Word of the Day Thread

[ITS ME!]

excogitate \ eks-KOJ-i-teyt \ , verb;
1.
To think out; devise; invent.

2.
To study intently and carefully in order to grasp or comprehend fully.



Quotes:
But observe the singular phenomenon — on approximately the same date several thousand men and women of letters retire to secluded corners to excogitate a thing described as "charm"; each cudgeling his or her head for some variety which can possibly be regarded as original...
-- Upton Sinclair, Money Writes!

I preferred to relate aloud, to excogitate in a lively, external manner, with a flow of invention as useless as was my declamation of it, a whole novel crammed with adventure, in which the Duchess, fallen upon misfortune…
-- Marcel Proust, Swann's Way



Origin:
Excogitate is related to the word cogitate which means "to think." The prefix ex- typically means "out of", but in this case it means "thoroughly."

[ITS ME!]

caprice \ kuh-PREES \ , noun;

1.
A sudden, unpredictable change, as of one's mind or the weather.

2.
A tendency to change one's mind without apparent or adequate motive; whimsicality; capriciousness.

3.
Music. Capriccio.



Quotes:
Does she turn, thought he, thus, from one to the other, with no preference but of accident or caprice ? Is her favour thus light of circulation?
-- Fanny Burney, Camilla, or a Picture of Youth

You lose, you gain—it's all caprice . The omnipotence of caprice . The likelihood of reversal. Yes, the unpredictable reversal and its power.
-- Philip Roth, The Humbling



Origin:
Caprice is from the Italian word capriccio which means a sudden start or motion. It comes from the word capro meaning goat.

[tp2503]

I once almost bought a Caprice.... but there was too much rust

[ITS ME!]

pied \ pahyd \ , adjective;

1.
Having patches of two or more colors, as various birds and other animals.

2.
Wearing pied clothing.



Quotes:
"Lashing his tail, he followed the pied mare reluctantly into the cave. Its upper walls and ceiling clustered with glowing lichens and fungi in rose, ghost blue, saffron, and plum."
-- Meredith Ann Pierce, Dark Moon

The fact of the pied birds being pursued and persecuted with much clamour by the other ravens of the island was the chief cause which led Brünnich to conclude that they were specifically distinct.
-- Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man



Origin:
Pied , like the pastry pie, is related to the Latin word for magpie, pīca . Magpies have black and white coats, so that type of patched coat came to be called "pied."

[ITS ME!]

filiopietistic \ fil-ee-oh-pahy-i-TIS-tik \ , adjective;
1.
Pertaining to reverence of forebears or tradition, especially if carried to excess.



Quotes:
The popular historical narratives of the many immigrant groups may indeed be filiopietistic in the exaggerated and often shrilly made claims for their important contributions to the making of the country of their choice.
-- Orm Øverland, immigrant Minds, American Identities

In a filiopietistic age it would be difficult to find a more filiopietistic man — toward his own father, the founders, and the past generally — than Edward Everett.
-- Paul A. Varg, Edward Evertt: The Intellectual in the Turmoil of Politics




Origin:
A clunky word, filiopietistic is a clear combination of Latin roots. Filio means "brotherly"; piet is related to piety; and the suffix -istic (related to -ism ) denotes the noun related to a verb (like baptism).

[ITS ME!]

crib \ krib \ , verb, noun;
1.
To pilfer or steal, especially to plagiarize.

2.
To confine in or as if in a crib.

3.
To provide with a crib or cribs.

4.
To line with timber or planking.

5.
Informal. A. To use a crib in examinations, homework, translating, etc. B. To steal; plagiarize.

6.
(Of a horse) to practice cribbing.

noun: 1.
A child's bed with enclosed sides.

2.
A stall or pen for cattle.

3.
A rack or manger for fodder, as in a stable or barn.

4.
A bin for storing grain, salt, etc.

5.
Informal. A. A translation, list of correct answers, or other illicit aid used by students while reciting, taking exams, or the like; pony. B. Plagiarism. C. A petty theft.

6.
A room, closet, etc., in a factory or the like, in which tools are kept and issued to workers.

7.
A shallow, separate section of a bathing area, reserved for small children.

8.
Any confined space.

9.
Slang. A house, shop, etc., frequented by thieves or regarded by thieves as a likely place for burglarizing.

10.
Building Trades, Civil Engineering . Any of various cellular frameworks of logs, squared timbers, or steel or concrete objects of similar form assembled in layers at right angles, often filled with earth and stones and used in the construction of foundations, dams, retaining walls, etc.

11.
A barrier projecting part of the way into a river and then upward, acting to reduce the flow of water and as a storage place for logs being floated downstream.

12.
A lining for a well or other shaft.

13.
Slang. One's home; pad.

14.
Cribbage . A set of cards made up by equal contributions from each player's hand, and belonging to the dealer.

15.
A cheap, ill-kept brothel.

16.
A wicker basket.

17.
British, Australian. Lunch, especially a cold lunch carried from home to work and eaten by a laborer on the job; snack.



Quotes:
An otherwise dense early college roommate used to prate that "reality is mankind's greatest illusion," something he cribbed from a psych professor who got it from Erik Erikson.
-- Jim Harrison, The Road Home

Radford's a lazy bastard, you know, and apparently he cribbed a bunch of his lecture notes from somewhere — some old tome he thought nobody had ever read or ever would read — but Archy spotted it instantly, of course, and is making a hell of a stink.

-- Edith Taylor, The Serpent Under It



Origin:
Crib comes from the German word krebe which meant basket. Its alternate sense meaning "to steal" arose in the 1600s and leant itself to the current sense of "to plagiarize."

[ITS ME!]

piacular \ pahy-AK-yuh-ler \ , adjective;

1.
Expiatory; atoning; reparatory.

2.
Requiring expiation; sinful or wicked.



Quotes:
The journey to obtain scriptures in the Western Heaven is, for Tripitaka and his disciples, also the piacular journey of return to Buddha, and like the Odysseus of the Homeric poem, the scripture pilgrim must pass through appalling obstacles for past offenses against the gods.
-- Anthony C. Yu, Journey to the West

…and this high-ranking Greek guy actually came around to 1009 after Saturday's supper to apologize on behalf of practically the entire Chandris shipping line and to assure me that ragged-necked Lebanese heads were even at that moment rolling down various corridors in piacular recompense for my having had to carry my own bag.
-- David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Things I'll Never Do Again



Origin:
Piacular is derived from two Latin roots: pia , which is related to the word pious, and a variation of the suffix -cule which denotes a diminutive nouns, like particle.

[ITS ME!]

screed \ skreed \ , noun, verb;
1.
A long discourse or essay, especially a diatribe.

2.
An informal letter, account, or other piece of writing.

3.
Building Trades. A. A strip of plaster or wood applied to a surface to be plastered to serve as a guide for making a true surface. B. A wooden strip serving as a guide for making a true level surface on a concrete pavement or the like. C. A board or metal strip dragged across a freshly poured concrete slab to give it its proper level.

4.
British Dialect. A fragment or shred, as of cloth.

5.
Scot. A. A tear or rip, especially in cloth. B. A drinking bout.

verb: 1.
Scot. To tear, rip, or shred, as cloth.



Quotes:
By the time this screed gets to you the drafts may have come, but as I've heard nothing yet and been writing for two months now, you'd better have a look anyway. Will you please?
-- Ernest Hemingway, Selected Letters

I bet I could turn out a rattling good screed. Why, last year I almost got the prize. I sent in fearfully hot stuff.
-- P. G. Wodehouse, The Prefect's Uncle



Origin:
Screed is related to the Old English word for shred. Its alternate sense of a long speech was first recorded in 1789 and may be related to the sense of the word meaning a long lists of names.

[ITS ME!]

depone \ dih-POHN \ , verb;

1.
To testify under oath; depose.



Quotes:
These two females did afterwards depone that Mr. Willet in his consternation uttered but one word, and called that up the stairs in a stentorian voice, six distinct times.
-- Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge

I cannot depone positively to the exact proportion of his waking or of his sleeping dreams that was of their weaving.
-- Edmund Quincy, The Haunted Adjutant



Origin:
In Latin, dēpōnere meant "to put aside." In Medieval Latin it came to mean "to testify" and came directly into English.

[ITS ME!]

burled \ burld \ , adjective;

1.
Having small knots that produce a distorted grain in wood.



Quotes:
It was Friday evening, and the master of Turpmtine, Charlie Croker, was presiding over dinner at the burled tupelo maple table Ronald Vine had devised for the Gun Room, which was the showpiece of the plantation's new Gun House.
-- Tom Wolfe, A Man in Full

Then they passed underneath two burled trees that leaned against each other and stopped at the edge of an empty glade.
-- Christopher Paolini, Eldest



Origin:
Burled comes from the Old French word bourle , which meant a tuft of wool, from the Latin word for wool, burra . It is also the root of the word "burr."

[ITS ME!]

auscultation \ aw-skuhl-TEY-shuhn \ , noun;

1.
The act of listening to sounds within the body as a method of diagnosis.



Quotes:
Auscultation shows it clearly enough, once I had grown accustomed to his particular bodily sounds. It is a very valuable diagnostic tool, little known in England, I believe.
-- Patrick O'Brian, The Yellow Admiral

Even as he examined the cousins, he went on talking about the matter in a melancholy, resigned tone of voice, for he was such an expert in auscultation that he could simultaneously listen to a patient's interior, talk about something else, and dictate what he had heard to his assistant.
-- Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain



Origin:
The Latin roots of auscultation have been buried in English. The word auscultāre meant "to hear or to listen" from the root auris which meant "ear." The suffix -ion forms nouns from stems, as in communication and opinion.

[ITS ME!]

exoteric \ ek-suh-TER-ik \ , adjective;
1.
Suitable for or communicated to the general public.

2.
Not belonging, limited, or pertaining to the inner or select circle, as of disciples or intimates.

3.
Popular; simple; commonplace.

4.
Pertaining to the outside; exterior; external.



Quotes:
Every religion under the heavens has a set of exoteric beliefs for the common man and a secret set of esoteric beliefs known only to a privileged inner circle.
-- C. M. Palov, The Templar's Code

The exoteric explanation is the one that conforms to the level of the simple thought patterns and understanding of the majority.
-- Kate H. Winter, The Woman in the Mountain



Origin:
Like its opposite esoteric, exoteric is from the Greek root -teros . Exōterikós generally referred to anything outside.

[ITS ME!]

cordate \ KAWR-deyt \ , adjective;
1.
Heart-shaped.

2.
(Of leaves) heart-shaped, with the attachment at the notched end.



Quotes:
Despite their strong and interlinked root structure, the actual flowers were of a lowly order, though, canted towards the sun, they attracted the cordate butterflies.
-- Brian Wilson Aldiss, Hothouse

Without any wind blowing, the sheer weight of a raindrop, shining in parasitic luxury on a cordate leaf, caused its tip to dip, and what looked like a globule of quicksilver performed a sudden glissando down the center vein, and then, having shed its bright load, the relieved leaf unbent.
-- Vladimir Nabakov, Speak, Memory



Origin:
Related to core , cordate comes from the Latin word for heart, cor , and the suffix -ate which forms an adjective from a noun.

[ITS ME!]

vilipend \ vil-UH-pend \ , verb;
1.
To regard or treat as of little value or account.

2.
To vilify; depreciate.



Quotes:
She will seize her opportunity to vilipend me, and I shall be condemned by the kind of court-martial which hurries over the forms of a trial to sign the execution-warrant that makes it feel like justice.
-- George Meredith, The Tragic Comedian

This endeavoured to fit the same mould as Pragmaticus and Melancholicus, but was too pedantic and dull, despite Wharton's use of it to vilipend the parliamentarian astrologer William Lilly.
-- Joad Raymond, The Invention of the Newspaper



Origin:
Vilipend is derived from the Old French roots vīli meaning vile and pendere meaning to consider, also the root of pensive.

[ITS ME!]

mammonism \ MAM-uh-niz-uhm \ , noun;
1.
The greedy pursuit of riches.



Quotes:
We will bring to mind a young man or young woman bitterly awakened from a fancy dream of accomplishment, action or glory, forced instead to come to terms with a considerably reduced status, a betrayed love, and a hideously bourgeois world of crass mammonism and philistine taste.
-- Rudyard Kipling, Kim

Claiming mutual “affection and confidence” with his collaborating reader whom he expects to agree, Dickens also indicts the false religion of Mammonism.
-- Linda M. Lewis, Dickens, His Parables, and His Readers



Origin:
Mammonism is an odd combination of Aramaic and Greek. The word mammon meant wealth in Aramaic, and the suffix -ism forms a noun from a verb, as in criticism and plagiarism.

[ITS ME!]

tramontane \ truh-MON-teyn \ , adjective, noun;
1.

Being or situated beyond the mountains.

2.
Beyond the Alps as viewed from Italy; transalpine.

3.
Of, pertaining to, or coming from the other side of the mountains.

4.
Foreign; barbarous.

noun: 1.
A person who lives beyond the mountains: formerly applied by the Italians to the peoples beyond the Alps, and by the latter to the Italians.

2.
A foreigner; outlander; barbarian.

3.
A violent, polar wind from the northwest that blows in southern France.



Quotes:
The tramontane concerns of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company were managed by two resident partners, Fitzgerald and Bridger.
-- Washington Irving, History, Tales, and Sketches

Governor Spottiswood's tramontane expedition had not long gone its romantic way when there came over the mountain trail an English sailor-pioneer named John Shore.
-- Frances Courtenay Baylor, Beyond the Blue Ridge



Origin:
Tramontane comes from the Latin word trānsmontānus which meant beyond the mountains. It is made of three roots: mont meaning mountain, trans meaning over, and -an , a suffix denoting "coming from.

[ITS ME!]

pachyderm \ PAK-i-durm \ , noun;
1.
A person who is not sensitive to criticism, ridicule, etc.

2.
Any of the thick-skinned, nonruminant ungulates, as the elephant, hippopotamus, and rhinoceros.

3.
An elephant.



Quotes:
He writhed as he saw himself finally a toughened pachyderm in Eliza's world—sprucing up confidently, throwing his shoulders back proudly, making people “think he was somebody” as he cordially acknowledged an introduction by producing a card setting forth the joys of life in Altamont and Dixieland...
-- Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeword, Angel

To judge by his work, our writer is unquestionably a stubborn man, said the Serb, he's stubborn as a mule, as a pachyderm...
-- Roberto Bolaño, 2666, Volume 1



Origin:
Pachyderm clearly comes from the Greek roots pachý meaning "thick" and dermatos meaning "skin." Its metaphorical meaning of a person with thick skin is attested to in the 1860s.

[tp2503]

"A person who is not sensitive to criticism, ridicule, etc. "

I did NOT know that.

Thanks

[ITS ME!]

spruce \ sproos \ , verb, adjective;

1.
To make neat or dapper (often followed by up).

2.
To make oneself spruce (usually followed by up).

adjective: 1.
Trim in dress or appearance; neat; smart; dapper.



Quotes:
When the two bridges embrace all of Astoria Park, a lush, well-populated recreation area old as the neighborhood itself, another finger of public lands extends north of Hell Gate called Ralph Demarco, recently developed with the help of nearby Con Edison to spruce up the rather bleak city projects across the street.
-- Lionel Shriver, Checker and the Derailleurs

He scraped his change up off the bar, having a little trouble with the dimes because he'd chopped off the tips of his fingernails with a penknife just this morning as part of a general effort to spruce up his image.
-- T. Coraghessen Boyle, Drop City



Origin:
Spruce has an unusual history. It literally meant "from Prussia" (or Pruce). It came to be associated with the tree which was brought by Prussian merchants to England. The sense of "to make dapper" came about from a type of coat, the spruce jerkin, that was made with leather from Prussia.

[ITS ME!]

morceau \ mawr-SOH \ , noun;
1.
Piece; morsel.

2.
An excerpt or passage of poetry or music.



Quotes:
That is easily done; madame is hungry; oblige her with a morceau of that paté and a glass of champagne.
-- Louisa May Alcott, The Portable Louisa May Alcott

Not unless you are able to provide me with a little morceau of help.
-- Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies



Origin:
Morceau comes directly from the same French word which is related to the Latin word morsum meaning something bitten off.