Word of the day

[BM <3]

Word of the Day for Saturday, September 5, 2009

voluptuary \vuh-LUHP-choo-er-ee\, noun:

1. A person devoted to luxury and the gratification of sensual appetites; a sensualist.

adjective:
1. Of, pertaining to, or characterized by preoccupation with luxury and sensual pleasure.

Colette used to begin her day's writing by first picking fleas from her cat, and it's not hard to imagine how the methodical stroking and probing into fur might have focused such a voluptuary's mind.
-- Diane Ackerman, "O Muse! You Do Make Things Difficult!", New York Times, November 12, 1989

[BM <3]

Word of the Day for Sunday, September 6, 2009

acquiesce \ak-wee-ES\, intransitive verb:

To accept or consent passively or without objection -- usually used with 'in' or 'to'.

At the same time, sellers might acquiesce to mafia involvement in their business as a way of ensuring payment for goods: if the buyer defaults, the mafioso will collect.
-- Louis S. Warren, The Hunter's Game

[BM <3]

Word of the Day for Monday, September 7, 2009

sacrosanct \SAK-roh-sankt\, adjective:

1. Extremely sacred or inviolable.
2. Not to be entered or trespassed upon.
3. Above or beyond criticism, change, or interference.

The family was viewed as sacrosanct: divorce was highly unusual and children were expected to be grateful for the sacrifices that parents, who postponed their own gratifications in forming a family, made on their behalf.
-- Alan Wolfe, One Nation, After All

[BM <3]

Word of the Day for Tuesday, September 8, 2009

refulgent \rih-FUL-juhnt\, adjective:

Shining brightly; radiant; brilliant; resplendent.

If Moore was not quite a burned-out case, his once refulgent light flickered only dimly in his sad last years.
-- Martin Filler, "The Spirit of '76", New Republic, July 9, 2001

[2jules7]

The final three seconds and the ball caroms the hoop.
Agent 007 was in a gadabout mood.
Their voluptuary vacation was wonderful.
She was in acquiesce to everything.
Stay off that sacrosanct colony!
His hair was refulgent in the suns rays.

[BM <3]

Word of the Day for Wednesday, September 9, 2009

malapropism \mal-uh-PROP-iz-uhm\, noun:

1. An act or habit of misusing words ridiculously, esp. by the confusion of words that are similar in sound.
2. An example of such misuse.

At 15, Rachel, the whiny would-be beauty queen who "cares for naught but appearances," can think only of what she misses: the five-day deodorant pads she forgot to bring, flush toilets, machine-washed clothes and other things, as she says with her willful gift for malapropism, that she has taken "for granite."
-- Michiko Kakutani, "The Poisonwood Bible': A Family a Heart of Darkness", New York Times, October 16, 1998

[2jules7]

Would all my sentences of these words be a malapropism?

[BM <3]

Word of the Day for Thursday, September 10, 2009

noisome \NOY-sum\, adjective:

1. Noxious; harmful; unwholesome.
2. Offensive to the smell or other senses; disgusting.

The body politic produces noisome and unseemly substances, among which are politicians.
-- P. J. O'Rourke, "No Apparent Motive", The Atlantic, November 2002

[2jules7]

That sewer smell is noisome!

[BM <3]

Word of the Day for Friday, September 11, 2009

puissant \PWISS-uhnt; PYOO-uh-suhnt; pyoo-ISS-uhnt\, adjective:

Powerful; strong; mighty; as, a puissant prince or empire.

As an upcoming young corporate lawyer in San Francisco in the 1930's, Crum tended the interests of some of California's most puissant businesses, starting with William Randolph Hearst's newspaper empire.
-- Richard Lingeman, "The Last Party", New York Times, April 27, 1997

[BM <3]

Word of the Day for Saturday, September 12, 2009

inure \in-YOOR\, transitive verb:

1. To make accustomed or used to something painful, difficult, or inconvenient; to harden; to habituate; as, "inured to drudgery and distress

[BM <3]

Word of the Day for Sunday, September 13, 2009

bucolic \byoo-KOL-ik\, adjective:

1. Relating to or typical of the countryside or its people; rustic.
2. Of or pertaining to the life and occupation of a shepherd; pastoral.

noun:
1. A pastoral poem, depicting rural affairs, and the life, manners, and occupation of shepherds.
2. A country person.

What Ms. Morris appreciates most now is the mix of bucolic and urban: She can descend into the subway and roam the city, then spend hours in the botanic garden and "walk quietly home to check my tomato plants."
-- Janny Scott, "The Brownstone Storytellers", New York Times, May 15, 1995

[BM <3]

Word of the Day for Monday, September 14, 2009

crapulous \KRAP-yuh-lus\, adjective:

1. Given to or characterized by gross excess in drinking or eating.
2. Suffering from or due to such excess.

These were the dregs of their celebratory party: the half-filled glasses, the cold beans and herring, the shouts and smells of the crapulous strangers hemming them in on every side, the dead rinsed-out April night and the rain drooling down the windows.
-- T. Coraghessan Boyle, Riven Rock

[2jules7]

Beowulf was a puissant man.
When they happen everyday you become inure to the headaches.
Driving down the road you can see the bucolics driving their swathers.
The obstacle course required a crapulous amount of water.

[BM <3]

Word of the Day for Tuesday, September 15, 2009

lucubration \loo-kyoo-BRAY-shun; loo-kuh-\, noun:

1. The act of studying by candlelight; nocturnal study; meditation.
2. That which is composed by night; that which is produced by meditation in retirement; hence (loosely) any literary composition.

A point of information for those with time on their hands: if you were to read 135 books a day, every day, for a year, you wouldn't finish all the books published annually in the United States. Now add to this figure, which is upward of 50,000, the 100 or so literary magazines; the scholarly, political and scientific journals (there are 142 devoted to sociology alone), as well as the glossy magazines, of which bigger and shinier versions are now spawning, and you'll appreciate the amount of lucubration that finds its way into print.
-- Arthur Krystal, "On Writing: Let There Be Less", New York Times, March 26, 1989

[2jules7]

Tommy sat in lucubration to do his homework so his parents wouldnt know he was up late.

[BM <3]

Word of the Day for Wednesday, September 16, 2009

logorrhea \law-guh-REE-uh\, noun:

1. Pathologically incoherent, repetitious speech.
2. Incessant or compulsive talkativeness; wearisome volubility.

By his own measure, he is a man of many contradictions, beginning with the fact that he is famous as a listener but suffers from "a touch of logorrhea." He is so voluble that one wonders how his subjects get a word in edgewise.
-- Mel Gussow, "Listener, Talker, Now Literary Lion: It's Official.", New York Times, June 17, 1997

[2jules7]

That mans logorrhea will drive anyone up the wall.

[BM <3]

Word of the Day for Thursday, September 17, 2009

efficacious \ef-ih-KAY-shuhs\, adjective:

Capable of having the desired result or effect; effective as a means, measure, remedy, etc.

Lawyers make claims not because they believe them to be true, but because they believe them to be legally efficacious.
-- Paul F. Campos, Jurismania

[2jules7]

Peter worked all night and the results of his essay were efficacious.