I like your application of the word, Redwood.

Let us clot together!

Thanks D. Allan ... I do like to coagulate with you here on "Word of the Day" occasionally.

dysphagia (dis-FAYJ-uh, -jee-uh) noun

Difficulty in swallowing.

[From Greek dys- (bad, difficult) + phagein (to eat).]

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

"So Boswell and Achilles collaborated on creating The Dysphagia Cookbook: Great Tasting and Nutritious Recipes for People with Swallowing Difficulties." - Mary Beth Faller; Book Aids Those With Eating Ills; The Arizona Republic; Mar 14, 2006.



This word could be used nicely in a metaphoric sense.

persiflage \PUR-suh-flahzh\, noun:

Frivolous or bantering talk; a frivolous manner of treating any subject, whether serious or otherwise; light raillery.

He was somber and wordless and utterly unresponsive to my mother'scharming persiflage.
-- Rosemary Mahoney, A Likely Story

It was a brutal spectacle to watch this Coney Island Keatsian subjected to Winters' unrelenting persiflage.
-- Richard M. Elman, Namedropping: Mostly Literary Memoirs

Persiflage comes from French, from persifler, "to banter," from per-, "thoroughly" (from Latin) + siffler, "to hiss, to whistle," ultimately from Latin sibilare, "to hiss (at), to whistle."

Dictionary.com

catamaran (kat-uh-muh-RAN) noun

1. A boat with two parallel hulls, joined by a frame.

2. A quarrelsome person, especially a woman.

[From Tamil kattumaram, from kattu (to tie) + maram (tree, wood). Tamil is spoken in Tamilnadu, a state in southern India and in Sri Lanka. It has about 70 million speakers.]

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

"'I'm convinced my catamaran, which is larger than Ellen MacArthur's, can complete the course in 70 days,' [Tony] Bullimore said." British Yachtsman Bullimore Sets Out on World Record Attempt; dpa German Press Agency; May 1, 2007.

"No, madam, it was your turn to bully me once -- now it's mine, and I use it. No, you old catamaran, though you pretend you never read novels." William Makepeace Thackeray; Lovel the Widower; Harper's; 1860.

Catachresis [kat-uh-KREE-sis]noun, pl. catachreses

(Gr. 'misuse'). The misapplication of a word, especially in a strained or mixed metaphor or in an implied metaphor. It need not be a ridiculous misapplication as in bad poetry, it may be a deliberate wresting of a term from its normal and proper significance. Sometimes it is deliberately humorous. Quintilian called it a necessary misuse (abusio) of words and cited Virgil's Aeneid 2.15-16: 'equum divina Palladis arte/ aedificant' (They build a horse by Pallas' divine art). Since aedificant literally means 'they build a house,' it is a catachresis when applied to a horse. Puttenham, in his Arte of Eng. Poesie, called c. a figure of 'plain abuse, as he that bade his man go into his library and fetch him his bow and arrows.' Two celebrated examples of this figure are found in Shakespeare and Milton: 'To take arms against a sea of troubles' (Hamlet 3.1.59) and 'Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold a sheep-hook' (Lycidas 119-120). A very effective c. is Shakespeare's Tis deepest winter in Lord Timon's purse' (Timon 3.4.15), which suggests comparison with some of the strained metaphors or implied metaphors in more modern poetry, e.g., 'The sun roars at the prayer's end' (Dylan Thomas, Vision and Prayer, last line). -Lausberg. M.T.H.

- Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, Ed. Alex Preminger, enlarged ed., 1974, p.104.

[Origin: 1580–90; < L < Gk: a misuse (akin to katachrêsthai to misuse), equiv. to kata- cata- + chrêsis use (chrê(sthai) to use, need + -sis -sis)]

—Related forms
cat·a·chres·tic
cat·a·chres·ti·cal, adjective
cat·a·chres·ti·cal·ly, adverb

-Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary

bibulous \BIB-yuh-luhs\, adjective:

1. Of, pertaining to, marked by, or given to the consumption of alcoholic drink.
2. Readily absorbing fluids or moisture.

Vineyards are everywhere, especially when Felix approaches Paris, the most populous city in Christendom -- and the most bibulous too, since lousy local wine had to be drunk before it turned sour in a few months.
-- Eugen Weber, "Renaissance Men", New York Times, April 13, 1997

Ever since the joys of the fermented grape were discovered, the bibulous have been waking up feeling the worse for wear.
-- Sally Chatterton, "The Daily Website: http://www.hungover.net", Independent, September 3, 2001

Bibulous comes from Latin bibulus, from bibere, "to drink."

-Dictionary.com