Word of the Day Thread

[ITS ME!]

outrance \ oo-TRAHNS \ , noun;
1.
The utmost extremity.



Quotes: "Its prevailing features are equability, ease, perfect accuracy and purity of style, a manner never at outrance with the subject matter, pathos, and verisimilitude."
-- Edgar Allen Poe, The Linwoods

I pretend not to be a champion of that same naked virtue called truth, to the very outrance . I can consent that her charms be hidden with a veil, were it but for decency's sake.
-- Sir Walter Scott, Kenilworth



Origin:
Outrance came from the Old French word oltra

[ITS ME!]

perspicacious \ pur-spi-KEY-shuhs \ , adjective;

1.
Having keen mental perception and understanding; discerning.

2.
Archaic . Having keen vision.



Quotes: You are perspicacious , know the ways of the world, and are more tactful than most men of your age.
-- Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

More perspicacious neighbors, the Paulsens among them, suspected that Joey also enjoyed being the smartest person in the house.
-- Jonathan Franzen, Freedom



Origin:
Perspicacious is derived from the Late Latin word perspicācitās meaning "sharpness of sight."

[ITS ME!]

alate \ EY-leyt \ , adjective, noun;

1.
Having wings; winged.

2.
Having membranous expansions like wings.

noun: 1.
The winged form of an insect when both winged and wingless forms occur in the species.



Quotes: Vainly a few diehard physicists pointed out that wings are of no propulsive help in airless void, that alate flight is possible only where there are wind currents to lift and carry.
-- Robert Silverberg, Earth is the Strangest Planet

There are no words branded into this gate, only the shape of a large bird with its wings stretched out over the width of the road like an alate protector.
-- Jenny Siler, Easy Money



Origin:
Alate is comprised of the Latin roots āla meaning "wing" and the suffix -ate which was used in Latin to make a word an adjective (like separate) but in English came to be used to create a verb out of a noun (like agitate).

[ITS ME!]

persnickety \ per-SNIK-i-tee \ , adjective;
1.
Overparticular; fussy.

2.
Snobbish or having the aloof attitude of a snob.

3.
Requiring painstaking care.



Quotes: These critics can take some consolation by looking at the recent rehabilitation of Hamilton Grange, the upper Manhattan house built by founding father Alexander Hamilton. It shows just how persnickety a preservation project can be.
-- Robbie Whelan, "Historic Home on the Grange," The Wall Street Journal , December 11, 2011

The point here is to make your animal understand that its upstairs neighbour is exceptionally persnickety about territory.
-- Yann Martel, Life of Pi



Origin:
Persnickety dates back to the late 1800s. It is a variant of the Scots word pernickety , which is of uncertain origin. Pernickety is perhaps related to other Scots words with the per- prefix, like perskeet which meant "fastidious."

[tp2503]

Ohhhhh my membranous expansion has a mind of its' own, lol.

It had been a while since I mocked a word, lol.
Thanks for the posts ITS ME!

[ITS ME!]

shiv \ shiv \ , noun;
1.
A knife, especially a switchblade.



Quotes: Then this one cop, the guy, he pulls out a picture, shows me a photograph, see, of my shiv . Now, I gotta tell ya, this shiv of mine's no ordinary blade.
-- Ashok Mathur, Once Upon an Elephant

“Why would he wipe the shiv ?” Decker said. “Supposedly it was his shiv , not hers. Of course it would have his prints on it. Seems to me he'd just stick it back in its sheath and leave.”
-- Faye Kellerman, Milk and Honey



Origin:
First used in English in the early 1600s, shiv is of unknown origin, but it may be related to the Romany word for knife, chiv .

[ITS ME!]

deucedly \ DOO-sid-lee \ , adverb;
1.
Devilishly; damnably.



Quotes: When I went in I had seen that there was a deucedly pretty girl sitting in that particular seat, so I had taken the next one.
-- P. G. Wodehouse, Man With Two Left Feet and Other Stories

It's most important. You will put me in a deucedly awkward position if you don't.
-- C. S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew



Origin:
Deucedly is related to the word deuce which refers to the face of a die with one dot, as in "to roll deuces." It comes from the Latin word for two, duos . In the mid-1600s, it became associated with bad luck, probably because it was the lowest score you could get when playing dice.

[ITS ME!]

remora \ REM-er-uh \ , noun;

1.
An obstacle, hindrance, or obstruction.

2.
Any of several fishes of the family Echeneididae, having on the top of the head a sucking disk by which they can attach themselves to sharks, turtles, ships, and other moving objects.



Quotes: Notwithstanding the extreme unpopularity of the Duke of Kent as a soldier, there was no remora to his employment.
-- Robert Huish, The History of the Life and Reign of William the Fourth

They all coexist today in diachronic contradictions, and what coexists is the colonial remora of Bolivian history, the different articulations of colonizing forces and colonized victims.
-- Walter D. Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking



Origin:
Remora is derived from the Latin word remorārī meaning "to delay."

[ITS ME!]

natheless \ NEYTH-lis \ , adverb;

1.
Nevertheless.



Quotes: Natheless, it was I who did educate Miss Lucy in all useful learning.
-- Sir Walter Scott, Guy Mannering

Natheless, God send you good success, and to that end will we pray.
-- Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court



Origin:
Natheless is an Old English word. Nā meant "not" in Old English, and the other roots ( the and less ) have remained constant in modern English.

[ITS ME!]

slimsy
\ SLIM-zee \ , adjective;
1.
Flimsy; frail.

Quotes:
"Nice girl . . ." he mused, "but sort of thin and slimsy and delicate, not robust and hearty like the kind of girl you ought to have on a farm."
-- Bess Streeter Aldrich, A White Flying Bird
The coat was a slimsy bit of dark silk, with a glister in it; and the hat was the thinnest straw, the brim curling a little in the wind.
-- Max Brand, Storm on the Range
Origin:
Slimsy is an Americanism that came into common use in the 1830s and early 1840s. It is a combination of slim and flimsy .

[ITS ME!]

educe \ ih-DOOS \ , verb;
1.
To draw forth or bring out, as something potential or latent.

2.
To infer or deduce.



Quotes: Forty or fifty minutes of vigorous and unslackened analytic thought bestowed upon one of them usually suffices to educe from it all there is to educe , its general solution…
-- Edited by Umberto Eco and Thomas A. Sebeok, The Sign of Three: Dupin, Holmes, Peirce

If, after this, you can possibly want any further aid towards knowing what Sir Lionel was, we can tell you, that in his soul "the scientific combinations of thought could educe no fuller harmonies of the good and the true, than lay in the primaeval pulses which floated as an atmosphere around it!"...
-- George Eliot, Middlemarch



Origin:
Related to educate , educe is derived from the Latin roots ex- meaning "out" and ducere meaning "to lead." Shakespeare was the first writer to use it in the sense of "to provide schooling" in Loves Labours Lost .

[ITS ME!]

bleb \ bleb \ , noun;

1.
A bubble.

2.
Medicine/Medical. A blister or vesicle.



Quotes: One day, as he was bathing her, a bleb of shampoo had streamed into her eye, and she had kept a hand pressed to it for the rest of the day, quailing away from him whenever he walked past.
-- Kevin Brockmeier, Things That Fall From the Sky

His gaze skims over the computer out the side-yard window, to rest on a fat avocado, a bleb of green light hanging from a branch.
-- Diana Abu-Jaber, Birds of Paradise



Origin:
Bleb was first used in the early 1600s. It is considered imitative of a blister itself. It is also related to the Middle English word blob .

[ITS ME!]

mettle \ MET-l \ , noun;
1.
Courage and fortitude.

2.
Disposition or temperament.



Quotes: Who is so ignorant as not to know that knights-errant are beyond all jurisdiction, their only law their swords, while their charter is their mettle and their will is their decrees?
-- Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

"--must do something to justify your existence," Marlene was saying to Tim, "and now is the chance to show your mettle. "
-- Muriel Spark, The Bachelors



Origin:
Mettle was used interchangeably with the material metal until the early 1700s. Mettle continued to be used in the figurative sense of "stuff of which a person is made" even as the spellings diverged.

[ITS ME!]

conciliate \ kuhn-SIL-ee-eyt \ , verb;
1.
To overcome the distrust or hostility of; placate; win over.

2.
To win or gain (goodwill, regard, or favor).

3.
To make compatible; reconcile.

4.
To become agreeable or reconciled.



Quotes: "Mrs. Dombey," said Mr. Dombey, resuming as much as he could of his arrogant composure, "you will not conciliate me, or turn me from any purpose, by this course of conduct."
-- Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son

But this was sufficient, and served to conciliate the good will of the natives, with whom our congeniality of sentiment on this point did more towards inspiring a friendly feeling than anything else that could have happened.
-- Herman Melville, Typee



Origin:
Conciliate comes from the Latin word conciliāre meaning "to bring together." It is related to the words council and calendar.

[ITS ME!]

birr \ bur \ , noun, verb;

1.
A whirring sound.

2.
Emphasis in statement, speech, etc.

3.
A whirring sound.

verb: 1.
To move with or make a whirring sound.




Quotes: She pursed her lips and, expertly, imitated the red-winged blackbird's call: not the liquid piping of the wood thrush, which dipped down into the dry tcch tchh tchh of the cricket's birr and up again in delirious, sobbing trills…
-- Donna Tartt, The Little Friend: A Novel

I turn to the woman. There's a wheezing birr coming from her own bleached-out face.
-- Irvine Welsh, Filth



Origin:
Birr is derived from the Icelandic word byrr meaning "favorable wind."

[ITS ME!]

hotchpot \ HOCH-pot \ , noun;
1.
the bringing together of shares or properties in order to divide them equally.



Quotes: She continued, "This is what I can give into the hotchpot ." I could not but note the quaint legal phrase which she used in such a place, and with all seriousness? "What will each of you give?..."
-- Bram Stoker, Dracula

These amounts are to be deducted from my boys only in the event that their shares may be large enough to permit and are not to be brought into hotchpot , and shall be paid to my two daughters Elizabeth and Katharine in equal shares.
-- Wallace Stevens, The Letters of Wallace Stevens



Origin:
Dating back to the early 1200s, hotchpot literally meant "shake-pot" in Anglo-French. It is related to the word hodgepodge .

[ITS ME!]

neoterism \ nee-OT-uh-riz-uhm \ , noun;

1.
An innovation in language, as a new word, term, or expression.

2.
The use of new words, terms, or expressions.



Quotes: These impressions were not merely of things physical—the contrast, for instance, between the overwhelming antiquity of the western deserts and the neoterism of humanity; or the fabulous nature of the Grand Canyon.
-- Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier

In his gesture of breaking with the canon of great national literature, Catullus had opened the way to the ambition of future poets to provide Rome with a new canon of works, which would combine the new requirements of neoterism on the levels of research into subjectivity, and stylistic elegance, with the breadth and the depth of a literature intended to represent the cultural patrimony of a nation.
-- Peter E. Knox, A Companion to Ovid



Origin:
Though it did not come into English usage until the late 1800s, neoterism originally comes from the Greek word neōterismós which meant "an attempt to change."

[ITS ME!]

idoneous \ ahy-DOH-nee-uhs \ , adjective;

1.
Quotes:



As far as benefices are concerned no one could be more idoneous, fitting or suitable than Martin, since he is an Anglican clergyman.
-- Patrick O'Brian, The Truelove

It would hardly be possible to apply less idoneous adjectives to it than Watson's reiterated "wailing" and "haunting."
-- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone



Origin:
Idoneous is derived from the Latin word idōneus which meant "suitable."

[ITS ME!]

doyenne \ doi-EN \ , noun;
1.
A woman who is the senior member of a group, class, or profession.



Quotes:
Inspector Neele propounded to himself three separate highly coloured reasons why the faithful doyenne of the typists' room should have poisoned her employer's mid-morning cup of tea, and rejected them as unlikely.
-- Agatha Christie, A Pocket Full of Rye

Her physical characteristics had shifted over time, from soft to hard, from blond to gray, and tight to slack and swollen. This doyenne of crochet and pregnancy was to me one woman and all women, because everything about her was variable, including her temperament.
-- Darin Strauss, Chang and Eng



Origin:
Doyenne only came into common English use in the early 1900s, but it originates in the Old French word deien , which is also the root of the word dean. The suffix -enne is a French suffix for a personal female noun.

[ITS ME!]

peroration \ per-uh-REY-shuhn \ , noun;
1.
A long speech characterized by lofty and often pompous language.

2.
Rhetoric. The concluding part of a speech or discourse, in which the speaker or writer recapitulates the principal points and urges them with greater earnestness and force.



Quotes:
Thus he apostrophised his house and race in terms of the most moving eloquence; but when it came to the peroration —and what is eloquence that lacks a peroration ?—he fumbled. He would have liked to have ended with a flourish to the effect that he would follow in their footsteps and add another stone to their building.

-- Virginia Woolf, Orlando: A Biography

This person always provides a dramatic peroration ; it is expected of him and he seldom disappoints. Tamsour is the theme; and the substance is usually personal aggrandizement, sometimes a bit of self-pity, but never apologies for past misdeeds, real or imaginary.
-- Jack Vance, Night Lamp



Origin:
Peroration comes from the Latin word perōrātiōn which meant "a closing speech."