let in.



Quotes:
Mrs. Tappitt had frequently offered to intromit the ceremony when calling upon his generosity for other purposes, but the September gift had always been forthcoming.
-- Anthony Trollope, Rachel Ray

But in this I found a great difficulty, arising from the policy and conduct of Mr. Andrew McLucre, who had a sort of investment, as may be said, of the office of dean of guild, having for many years been allowed to intromit and manage the same.
-- John Galt, Annals of the Parish



Origin:
Intromit comes from the Latin roots intro- meaning "inwardly" and mittere meaning "to send."

[ITS ME!]

altiloquent \ awl-TIL-uh-kwuhnt \ , noun;
1.
High-flown or pretentious language.



Quotes:
He remembered that the politeness seemed too elaborate, too florid, altiloquent to the extent of insincerity.
-- Holman Day, All-Wool Morrison

The meaning of the music was made further explicit by explanations in his own, altiloquent (but purposefully avoiding the technical) Wagnerian prose, wrapped solicitously around the Goethe passages.
-- Alessandra Comini, The Changing Image of Beethoven



Origin:
Altiloquent stems from the Latin roots atli meaning "high" and loquentem meaning "speaking."

[ITS ME!]

spruik \ sprook \ , verb;
1.
To make or give a speech, especially extensively; spiel.



Quotes:
He started to spruik again, but I managed to get in first.
-- C.E. Murphy, Raven Calls

Cain and Leek spruik their foul and immoral stories by the fire at night and the rest of the men grow excited and the mood of the camp becomes restless.
-- Tim Winton, Shallows

Don't go into your spruik for me. I don't care what words you call it.
-- A. E. Martin, The Outsiders



Origin:
Spruik is Australian slang that arose in the early 1900s. It is of unknown origin.

[ITS ME!]

omphalos \ OM-fuh-luhs \ , noun;
1.
The central point.


2.
The navel; umbilicus.

3.
Greek Antiquity. A stone in the temple of Apollo at Delphi, thought to mark the center of the earth.



Quotes:
To that incurable romantic the Trenton hovel was omphalos , the hub of existence, the center of mass.
-- Ellen Queen, Halfway House

Yes; but if not of the earth, for earth's tenant Jerusalem was the omphalos of mortality.

-- Thomas De Quincey, Suspiria de Profundies



Origin:
From Greek, omphalos did not enter English until the 1850s when Thomas De Quincey used it in his work Suspiria de Profundis. It literally meant "navel."

[ITS ME!]

pip \ pip \ , verb;

1.
To peep or chirp.

2.
(Of a young bird) to break out from the shell.

3.
To crack or chip a hole through (the shell), as a young bird.



Quotes:
Stone's watch pipped eight o'clock. He had curly hair the color of motor oil, and pale green eyes.
-- Jonathan Franzen, The Twenty-Seventh City

As Fiona's horn pipped , just beyond the cab's black fender.
-- William Gibson, Zero History



Origin:
Pip is a variation on the word peep which arose in the 1600s. It comes from the Lithuanian word pỹpti which was originally imitative of a baby bird.

[ITS ME!]

phatic \ FAT-ik \ , adjective;
1.
Denoting speech used to create an atmosphere of goodwill.



Quotes:
We conduct phatic discourse indispensable to maintaining a constant connection among speakers; but phatic speech is indispensable precisely because it keeps the possibility of communication in working order, for the purpose of other and more substantial communications.
-- Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyperreality

They're just filling the air with noise. This is what's called phatic speech. "How are you?" they might ask.
-- Adriana Lopez, Fifteen Candles



Origin:
Coined by the anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski, phatic was first used in 1923. It probably comes from the Greek word phatos meaning "spoken."

[ITS ME!]

gambit \ GAM-bit \ , noun;

1.
A remark made to open or redirect a conversation.

2.
Chess . An opening in which a player seeks to obtain some advantage by sacrificing a pawn or piece.

3.
Any maneuver by which one seeks to gain an advantage.



Quotes:
The leader was eyeing him up and down, shrewdly calculating. "Thirsty as all that, are you, my friend?" he asked. Gratefully Bomilcar seized upon the gambit . “Thirsty enough to buy everyone here a drink,” he said.
-- Colleen McCullough, The First Man in Rome

But in other cases the gambit may be a dependent clause introducing or rounding off some larger unit whose illocutionary force it helps to establish.
-- Thierry Fontenelle, Practical Lexicography: A Reader



Origin:
Gambit is primarily a term used in chess. It came from the Italian idiom gambetto meaning "to trip up."

[ITS ME!]

belabor \ bih-LEY-ber \ , verb;
1.
To explain, worry about, or work more than is necessary.

2.
To assail persistently, as with scorn or ridicule.

3.
To beat vigorously; ply with heavy blows.

4.
Obsolete. To labor at.



Quotes:
Yours and everybody else's, thought Swiffers, but he didn't wish to belabor the obvious.
-- Tom Robbins, Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates

It is distasteful to the present writer to belabor any of his fellow writers, living or dead, and, except Boccaccio, who also stood for a detestable human trait, he has here avoided doing so.
-- Ford Madox Ford, The March of Literature

Neither of them possessed energy or wit to belabor me soundly; but they insulted me as coarsely as they could in their little way.
-- Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre



Origin:
Like besot , belabor comes from the prefix be- which makes a verb out of a noun and the root labor meaning "to work."

[ITS ME!]

cumulus \ KYOO-myuh-luhs \ , noun;
1.
A heap; pile.

2.
A cloud of a class characterized by dense individual elements in the form of puffs, mounds, or towers, with flat bases and tops that often resemble cauliflower.



Quotes:
He was organizing the year's remnants. He was logging and archiving and filing it all. The whole swollen yearlong cumulus.
-- Dana Spiotta, Stone Arabia

"So where is it at, Minogue," asks the palatal man, aloft in a cumulus of webs and dust and creak.
-- David Foster Wallace, Girl with Curious Hair



Origin:
Cumulus stems from the Neo-Latin word meaning "heap, pile." It was first used to describe clouds in the early 1800s.