WORD OF THE DAY on CLUB/ADVENTIST


a.plomb, (uh-plom), noun.

1. imperturbable self-possession, poise, assurance.
2. the perpendicular, or vertical position.
- Random House Unabridged Dictionary


The French people who are known for their perspicuous, precise expressions have given us today's word. The French expression, á plomb means 'according to the plummet', i. e. straight up and down, vertical. The two definitions given above seem to flow together. An assured person of poise would carry herself with a perpendicular, vertical posture and have an unmovable equanimity like a plummet at rest.

Plommet, Middle-English from Middle-French, diminutive of plomb, French for the metal lead. Carpenters and masons use plummets. They call them plumb bobs. A level or a plumb-bob may be used to check or adjust a wall or post for verticality. They may say, “plumb that wall,” or “that corner is out of plumb.”

Synonyms 1. composure, equanimity, imperturbability.
Antonyms 1. confusion, discomposure; doubt, uncertainty.
- from Dictionary.com


"In ballet, aplomb refers to the basic law of ballet - stability, achieved through one of the five positions codified by Pierre Beauchamp." -from Wikipedia.org/wiki/Aplomb

"….he weathers their boozy blandishments and inevitable potato jokes with admirable grace and aplomb.”
- "Quayle Running Against His Own Image", Los Angeles Times, August 1, 1999

“His initial broadcasting success was due at least as much to his considerable professional aplomb as it was to his father's broadcasting connections”
- John A. Jackson, American Bandstand: Dick Clark and the Making of a Rock 'n' Roll Empire


plommets or plumb-bobs

And 'plumb' comes from the lead used to weight the end of a plumb bob. Plumb (or 'plumbum') is Latin for lead, hence lead's chemical symbol Pb. (heh, thread crossing alert with Science Factoids!)

:)

chi.me.ra (ki-meer-uh), noun, often capitalized.

[from Greek chimaira, fem., noun, goat.]

1. a fire-breathing mythical creature with a lion’s head, a goat’s body and a serpents tail.
2. any similarly grotesque creature of disparate parts.
3. a horrible or unreal creature of the imagination, an idle or vain fancy.

“He is far different than the chimera your fears have made of him.” -Random House Unabridged.

4. in genetics, an organism of two or more genetically distinct tissues, as part male and partly female, an artificially produced organism having tissues of several species.

Synonyms: dream, fantasy, delusion.

chimera: 1382, > L. chimaera, > Gk. chimaira, a fabulous monster (with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail), supposedly personification of snow or winter, orig. "year-old she-goat," from cheima "winter season." Meaning "wild fantasy" first recorded 1587. -Online Etymology Dictionary

This word is also spelled chimaera; which spelling also denotes a family of fish, chimaeridae, the male of which has a spiny clasping organ over its mouth, or a group of fish, holocephali, which includes this family. –Random House Unabridged

ep.o.nym (ep-eh-nim), noun.

1. An eponym is a real, mythical or fictional person from whom something such as a tribe, nation or place takes its name; or a person who has become associated with a period movement, theory, etc.
2. It also is sometimes used to refer to the word that is derived for that real mythical or fictional person or the period, movement or theory associated with a person.

Plato is the eponym of Platonic according to definition one.
Platonic is the eponym of Plato according to definition two.

eponymous (eh–pon–eh–mus), also eponymic, adj. [>Greek eponymos > epi-, upon + onyma, a name.]
1. giving ones name to a people, nation etc.
2. of an eponym.

Can you give the matching half for each of the following eponyms?

Louis Pasteur
Moses
Jesus
Washington, D. C.
Apollo
George Boole
Louis Braille
John Philip Sousa
William Miller
Yogi the Bear

e.gre.gious (e-gree-juh s, e-gree-jee-uh s), adjective

The original meaning is now archaic. The Latin word egreius means chosen or separated from the herd or flock, hence select, choice, eminent; however today it means remarkable or extraordinary in some bad way; outstanding for undesirable qualities.

One is likely to find it referring to an egregious mistake, or an egregious liar. Googling it turned up egregious grammar, errors, person, abuse, and egregious misuse.

Related forms:
e.gre.gious.ly, adverb
e.gre.gious.ness, noun

Hoping you are not having an egregious day...... :)

gre.gar.i.ous (gree-gair-ee-ehs), adjective

Today’s word and yesterdays, gregarious and egregious, both derive from Latin grex or gregis, meaning flock or herd. I hope you remember that egregious means outstanding (like an animal different from the rest of the flock) in a bad way, like a hairless(!) sheep or you could say like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Todays word, gregarious, has more friendly connotations:

1. living in herds or flocks
2. fond of the company of others
3. having to do with a herd, flock or crowd.
4. in botony, growing in clusters

- Webster’s New World Dictionary

—Related forms
gre·gar·i·ous·ly, adverb
gre·gar·i·ous·ness, noun

—Synonyms 1. social, genial, outgoing, convivial, companionable, friendly, extroverted.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.


“Man is a gregarious animal, and much more so in his mind than in his body. He may like to go alone for a walk, but he hates to stand alone in his opinions." –George Santayana

"...the reclusive man who marries the gregarious woman, the timid woman who marries the courageous man, the idealist who marries the realist -- we can all see these unions: the marriages in which tenderness meets loyalty, where generosity sweetens moroseness, where a sense of beauty eases some aridity of the spirit, are not so easy for outsiders to recognize; the parties themselves may not be fully aware of such elements in a good match." -Robertson Davies, "The Pleasures of Love"

Post your own usage of gregarious; it will help you to remember it and to keep it available when the need for it arrives. Here is my usage - , “Is a gregarious person more likely to forgive egregious faults than a non-gregarious one? It is probably truer to say an unforgiving person is less likely to be gregarious." -(dAb)

Sab.bath, (sab-uhth) noun, is a word that made its way into English with little change from the Hebrew. Middle-English sabat < Old-French & Anglo-Saxon sabat; both of those from Latin sabbatum; Greek sabbaton; Hebrew shabbath < shabath, to rest.

1) the seventh day of the Jewish week, set aside by the 4th commandment; Saturday.
2) Sunday: name applied by most Protestant denominations.
3) A period of rest.

Related words:
Sabbath, adj., of the Sabbath.
Sabbatarian, adj. Of the Sabbath & noun, one who observes it.
Sabbatarianism, noun, observance of the Sabbath.
Sabbath school, noun, 1. Sunday school. 2. among Seventh-day Adventists, a similar school held on Saturday.
Sabbatic, adj.
Sabbatic, noun, Sabbatical
Sabbatical, adj. 1. Of or suited to the Sabbath. 2. –bringing a regular period of rest that recurs in cycles. Noun, a sabbatical year.
Sabbatical year, noun, 1. among the ancient Jews every seventh year, when the land was to remain fallow and debtors released. 2. a year or half year of absence for study, rest or travel, given at intervals to teachers, in some colleges and universities.
- Webster’s New World Dictionary, 1968



From Wikipedia’s Shabbat article:

Shabbat (Hebrew: שבת, shabbāt, "rest"; Shabbos or Shabbes in Ashkenazic pronunciation), is the weekly day of rest in Judaism.
The Hebrew word Shabbat comes from the Hebrew verb shavat, which literally means "to cease," or shev which means "sit." Although Shabbat (or its anglicized version, "Sabbath") is almost universally translated as "rest" or a "period of rest," a more literal translation would be "ceasing", with the implication of "ceasing from work." Thus, Shabbat is the day of ceasing from work; while resting is implied, it is not a necessary denotation of the word itself.
A common linguistic confusion leads many to believe that the word means "seventh day." Though the root for seven, or sheva, is similar in sound, it is derived from a different root word. Shabbat is the source for the English term Sabbath, and for the word in many languages meaning "Saturday", such as the Arabic As-Sabt (السبت), the Armenian Shabat, the Persian shambe, Spanish and Portuguese Sábado , the Greek Savato and the Italian word Sabato. It is also responsible for the word "sabbatical," although that concept is also derived from the Jewish concept of the sabbatical year.

Jewish law's definition defines a day as ending at dusk and nightfall, which is when the next day then begins. Thus, Shabbat begins before sundown Friday night and ends at after nightfall Saturday night (traditionally, after three stars can be seen in the sky) [very interesting -dAb]. The added time between sunset and nightfall on Saturday night owes to the ambiguous status of that part of the day according to Jewish law.

· Enjoying Shabbat (Oneg Shabbat). This can include activities such as eating tasty food, resting, or engaging in intimate relations with one's spouse. -Wikipedia.org

There is more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbat#Observance .

Word Review, 04, 22, 07

So far we have had 10 words as a Word of the Day and here they are in chronological order:

effervesce
yogiism
church
spoonerism
aplomb
chimera
eponym
egregious
gregarious
Sabbath

My favorite is aplomb. It's sound is so perfectly matched to its meaning; like a heavy weight at the bottom of a
slender string: a - plommmbb…..!

Yogiism is not a eastern religion! Cf. Yogi Berra (the baseball hall-of-famer)

I like the bubbly quality of effervesce.

What is your favorite?

Today’s word is unusual for the number of consecutive vowels it has: four in a row. Teachers, psychologists and psychoanalysts may be familiar with this word, but probably few others.

ma.ieu.tic (mey-yoo-tik), adj. also ma.ieu.ti.cal, designating or of the Socratic method of helping a person to bring forth and become aware of his latent ideas or memories. -Webster’s New World

The Random House says the method uses interrogation and insists on close logical reasoning. - http://dictionary.reference.com The origin shows an apt metaphor for the meaning of today’s word; it comes from Greek maieutikos < maia, midwife!

con.fab.u.late, (kuhn-fab-yuh-leyt), intransitive verb (used without an object)

[> Latin confabulari, confabulat- : com + fabulari, to talk; fabula, conversation]]

1. To talk informally, casually; to chat.
2. To unconsciously fill gaps in one’s memory with fantasy believing it to be factual.

confabulation, noun
confabulator, noun
confabulatory, adj.

“Fable” also derives from the same Latin root, fabula. To confabulate can be to just swap stories or fables with your friends or to just “shoot the breeze.” Happy Confabulations today on C/A!

“ I shall not ask Jean Jacques Rousseau
If birds confabulate or no.
- William Cowper (1731–1800)


Twittering Machine, Paul Klee (1879 - 1940)

Foggy-Paris, 1934 by Brassai

nu.bi.lous (noo-buh-luhs, nyoo-), adj.

1. Cloudy or foggy.
2. Obsucre or vague; indefinite.
- Random House Unabridged

[> Latin nubilus, cloud + ilus, adjectival suffix; not to be confused with nubile, adj., of a
female of marriageable age or development which derives from Latin nubilis, to wed.]

Related forms or words:
nubilose, adj.
nubiferous, adj. bringing or producing clouds
nubigenous, adj. born of or produced from clouds
nubilate v. t., to cloud
- Webster Dictionary, 1913 at U. of Chicago’s ARTFL project
nubia (noo-bee-uh), noun [from L. nubes, a cloud], a woman's light, fleecy wrap, worn over the
head and shoulders. - Webster's New World


“How far the disparting and convolving luminous nebulae may go to solve this nubilous question,
I leave to scientific and philosophic minds to decide.”
-Creation, a sacred poem by Oxoniensis pseudo, pub. 1852

con.volve (kuhn-volv),

a verb used with or without an object, convolved, convolving,

[From Latin con , with + volvere , to roll, turn or twist]

To roll or wind together; to coil or twist.

A good example is a rope, for not only can you coil it up for storage but the rope itself
is composed of twisted strands of material; the strands are convolved together.
Convolving a rope is also coiling it into a convolution. Other examples are convolved threads
or rods of steel which we call “springs;” and convolved strands of dough which we call “pretzels.”

There are so many words which are descendants of the Latin volvere convolving in my mind just now that I hardly know how to escape from their serpentine coils. There are at least these: convolve, involve, revolve, volute, involute, voluted, volution, volvulus and todays selection:

de.volve (di - volv), verb, [c.1420, from L. devolvere "to roll down," from de- + volvere "to roll" - online etymology dictionary].

verb with an object:
1. to pass on a duty or responsibility to, or shift upon another person.
2. (obsolete) to cause to roll downward.

verb without an object:
1. To be passed on from one to another.
2. (archaic.) To roll or flow downward.
-based on Random House Unabridged Dictionary.

“All higher motives, ideals, conceptions, sentiments in a man are of no account if they do not come forward to strengthen him for the better discharge of the duties which devolve upon him in the ordinary affairs of life.” - Henry Ward Beecher

Salvador Dali, Christ of St. John of the Cross, 1951.



nu.mi.nous (noo-min-us; nyoo-), adjective.

[ 1640 < Latin numinis, < nuere, to nod; numen a nod of assent or command (as from the divine).]

1. of or like a numen; supernatural.
2. beyond understanding; mysterious; filled with a sense of a supernatural presence.
3. spiritually elevated; sublime.


Related words:
numen, “presence”; a presiding divinity or spirit of a place.
numena, plural of numen.


“In that work [The Idea of the Holy], however, Otto was conscious of moving beyond his previous efforts, exploring more specifically the nonrational aspect of the religious dimension, for which he coined the term numinous, from the Latin numen (“god,” “spirit,” or “divine”), on the analogy of “ominous” from “omen.” -from an article on Rudolf Otto at Britannica Online.

“Our culture is not much concerned with the numinous, but in language we preserve many of the marks of a culture that is.” - Richard Mitchell, Less Than Words Can Say

Last week's word's and fragmentary definitions. For completeness and for the pronuciations please scroll upwards.

1. ma.ieu.tic, adj...........of the Socratic teaching method
2. con.fab.u.late, v.i.,.....to chat; (twitter?)
3. nu.bi.lous, adj...........cloudy, foggy
4. con.volve, v.,..............to roll together, twist, turn, coil.
5. de.volve, v.i.,v.t.,.......to pass onto another; to roll down
6. nu.min.ous, adj..........of or like a numen; mysterious, awesome, sublime.

They are all useful words, and it is difficult for me to choose a favorite between, nubilous, convolve and numinous; but I am quite wrapped up with convolve. Convolve and its cousins are revolving in my grey matter, so that I am reminded of another word that just may have the same grandfather: evolve. (Just a minute while I consult a dictionary.) .................. Just as I thought! Convolve is L. com, together + volvere, to turn, roll; whereas, evolve is formed of L. e, out + volvere, to roll.

Now that this family of words has devolved into your awareness, do not let these words dissolve into the nubilous regions where strenuous maieutic efforts are needed to bring them forth into your numinous convolving confabulations. (Please twitter quietly... :)

di.aph.a.nous (dahy-af-uh-nuh s) adj.

[1614, from Medieval Latin diaphanus, < Greek diaphanes, < dia- (prep.), through, between, across, by, of, + -phane shine or appear.]

1. sheer and light; very transparent or translucent.
2. of a delicate form, airy.
3. vague, insubstantial.

Related words:
di.aph.a.nous.ly, adverb
di.aph.a.nous.ness, noun
di.aph.a.ne.i.ty, noun (dahy-af-uh-nie-uh-tee)
di.aph.a.nom.e.ter (dahy-af-uh-nom-uh-ter), noun, an instrument for measuring transparency.

"Resembling bright bubbles, these diaphanous expanses of gas and dust belong to the category of astronomical phenomena known as nebulas." -Ron Cowen, Science News Online, May 24, 2003



Nebula located in the Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20030524/a3589_2501.jpg

the word nebulous I know, and sometimes use, along with ephemeral, transitory. I never heard of nubilous, unless you're talking about a young woman who has marriagable charecteristics.

DB

It is a nice word. I never heard of it either! (until some sixty plus years after being baptized into the English language, I saw it in my dictionary.) In the Latin roots there is just one letter difference between speaking of clouds or of weddings! :)

Nubilous and nebulous are almost the same when used to speak of the foggy, misty, vague and indefinate. The word 'nebulous' does have connections with astronomy in English, the first definiton in my Webster's New World is "of or like a nebula." Looking at 'nebula,' it says, "1. any of several light, misty, cloudlike patches seen in the night sky, consisting of groups of stars too far away to be seen singly, or of masses of gaseous matter."



The Latin root for nubilous is nubilus, cloud, and for nebulous, nebulosus full of mist, foggy; and for nubile & the adj. nubility, the root is nubilis < nubere, to veil oneself(thus the bride obscures as with a white mist her full glory). It's amazing! Thanks for bringing it up, D. Bishop. Now it is evident how these three adjectives are related: nubilous, nebulous, and nubility (the state of being nubile.)

And the recent WOD diaphanous(a veil is diaphanous) just above with a photo of galactic clouds!!!

That word ephemeral.... excuse me.... I must hie me aback 't me dictionary.....

Fan-Tailed Cuckoo
of eastern Australia

photo: K. Vang and W. Dabraka


cu.cu.li.form (kyoo-kyoo-leh-form), adjective [< Latin cucul cuckoo + I + FORM]

- Pertaining to or resembling the order of cuculiformes which includes the family of cuckoos and roadrunners.

Cuckoos have slender bodies, long tails, strong legs and love to eat hairy caterpillars that other birds dislike. Many lay their eggs in the nests of other birds thus devolving their parental responsibilities on to their neighbors.
- http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Cuckoo

Roadrunners, about 22 inches long, are clumsy, weak fliers, so prefer to run. Using their stout bill, they pound insects, lizards, and snakes to death, then swallow the victim head first. - http://p2.www.britannica.com/ebc/article-9376990

Roadrunner, Southwestern U.S.A.

I saw a roadrunner a couple years ago when I was in Arizona.

Yes, they will fly, if you drive straight at them with your car!

That reminds me of a cat who lies in our driveway and will not move for a car unless it keeps inching slowly toward her. She knows we can see her! :)

cuck.oo-spit (koo-koo-spit), noun [ < late Middle English, 1350 - 1400, cokkouspitle; "so called from the spitlike secretion found on the plant and thought to be left by the bird." - Random House Unabridged]

1. a spit-like froth seen on some plants, exuded by certain young insects, as froghoppers, which forms a protective covering for the insect; also called frog-spit.

2. any insect which forms such spit-like frothy exudates upon plants.

Click on this link to find out how 'cuckoo-spit is really made. http://www.uksafari.com/froghopper.htm

Interesting!

naught also nought (nawt), noun, adjective, adverb, preposition.

Originating before 900, the Old English word nauht or nōht was a contraction of nāwiht or nōwhit, which was equivalent to nā (no) + wiht (thing). One can still hear the sound in the phrase "not a whit." "To my mind to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder." - Albert Einstein

noun
1. nothing.
2. zero (0).

adjective
3. lost, ruined.
4. Archaic. worthless.
5. Obsolete. morally bad. (thus the word naughty)

adverb-
6. Obsolete. not.

"It is nought good a sleping hound to wake." - Geoffrey Chaucer

"The fool sees naught but folly; and the madman only madness." - Kahlil Gibran

cu.cul.late (kyoo-kuh-leyt, kyoo-kuhl-et) also cu.cul.la.ted(kyoo-kuh-lay-tid, kyoo-kuhl-eh-tid), adjective.
[Origin: 1785–95; < LL cucullātus having a hood]

1. cowled, hooded.
2. resembling a cowl or hood.

cu.cul.late.ly, adv.

"Again, Between the Cicada and that we call a Grashopper, the differences are very many, …. For first They are differently cucullated or capuched upon the head and back, and in the Cicada the eyes are more prominent: the Locusts have Antennæ or long horns before, with a long falcation or forcipated tail behind; and being ordained for saltation, their hinder legs do far exceed the other." - Sir Thomas Browne (1646; 6th ed., 1672) Pseudodoxia Epidemica, V.iii (pp. 274-275)


Sir Thomas Browne (1605 - 1682)


More of the entertaining language of Sir Thomas:

"The Locust or our Grashopper hath teeth, the Cicada none at all; nor any mouth according unto Aristotle: the Cicada is most upon trees; and lastly, the fritinnitus or proper note thereof is far more shrill then that of the Locust; and its life so short in Summer, that for provision it needs not have recourse unto the providence of the Pismire in Winter." -ibid

Source: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/pseudodoxia/pseudo53.html

"Trees of Heaven", 1980, acrylic on canvas by Roger Brown (1941 – 1997)

http://midwestmuseum.us/images/art/Trees_of_Heaven.jpg


Elysium (ih-LIH-zee-uhm, ih-LEEH-zhee-uhm), noun:

1. in Greek mythology the seat of future happiness; Paradise.
2. hence, any place or condition of ideal bliss or complete happiness. Also Elysian fields.
3. (also a city: Elysium, Minnesota, USA, zip-code 56028)

Elysian (ih-LIHZ-uhn, ih-LEE-zhuhn), adj.

1. in or like Elysium.
2. happy; blissful; delightful.

Both words are from Latin Elysium < Greek Elysion, short for Elysion pedion
"Elysian fields",' the ancient Grecian heaven. The name of the famous avenue in Paris, the Champs-Élysées,means "Elysian Fields;" Paris must be a heavenly place!

"…cookbook fans often spend less time at the stove than stretched out on the sofa, turning the pages and letting their imaginations wander to that happiest of places, the culinary Elysium where all food is perfectly prepared and all settings are romantic, where no bill arrives and no one gains weight. -William Grimes, "Cooking", New York Times, December 7, 1997[/i]

Quiz for week ending May 05, 2007-05-05

1. Which word best describes an animal which leaves others to raise its young?

a. nervous.
b. cuculiform.
c. optimistic .

2. The bride’s wedding veil was:

d. cucullated.
e. diaphanous.
f. cuneiform.



3. “The music was Elysian,” means it was:

g. a heavenly sounding music.
h. composed in an ancient Grecian scale.
i. a style of folk music found only in Minnesota .

4. cuckoo-spit can be found:

j. in bird nests.
k. under toad stools.
l. on stems of plants.

5. Another word for zero is:

m. cipher.
n. nil.
o. naught.

6. Which of these garments is cucullated?

p. a hooded sweatshirt.
q. blue jeans that have tears and holes.
r. a brides veil.



Key: the correct answers spell out a new word coined just for this quiz:

be.glop (bee-GLAHP), also be-glop, verb [coined word from the prefix be- + (informal) glop]

to spatter, or cover someone or something with glop.


"The baby had beglopped her mother with undigested milk."

The Sun Dispels the Morning Fog – William P. Silva (1859-1948), American painter

aubade (oh-BAHD), noun.
[French < Spanish albada < alba, dawn < Latin albus, white]

1. A piece of music or a poem suitable for greeting the dawn, or suggestive of morning.
2. A song or poem of lovers at dawn.

I've got a Word of the Day!!



Young children are so good at this!

Thank you for the neat word, Gail. I appropriate it very much! We have some spotted yellow topical fruit on the counter; when I call them 'badnanas' people say my annunciation is bad but I never did take any vows! Anyway I can't think straight right now because I have sleep-depravity and all last night I was dreaming that I was awake. I would see a doctor about it but they are so expensive - Oh, to be effluent! Sometimes they are so fresh, you know what I mean? - like one listened to my heart and when I complained about achey joints she told me that I am very rheumantic, and I didn't even think she was cute!

My aunt always liked to brag that my cousin was in exhilerated classes at school!




And then there was a patient's mother who told us her son was having problems because he didn't take his peanut butter balls regularly... (phenobarbitol)

ROFLOL!!! You guys are great!

I was just chatting with Mrs Malaprop, and she reminded me that "the early word alway gets the berm;" so getting back to the WOD 'aubade,' she advised me not to trust those artsy, eggs- heads who say it deviated from French and Latin when it is so plainly English! Those inner-lecturals, she says, going around with their thumbs up their noses couldn't smell a devient if it was right in front of them. Anyway, when I posted the 2nd def. above I omitted to say that the 'aubade' is a poem or song of or about lovers "parting at dawn;" this being a Christian Forumn and all. Well, Mrs Malaprop reminded me that it is exploratory of its deviance to have that specified because when the church board heard about it they all said, "OH, BAD!!!" Thus it is plainly of English deviance, and a New England accent is retrained even into the prescient day.

Further more, you all know, I'm sure, so I won't say anything.

On second thought maybe I should or I might be mistaken for not understanding what is on your minds. What's on my mind is how the French want to blame everything on the English, vices-verses even. If Aubade were actually a French word, it would be a different word not English, therefore eksetera (< Gr. eksetarov) and so on..... we see that the "au-" in French means "to the," or "of the" or "in the" for the French can never make up their minds...(hehe)... and the "-bade," means something else. My little French Dictionary says that "Bade" is a fem. pronoun, referring to Baden, a region of Germany. In French then, "aubade" if it means anything is an Expletive meaning "to Germany! (with you!!)." Many Sincere Thanks to you, Mrs Malaprop, for multiplying these deductions you have made a huge addition to the correct division of the truth about something important to somebody somewhere.

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Images/Chicago/mech2.jpeg

ululate (UL-yoo-layt, YOOL-yoo-layt), intransitive verb. [ < Latin ululatus, p.p. of ululare, to howl; echoic]

1. To howl, as a dog or a wolf.
2. To wail or lament loudly.

ululant, adj.
ululation, noun.

Ululate is an echoic word imitating the sound of the howling or the wailing which it denotes, as you will understand if in saying the word you make the first syllable to sound for four or five seconds; then say it again louder and higher in pitch sounding the first syllable even longer and letting it drop gradually in pitch and fade away on the last two syllables.

“Voters, some ululating with joy, others hiding their faces in fear, cast ballots in higher-than-expected numbers in Iraq's first multi-party election in half a century.” – Yahoo news story

titivate (TIT-uh-vayt), transitive and intransitive verb, also tittivate.

To smarten up; to spruce up.

titivated
titivating
titivation, noun
titivator, noun

[Titivate is perhaps from tidy + the quasi-Latin ending -vate; perhaps tidy + ele-vate, thus to 'tidy-up', elevate one's appearance. When the word originally came into the language, it was written tidivate or tiddivate.]

"It's easy to laugh at a book in which the heroine's husband says to her, "You look beautiful," and then adds, "So stop [size:11pt]titivating yourself."[/size]
-- Joyce Cohen, review of To Be the Best, by Barbara Taylor Bradford, New York Times, July 31, 1988

If one's vocabulary seems rather dull and commonplace one might begin to titivate it with today's word. Titivation of one's home could involve a new coat of paint on some dingy siding, or replacing stained and worn carpeting. One is a titivator of her car when she washes and vacuums it. Let's not be messy, and grumpy; let's titivate our appearances and our moods so that we may be more pleasing to our friends and families. :)

ne.ol.o.gism (nee-OLL-uh-jiz-um), noun: [The French word neologisme, from which the English is borrowed, is made up of the elements neo-, "new" + log-, "word" + -isme, -ism (all of which are derived from Greek).]

1. A new word or expression.
2. A new use of a word or expression.
3. The use or creation of new words or expressions.
4. (Psychiatry) An invented, meaningless word used by a person with a psychiatric disorder.
5. (Theology) A new view or interpretation of a scripture.

related words:
neological, adj.
neologist, noun
neologistic, adj.
neologistical, adj.
neologize, v.i., neologized, neologizing
neology, noun

"If the work is really a holding operation, this will show in a closed or flat quality in the prose and in the scheme of the thing, a logiclessness, if you will pardon the neologism, in the writing." -- Harold Brodkey, "Reading, the Most Dangerous Game", New York Times, November 24, 1985

[size:14pt]neologisms

I found these on the internet yesterday:

o meanderthal, meander + Neanderthal , someone ahead of you taking their good old time when you are in a hurry.

o sarcastrophe, sarcasm + catastrophe, when an attempt at humorus sarcasm fails and others are deeply offended.

o spork, spoon + fork , an utensil for eating concave like a spoon and having rudimentary fork-like tines; usually plastic and found at fast-food eateries.

o andropause or viropause, formed along the lines of menopause; loss of virility in men.

o obesogenic, obese + -genic, having a tendency to cause obesitiy.

o Christianese, language used only by or appreciated only by practicing Christians.

o triviata, a collection of trivial things or facts; the word first entered our language as a book title in 1975.

o chatterati, noun, elite members of the chattering classes

o pygmalionism, noun, being in love with one’s own creation. In Greek mythology, Pygmalion created a statue of a female so beautiful he fell hopelessly in love with her, until the Goddess of Love brought the statue to life. George Bernard Shaw wrote a play based on this story which was in its turn the basis of the musical, My Fair Lady.
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It would be interesting to see what new words the rest of you have encountered lately. :)

Reminded me of the Muppets discussing animal operas:

Pigoletto and

La Traviotter