Word of the day

[2jules7]

Of course, I like to learn new words too. :]

Word of the Day for Tuesday, June 1, 2010

oleaginous \oh-lee-AJ-uh-nuhs\, adjective:

1. Having the nature or qualities of oil.
2. Containing oil.
3. Producing oil.
4. Unctuous; fawning; smarmy.

Oleaginous micro-organisms are considered an attractive alternative source of lipids due to the possibility of reducing the cost of production processes using inexpensive substrates, their ability to synthesize a range of different products, finding more efficacy and strain availability of genetic techniques for improvement.
-- Malena Valdivieso, "MicroBiOil: From Crude Glycerin to Biodiesel", Biodiesel Magazine

[2jules7]

Word of the Day for Wednesday, June 2, 2010

goad \GOHD\, verb:

1. To prick or drive with, or as if with, a goad; prod; incite.

noun:
1. A stick with a pointed or electrically charged end, for driving cattle, oxen, etc.; prod.
2. Anything that pricks or wounds like such a stick.
3. Something that encourages, urges, or drives; a stimulus.

The Lakers continue to beat the Suns at their own game. Phoenix entered the series hoping to goad the Lakers into playing at its hyper pace, and the Suns have managed to do that.
-- Sean Deveny, "Total control: Celtics, Lakers Look To Continue Domination" Sporting News

[2jules7]

Word of the Day for Thursday, June 3, 2010

swain \SWEYN\, noun:

1. A male admirer or lover.
2. A country lad.
3. A country gallant.

Ms. Henley knows too how life-changing revelations arrive in grotesque little packages, as when Lenny admits over the phone her traumatizing inability to have babies and forthwith counters her swain's answer with a slight shock and vast elation: "They're not all little snot- nosed pigs!
-- John Simon, ""Living Beings, Cardboard Symbols", New York Magazine

[2jules7]

Word of the Day for Friday, June 4, 2010

Manichean \man-i-KEE-uhn\, adjective:

1. Pertaining to a strongly dualistic worldview.
2. Of or pertaining to the Manicheans or their doctrines.

noun:
1. An adherent of the dualistic religious system of Manes, a combination of gnostic Christianity, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and various other elements, with a basic doctrine of a conflict between light and dark.

And in such a Manichean national landscape of villains and heroes, either the government, the Church, or the "rich"-or, alternatively, the "communists" and the "agitators"-hoodwinked the noble people into doing what they in retrospect should not have.
-- Victor David Hanson, "Greek Tragedies", Wall Street Journal, May 2010

[2jules7]

Word of the Day for Saturday, June 5, 2010

penumbra \pi-NUHM-bruh\, noun:

1. An area in which something exists to an uncertain degree.
2. Astronomy. The partial or imperfect shadow outside the complete shadow of an opaque body, as a planet, where the light from the source of illumination is only partly cut off.
3. The grayish marginal portion of a sunspot.

But there is a penumbra about the Magna Carta, a shadow cast in which its vision of an ideal nearly eclipses the mundane circumstances of its origins.
-- Edward Rothstein, "It Was a Royal Pain, but It Ended Well", New York Times, May 2010

[2jules7]

Word of the Day for Sunday, June 6, 2010

bathos \BEY-thos\, noun:

1. Triteness or triviality in style.
2. A ludicrous descent from the exalted or lofty to the commonplace; anticlimax.
3. Insincere pathos; sentimentality; mawkishness.

After one character undergoes a particularly lightning-speed change in temperament, the director lays on a ludicrously coincidental plot twist with sentimental bathos that nearly swamps everything that has gone before.
-- Ann Hornaday, "Movie review: In 'Mother and Child,' Bening and Epps give strong performances", Washington Post, May 2010

[2jules7]

Word of the Day for Monday, June 7, 2010

fathom \FATH-uhm\, verb:

1. To penetrate to the truth of; comprehend; understand.
2. To measure the depth of water by means of a sounding line; sound.

noun:
1. A unit of length equal to six feet (1.8 meters): used chiefly in nautical measurements.

"Moving at 200 miles an hour, he could see things more clearly than most of us could ever fathom, and thrill us all while doing it."
-- Teresa Earnhardt, Remembering Dale Earnhardt, NASCAR Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, May 2010

[2jules7]

Word of the Day for Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Occidental \ok-si-DEN-tl\, adjective:

1. Western.
2. (Usually initial capital letter) of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the Occident or its natives and inhabitants.

noun:
1. A native or inhabitant of the Occident.

The Asian way of diversity management has also set up an interesting approach in formulating or not formulating at all a forum of cooperation within the region, which is conspicuously different from the Occidental approach.
-- Akira Iida, Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency: the standard-setter

[2jules7]

Word of the Day for Wednesday, June 9, 2010

noctivagant \noc-tiv-A-gant\, adjective:

Pertaining to going about in the night; night-wandering.

My mother whelped me in a mess of blankets while my noctivagant father towed in the big ships. His was the night vessel, the vessel on oily waters, his was the light shining in the darkness, come home, come home.
-- Jeanette Winterson, Gut Symmetries

[2jules7]

Word of the Day for Thursday, June 10, 2010

ruth \ROOTH\, noun:

1. Compassion or pity for another.
2. Sorrow or misery about one's own misdeeds or flaws.
3. In the Bible, a Moabite woman who married Boaz and became an ancestor of David: the daughter-in-law of Naomi.
4. Book of the Bible bearing her name.
5. A female given name.

Even when she had been loudest in denouncing Ayala's mutiny, her heart had melted in ruth because Ayala had been so unhappy.
-- Anthony Trollope, Ayala's Angel

[2jules7]

Word of the Day for Friday, June 11, 2010

kowtow \KOU-TOU\, verb:

1. To act in a subservient manner.
2. To kneel and touch the forehead to the ground in expression of deep respect, worship, or submission, as formerly done in China.

noun:
1. An act of servile deference.

The administration would kowtow to student activists by agreeing to meet with them and behave as if their demands merited serious consideration.
-- Debra J. Saunders, "Starving for attention at UC Berkeley", SFGate, May 2010

[2jules7]

Word of the Day for Saturday, June 12, 2010

juggernaut \JUHG-er-nawt\, noun:

1. Any large, overpowering, destructive force.
2. Something, such as a belief or institution, that elicits blind and destructive devotion.
3. An idol of Krishna, at Puri in Orissa, India, annually drawn on an enormous cart under whose wheels devotees are said to have thrown themselves to be crushed.

It is a pity that every time this economic juggernaut encounters successful international competition in manufacturing, it resorts to bullying against its own consumers' welfare and that of the working poor worldwide.
-- Zhang Xiang, "Going toe to toe with the bully", Xinhua

[2jules7]

Word of the Day for Sunday, June 13, 2010

vernacular \ver-NAK-yuh-ler\, noun:

1. The plain variety of language in everyday use.
2. The language or vocabulary peculiar to a class or profession.
3. The native speech or language of a place.
4. Any medium or mode of expression that reflects popular taste or indigenous styles.

adjective:
1. (of language) Native or indigenous.
2. Using the native language of a place.
3. Using plain, everyday language.

The BOP, as it is known in industry vernacular, sits atop the wellhead on the seafloor and contains a series of plates, known as rams, stacked on top of each other. The plates close and seal the well if a problem occurs.
-- Lauren Steffy, "Oil rig's blowout preventer might not be the main culprit", Herald Tribune, May 2010

[2jules7]

Word of the Day for Monday, June 14, 2010

quintessential \kwin-te-SEN-shel\, adjective:

Being the most typical manifestation of a quality or a thing.

Carrie, the quintessential single girl, finally ends up married to her true love but doesn't know what to do with him.
-- Ian Caddell, "Morocco brought Sex and the City 2's Sarah Jessica Parker and castmates together", Straight.com

[2jules7]

Word of the Day for Tuesday, June 15, 2010

festoon \fe-STOON\, verb:

1. To adorn with hanging chains or strands of any material.
2. Dentistry. To reproduce natural gum patterns around the teeth or a denture.

noun:
1. A string or chain of flowers, foliage, ribbon, etc., suspended in a curve between two points.
2. A decorative representation of this, as in architectural work or on pottery.
3. A fabric suspended, draped, and bound at intervals to form graceful loops or scalloped folds.
4. Dentistry. The garlandlike area of the gums surrounding the necks of the teeth.

[2jules7]

Word of the Day for Wednesday, June 16, 2010

indemnity \in-DEM-ni-tee\, noun:

1. Protection or security against damage or loss.
2. Compensation for damage or loss sustained.
3. Something paid by way of such compensation.
4. Legal exemption from penalties attaching to unconstitutional or illegal actions, granted to public officers and other persons.

But he suddenly got up, and after a mad burst of laughter, he cried: "An indemnity! Holy Virgin, an indemnity! Don't you realize that I want to give her everything, the spring, the carnations, the house, and all the Soubeyran inheritance, the lands, the house, the treasure, my name, and my life?"
-- Marcel Pagnol, Jean de Florette

[2jules7]

Word of the Day for Thursday, June 17, 2010

oscitant \OS-i-tuhnt\, adjective:

1. Yawning, as with drowsiness; gaping.
2. Drowsy or inattentive.
3. Dull, lazy, or negligent.

The sauntering, supine, and oscitant gentleman, by his birth and great possessions, exempt from labor and exercise, therefore is entitled to diseases.
-- Anonymous, Gentleman's magazine and monthly American review, Volume 5

[2jules7]

Word of the Day for Friday, June 18, 2010

hegira \he-JAY-ruh\, noun:

1. A journey to a more desirable or congenial place.
2. The flight of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina to escape persecution a.d. 622: regarded as the beginning of the Muslim Era.

I do not mean to suggest a back-to-the-future hegira to a mythical golden age of wise and benevolent institutions, canonical disciplines, and noble professions but rather a reinvigoration of our disciplines, institutions, and professions around what we do not know about how we should think.
-- Michael Joyce, "Interspace: Our Commonly Valued Unknowing", Academic Commons

[2jules7]

Word of the Day for Saturday, June 19, 2010

amok \uh-MUHK\, adjective:

1. In or into a jumbled or confused state.
2. In or into an uncontrolled state or a state of extreme activity.
3. In a frenzy to do violence or kill.

noun:
1. A psychic disturbance characterized by depression followed by a manic urge to murder.

There's a legend that when the Lumiere brothers - pioneers of motion pictures - showed their film of an approaching train in 1896, the audience ran amok in terror.
-- Claire O'Neill, "Autochromes: The First Flash Of Color", NPR

[2jules7]

Word of the Day for Sunday, June 20, 2010

couvade \koo-VAHD\, noun:

A practice in certain cultures in which the husband of a woman in labor takes to his bed as though he were bearing the child.

Whether men experience couvades or not, there are plenty of other birth rituals for them to partake in: sitting through prenatal classes, going to ultrasound appointments, strapping on thirty pound lead empathy bellies, attending coed baby showers, making smalltalk during epidural sessions, photographing the birth, cutting the umbilical cord. . .
-- Tina Cassidy, Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born