Word of the Day

[D. Allan]

an·a·gram, [AN-uh-gram] noun, verb, -grammed, -gram·ming.

–noun

1. a word, phrase, or sentence formed from another by rearranging its letters: “Angel” is an anagram of “glean.”

2. anagrams, (used with a singular verb) a game in which the players build words by transposing and, often, adding letters.

–verb (used with object)

3. to form (the letters of a text) into a secret message by rearranging them.

4. to rearrange (the letters of a text) so as to discover a secret message.

[Origin: 1580–90; prob. < MF anagramme < NL anagramma. See ana-, -gram1]

—Related forms

an·a·gram·mat·ic, an·a·gram·mat·i·cal, adjective

an·a·gram·mat·i·cal·ly, adverb

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)

Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

[D. Allan]

anomaly

An anomaly is an irregular or unusual event which does not fit a standard rule or law. For example, a frog when dropped should move through the air towards the ground, according to the law of gravity. If the frog were to remain suspended in mid-air, such levitation would be an anomaly. If it were discovered, however, that the frog was being suspended in mid-air by electromagnetic devices, the anomaly would dissolve.

Anything weird, abnormal, strange, odd, or difficult to classify is considered an anomaly.

In science, an anomaly is something which cannot be explained by currently accepted scientific theories. Sometimes the new phenomenon leads to new rules or theories, e.g., the discovery of x-rays and radiation.

- The Skeptics Dictionary by Robert Todd Carroll

[D. Allan]

imprecate • \IM-prih-kayt\ • verb

: to invoke evil on : curse

Example Sentence:

"The workers' sweating brows wrinkled, but I heard no one imprecate the river; each just went back to passing along stories and sandbags." (William Least Heat-Moon, River-Horse)

Did you know?

It may surprise you to learn that a word that refers to wishing evil upon someone has its roots in praying, but "imprecate" ultimately derives from the Latin verb "precari," meaning "to pray, ask, or entreat." "Precari" is also the ancestor of such English words as "deprecate" (which once meant "to pray against an evil," though that sense is now archaic), "precatory" ("expressing a wish") and even "pray" itself (which has deeper roots in the Latin noun for a request or entreaty, "prex").

- Merriam-Webster online

[D. Allan]

agnosticism

Agnosticism is the position of believing that knowledge of the existence or non-existence of God is impossible. It is often put forth as a middle ground between theism and atheism. Understood this way, agnosticism is skepticism regarding all things theological. The agnostic holds that human knowledge is limited to the natural world, that the mind is incapable of knowledge of the supernatural. Understood this way, an agnostic could also be a theist or an atheist. The former is called a fideist, one who believes in God purely on faith. The latter is sometimes accused by theists of having faith in the non-existence of God, but the accusation is absurd and the expression meaningless. The agnostic atheist simply finds no compelling reason to believe in God.

The term 'agnostic' was created by T. H. Huxley (1825-1895), who took his cue from David Hume and Immanuel Kant. Huxley says that he invented the term to describe what he thought made him unique among his fellow thinkers:

"They were quite sure that they had attained a certain "gnosis" -- had more or less successfully solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble."

'Agnostic' came to mind, he says, because the term was "suggestively antithetic to the 'gnostic' of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant...." Huxley seems to have intended the term to mean that metaphysics is, more or less, bunk. In short, he seems to have agreed with Hume's conclusion at the end of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding:

"When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion."*

Kant's Critique of Pure Reason resolved some of the main epistemological issues raised by Hume, but at the expense of rejecting the possibility of knowing anything beyond appearances of phenomena. We can't know God but the idea of God is a practical necessity, according to Kant

- The Skeptics Dictionary by Robert Todd Carroll

[D. Allan]

dishabille \dis-uh-BEEL\, noun:

1. The state of being carelessly or partially dressed.

2. Casual or lounging attire.

3. An intentionally careless or casual manner.

People meant to be fully clothed lounge around in dishabille.

-- John Simon, "Tangled Up in Blue", New York Magazine, March 26, 2001

But, unlike the Black Knights, Princeton . . . was in varying states of dishabille -- some players in warmups, some in uniform, some halfway between.

-- Daily Princetonian, December 13, 2000

She was dressed, that is to say, in dishabille, wrapped in a long, warm dressing-gown.

-- Alexandre Dumas, Twenty Years After

She imagines the shocked faces of Josiah or her father or her mother were any of them to come around the corner and catch her in her dishabille.

-- Anita Shreve, Fortune's Rocks

Dishabille comes from French déshabiller, "to undress," from dés-, "dis-" + habiller, "to clothe, to dress."

- Dictionary.com

[D. Allan]

cacophony \kuh-KAH-fuh-nee\, noun:

1. Harsh or discordant sound; dissonance.

2. The use of harsh or discordant sounds in literary composition.

New York was then a cacophony of sounds -- a dozen accents ricocheting off surrounding buildings as immigrant mothers called their children home for supper, noon whistles blowing, vendors hawking their wares on the streets, children shouting, horses whinnying, and people yelling.

-- Herbert G. Goldman, Banjo Eyes

The mammoth central station towered over the platforms, and with the cacophony from whooshing steam, shrill whistles, shouts and the heaving of hand and horse carts, not only was it the biggest, noisiest, most confusing experience any of them had ever encountered, but the city was almost unimaginable.

-- Christopher Ogden, Legacy: A Biography of Moses and Walter Annenberg

Cacophony comes from Greek kakophonia, from kakophonos, from kakos, "bad" + phone, "sound." The adjective form is cacophonous. The opposite of cacophony is euphony.

Dictionary.com

[D. Allan]

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year 2007

"Thousands of you took part in the search for Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year for 2007, and the vast majority of you chose a small word that packs a pretty big punch. The word you've selected hasn't found its way into a regular Merriam-Webster dictionary yet—but its inclusion in our online Open Dictionary, along with the top honors it's now been awarded—might just improve its chances. This year's winning word first became popular in competitive online gaming forums as part of what is known as l33t ("leet," or "elite") speak—an esoteric computer hacker language in which numbers and symbols are put together to look like letters. Although the double "o" in the word is usually represented by double zeroes, the exclamation is also known to be an acronym for "we owned the other team"—again stemming from the gaming community."

Merriam-Webster's #1 Word of the Year for 2007 based on votes from visitors to our Web site:

1. w00t (interjection)

expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word "yay"

w00t! I won the contest!

Submitted by: Kat from Massachusetts on Nov. 30, 2005 23:18

2. facebook

3. conundrum

4. quixotic

5. blamestorm

6. sardoodledom

7. apathetic

8. Pecksniffian

9. hypocrite

10.charlatan

[D. Allan]

Children's word finally added to the Oxford English Dictionary

blankie

The lexical innovations of children are often so short-lived or idiosyncratic that they do not gain widespread currency outside a particular family. Blankie, however, a colloquialism for "blanket" formed by adding the suffix –ie to the first syllable, has stood the test of time. Written evidence shows over 80 years of English usage of the word, especially in North America, but it probably has a longer, unrecorded history in the language of the nursery.

[D. Allan]

craven • \KRAY-vun\ • adjective

: lacking the least bit of courage : contemptibly fainthearted

Example Sentence:

Lavinia thought it was craven of Alex to cave into pressure and retract his allegations instead of defending his position.

Did you know?

"Craven" and its synonyms "dastardly" and "pusillanimous" are all basically fancy words for "cowardly." Don't be afraid to use them -- here's a little information to help you recognize the subtle distinctions in their connotations. "Craven" suggests extreme defeatism and complete lack of resistance. One might speak of "craven yes-men." "Dastardly" often implies behavior that is both cowardly and treacherous or skulking or outrageous, as in this example: "a dastardly attack on unarmed civilians." "Pusillanimous" suggests a contemptible lack of courage (e.g., "After the attack, one editorialist characterized the witnesses as 'the pusillanimous bystanders'").

- Merriam-Webster online

[D. Allan]

auctorial • \awk-TOR-ee-ul\ • adjective

: of or relating to an author

Example Sentence:

"The capacity to tell a plain tale is the greatest of the auctorial gifts." (Anthony Burgess, Homage to QWERT YUIOP)

Did you know?

In ancient Rome, auctioneers, grantors, and vendors were known as "auctors." The title is based on the Latin verb "augēre," meaning "to promote" or "to increase." The word "auctor," which was also used for a person who creates something, passed through Anglo-French and Middle English, eventually evolving (somewhat perplexingly) into the Modern English word "author." English writers dug up "auctor" again in the early 19th century to form the adjective "auctorial." The coinage was a somewhat surprising one, given that the word "authorial" had been firmly established in English for over a quarter of a century. Today, "authorial" is the more common of the two words, but modern-day wordsmiths continue to put "auctorial" to use on occasion.

- Merriam-Webster online

[D. Allan]

mal·a·prop·ism [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 instance of this, as in “Lead the way and we'll precede.”

[Origin: 1840–50; Malaprop + -ism]

—Related forms

mal·a·prop·is·tic, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)

Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

"My mom often used to say, The trouble with W -- although she didn't put that to words."

--George W. Bush

Washington, DC

04/03/2002

[D. Allan]

audition • \aw-DISH-un\ • noun

1 : the power or sense of hearing

2 : the act of hearing; especially : a critical hearing

*3 : a trial performance to appraise an entertainer's merits

Example Sentence:

The theater company is holding auditions today for the role of the play's central character.

Did you know?

Today, "audition" most often refers to a theatrical tryout, but that wasn't always the case. "Audition" is rooted in the Latin verb "audire," meaning "to hear," and was first used in the late 16th century to refer to the power or sense of hearing. "Audire" is also the root of such "hearing" words in English as "audible," "audience" (which first meant "the act or state of hearing"), and the prefix "audio-," which appears in various words relating to sound. It wasn't until late 19th century that the noun "audition" began being used for an entertainer's trial performance. And the verb "audition," meaning "to test or try out in an audition," didn't appear on the English language stage until the mid-20th century.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

- Merriam-Webster online

[D. Allan]

related to today's word, audition, are the words 'audit' and 'auditor'.

An accountant may be an 'auditor' who 'audits' bookkeeping. One may also 'audit' classes in college - just listen in without recieving credit or taking tests, if I remember right from my college day, years and years and years ago.

[D. Allan]

Christmas disease

–noun Pathology. a hereditary disease characterized by an inability of the blood to clot because of a deficiency of a coagulation factor.

[Origin: 1952; after S. Christmas, the first sufferer from the disease to be examined in detail]

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)

Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Christmas, Stephen, British child patient. Christmas was the youngest of seven patients in a study at an Oxford, England, hospital undertaken by Rosemary Biggs and her associates of a newly discovered condition resembling hemophilia. Christmas was the first patient examined in detail, and the disease was named after him. In 1952, Biggs and her associates published their first article on Christmas disease.

Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.

- Christmas disease

n. A type of hemophilia that is caused by a deficiency of factor IX.

- American Heritage Dictionary

Christmas factor –noun

Biochemistry. a blood constituent necessary for clotting, the absence of which is characterized by a hemophilialike condition.

Also called factor IX, plasma thromboplastic component.

[Origin: see Christmas disease]

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)

Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

[Woody]

Quote:

Christmas disease

–noun Pathology. a hereditary disease characterized by an inability of the blood to clot because of a deficiency of a coagulation factor.

This is GOOD. At Christmas time ... we as Christians of all people should have the ability to coagulate. We should be "clotting" together as Christians and with ALL peoples.

Our deficiency with being able to clot with one another is a major factor of our demise. Only God can help this disease. For we are at dis ... ease . We are uneasy with this diabolic disease and we should be until it is cured.

Yes ... we inherited this from the First Adam but the Second Adam can cure it.

[D. Allan]

I like your application of the word, Redwood.

Let us clot together! :)

[Woody]

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.

[D. Allan]

ROFL

[D. Allan]

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.

[D. Allan]

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

[D. Allan]

grinch • \GRINCH\ • noun

: killjoy, spoilsport

Example Sentence:

Our team had improved significantly over the past week, but the grinches were still pointing out that we were more than ten games out of first place.

Did you know?

When Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, wrote the children's book How the Grinch Stole Christmas in 1957, he probably had no idea that in 20 years "grinch" would enter the general lexicon of English. Like Charles Dickens' Ebenezer Scrooge (whose name has become synonymous with "miser"), the Grinch changes his ways by the story's end, but it's the unreformed character who "hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!" who sticks in our minds. The ill-natured Grinch, with his heart "two sizes too small," provides us with a lively symbol of someone we love to hate, and his name has thus come to refer to any disgruntled grump who ruins the pleasure of others.

- Merriam-Webster online

[D. Allan]

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.

[D. Allan]

gnomic \NOH-mik\, adjective:

Uttering, containing, or characterized by maxims; wise and pithy.

A long pause, during which the group reflects on this gnomic pronouncement.

-- Ruth Shalit, "Send in the clowns", Salon, June 21, 2000

They consisted of strange, short, sometimes witty, sometimes gnomic, often semiautobiographical essays about architecture.

-- Geoff Nicholson, Female Ruins

But the young man's gnomic utterances -- that life is "a journey" and "a big circle" -- might reflect not Buddhist-tinged wisdom so much as the fact that he has been skating around in circles for years.

-- Gary Kamiya, "Flight of the wonder boy", Salon, February 14, 2002

Gnomic derives from Greek gnomikos, from gnome, "intelligence, hence an expressed example of intelligence," from gignoskein, "to know."

Dictionary.com

[D. Allan]

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

[D. Allan]

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: www.hungover.net", Independent, September 3, 2001

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

-Dictionary.com