Word of the Day

[D. Allan]

At one a day we can keep going for about 4000 years!

[D. Allan]

chagrin ( shuh-GRIN),

noun : a strong feeling of vexation, caused by annoyance, disappointment , humiliation or embarrassment

verb : to cause or to feel chagrin

synonyms: chagrin, agitation, uneasiness, disappointment, trouble, grief, sorrow, distress, vexation, embarrassment, mortification; peevishness; fretfulness; disgust; disquiet

[1656 From French, possibly chagraigner, to distress, become gloomy, from Old French graim, sorrowful, gloomy, of Germanic origin.]

"Vexation arises chiefly from our wishes and views being crossed: mortification, from our self-importance being hurt; chagrin, from a mixture of the two." --Crabb. Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

“. . . when, as a little girl of eight years, arrayed in a new cloak, gorgeous beyond anything I had ever worn before, I stood before my father for his approval. I was much chagrined by his remark that it was a very pretty cloak--in fact so much prettier than any cloak the other little girls in the Sunday School had, that he would advise me to wear my old cloak. . . “ Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House

“Subsequent studies have confirmed me in the point of view which I have indicated here, and I remain irretrievably lost to religion. This is a source of permanent chagrin to my family. The years have tended to cover over the wound, to the extent that we never discuss the difference in our opinions; . . . “ – Philip E. Wentworth, The Atlantic, What College did to My Religion, June 1932

‘. . . Friedman said he wrote a note to Galbraith. "You must be as chagrined as I am to have Nixon for your disciple," Friedman wrote. Galbraith didn't reply, Friedman said.’ -November 16, 2006 - By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

“She said she would feel dirty—she would feel bad—if she had no washday. She needed steam and stirring to convince her that she was alive and virtuous. Toward the end the increasing number of soiled sheets defeated her, and perhaps even killed her, though I think she died not from overexertion but from chagrin when she finally had to admit she could no longer wield her ponch or lift a bucket. She felt unnecessary.” A. S. Byatt, “Raw Material”, The Atlantic Monthly, April 2002

“Margaret felt, rather than saw, that Mr. Thornton was chagrined by the repeated turning into jest of what he was feeling as very serious.” -Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us, and we know not where to begin to set them right.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays

[Gail]

You could also make this a French WOTD...

[D. Allan]

There is hardly any difference, is there, between the French and English useage? Or is the French more limited to just sorrow?

[Gail]

There is hardly any difference, is there, between the French and English useage? Or is the French more limited to just sorrow?

You'd have to look it up to find all its nuances, but I've used it to designate distress or sorrow.

[D. Allan]

quoit (kwoit, koit)

noun:

1. quoits (singular) a game of pitching a ring of rope or metal at an upright peg to come close as possible or encircle it.

2. a ring used in the game

verb:

1. to throw like a quoit

2. to play the game of quoits

[1350-1400: Middle English coyte, flat stone, quoit, from Old French coilte, coite, from Latin culcita, cushion.] This word quoit seems to have a relationship with the material: stone, maybe due to the stone discus of the Greeks. Some ancient games involved throwing or quoiting stones. The word is also used, in southwestern Britain (Cornwall) as a synonym for a dolmen, an ancient burial site of megalithic stones where at least two or three upright stones support a huge flat one.

related words: quoiter, noun; quoitlike, adjective

“Uncle Cedric entered the salon and deftly quoited his fedora upon baby Jaimie’s head! -whereupon the sweet child thumped the floor, sitting down brusquely on her diapered behind.” –anon.

"The [Grecian] quoit, or discus, was made of stone or metal, of a circular form, and thrown by means of a thong passing through the centre. It was three inches thick and ten or twelve in diameter. He who threw farthest won. It is a modern game also, and is imitated in the Old-Country custom of pitching the bar.” –David William Cheever, The Atlantic Monthly, May 1895

“-- she did all her sewing by hand, made all shirts and children's clothing -- he would read to her from the newspaper, slowly pronouncing and delivering the words like a man pitching quoits.” – D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

“ . . . Señora Perón, in a fluffy pink dress with a large bustle. Her hair was arranged in a series of golden quoits, one above another. Her skin was strikingly pale, and her eyes were heavy-lidded and lowered.” –Philip Hamburger as quoted by Richard Severo,in The New York Times, April 26, 2004

“Miss Loudon fidgets for a few minutes, giving her whole body a twirl that resembles a pitched quoit spinning around on its peg (except that a quoit spirals downward whereas Miss Loudon orbits upward), and then offers two adjectives. She announces that Miss Hepburn possesses ‘gusto - and style.’ “ –Walter Kerr, Nov. 29, 1981

“The game of quoits - tossing rings at a stake - was called horseshoes in northern English dialect in the early 19th century. . .” –William Safire, The New York Times, Dec. 29, 1985

“ ‘Surely got at least one adventure in love you aren't ashamed to tell about – ‘ Bruce Cadogan Cavendish pulled forth his iron quoit and seemed to debate whether or not he should brain the other. He sighed, and put back the quoit.” –Jack London, The Red One

“Aforetime I had stood by, admiring to see him, how he leapt, and what a quoiter and cricketer he was.” Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, The Sexton’s Hero (1906)

links:

Rules for Outdoor Quoits http://www.mastersgames.com/rules/quoits-outdoor-rules.htm

Quoits – History and Useful Info. http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Quoits.htm

United States Quoiting Assn. http://www.usqa.org/

[D. Allan]

quietism ( KWEYE-eh-tiz’m ), noun

1. Among Christians, mystical passive contemplation of God with spiritual annihilation of the will.

2. Tranquility of spirit or quietness of life

[1680-90: from Italian quietismo, originally prayer in a state of quietude]

Christian “Quietism” was founded in the Catholic church, they say, by Miguel de Molinos of the 17th century; and in France at that time was Madame Guyon, who wrote a popular book on a mystical method of prayer involving meditation aided with Bible reading. She impressed Madame de Maintenon at the court of Louis XIV, and also Archbishop Fénelon of the Catholic hierarchy. Pope Innocent XI condemned Quietism in 1687. Although the gospels do support dying to self-will, in order to be ‘born-again,’ and Saint Paul himself claimed he ‘died’ every day, Christian churches tend to dismiss quietism, as too mystical. Molinos died in prison. Madame Guyon was confined first in a convent and then in the Bastille. Fénelon submitted to the Pope’s authority and avoided prison.

Philosophic tranquility and serenity : Ataraxia, the ancient Greek philosopher’s word for freedom from worry and such negativity, was to be achieved by transcending the material world, through the joys and comforts of philosophy, through the mind and spirit. Modern quietistic philosophy has the goal of restoring us to a state of quietude by showing that most philosophic problems are a result of confused reasoning . It focuses on language, words and resolving confusions within the concepts of various disciplines, including philosophy.

quietist, noun; quietistic, adj.

“In the far East the head of every family is a high-priest in the calling of daily life. It is for this reason that a quietism is to be found in Chinese poetry ill appealing to the unrest of our day, and as dissimilar to our ideals of existence as the life of the planets is to that of the dark bodies whirling aimlessly through space.” -Edward Bellamy, A Lute of Jade

“Lowell's dramatic power has an edge of malice and, in his tragic moments, cruelty: Both malice and cruelty are countered by a quietism which took its extreme form in the early portrait of the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in "The Quaker Graveyard at Nantucket"—the face of the statue "expressionless, expresses God."” –Helen Vendler, “The Difficult Grandeur of Robert Lowell,” The Atlantic Monthly, Jan. 1975

“Robert Bordo: A beautiful, quietistic show by a painter whose work always manages to be both grounded and ethereal, soundless and resonant, abstract and not.” -“The Listings,” New York Times, Oct. 21, 2005

“Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems - of mysticism or quietism: but this voice out of the far-off middle ages, was the direct communication of a human soul's belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message.” -George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss

“Over against the quietist stands the active-contemplative, the saint, the man who, in Eckhart’s phrase, is ready to come down from the seventh heaven in order to bring a cup of water to his sick brother.” –Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception

“The philosopher Schopenhauer described Quietism as a form of denial of the will to live. According to him, this resignation and selflessness constitutes the last stage of intelligence and is the ultimate salvation or deliverance from the sufferings of the world. It is the last stage of intelligence because the mind comprehends the world, and therefore itself, as a continuous urge, similar to human desire or will, which results, as a consequence, in suffering and pain. Quietists turn away from the world and from selfishness. – www.wikipedia.com

“My purpose here is to offer a defense of existentialism against several reproaches that have been laid against it. First, it has been reproached as an invitation to people to dwell in quietism of despair. For if every way to a solution is barred, one would have to regard any action in this world as entirely ineffective, and one would arrive finally at a contemplative philosophy.” -Jean Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism

“Finally, in both its architects’ and designers’ focus on the domestic—that is, the private and the sheltered—California modernism fostered a detachment, even a quietism, that in itself militated against zeal and emotional heedlessness.” -Benjamin Schwarz, “California Cool,” The Atlantic Monthly, March, 2008

[D. Allan]

calque (kalk), calqued, calquing

1.noun: a loan translation, esp. when the structure of a borrowed word or phrase is kept and its parts replaced word by word or root by root by those of the native language.

2.verb: to form a word or phrase by loan translation.

[1655-65: from French, calquer, to copy]

Example calques:

Long time no see .......... < Chinese

Adam’s apple .............. < pomme d’Adam (apple of Adam) French

flea market................ < marché aux puces (market with fleas) French

New Wave.................. < Nouvelle Vague French

that goes without saying... < cela va sans dire French -

beer garden ............... < Biergarten German

cross-dressing............. < Transvestismus German

overman, superman........ < Ubermensch German

moment of truth............ < momento de la verdad, Spanish bullfighting term

skyscraper.................. > rascacielo, (it scrapes sky) Spanish

blue blood.................. < sangre azul (blood blue) Spanish

Would any polyglots like to suggest possible calques to enrich the English language?

Here’s one to try at the next meal with friends or family: earth apples. { In French a pomme de terre is a potato} Sooo, do you like gravy on your mashed earth-apples/ground- apples?

[D. Allan]

cachinnate (KAK-uh-nate ), nated, -nating -; v.i.

1. to laugh loudly or convulsively

2. Medical: to laugh without apparent cause

[From Latin cachinnatus, ptp. of cachinnare to laugh aloud]

A nice word. Almost onomatopoetic . My aunts laugh loudly at family get-togethers. They cackle like hens! Is it more dignified to call their down-home loud laughter “cachinnating” rather than cackling?

related: cachinnation, noun : cachinnator, noun : cachinnatory, adj.

Synonyms : cackle, guffaw

“Hence the Book of the Four Cardinal Virtues commands us, ‘Let thy laughter be without cachinnation, that is to say, without cackling like a hen.’ “ – Translation by H.W.Longfellow, with notes, of Dante Alighieri’s book, The Divine Comedy

“You laughed at me when I became enthusiastic regarding the possible historical importance of that ancient and, alas! fragmentary epistle ; but the old saying about the beatitude of him whose cachinnations are the latest comes handy to me just now, and I must remind you that ‘I told you so.’ “ -Maurice Thompson, Alice of Old Vincennes , Preface, (1900)

“. . . the fewest are able to laugh, what can be called laughing, but only sniff and titter and snigger from the throat outwards; or at best, produce some whiffling husky cachinnation, as if they were laughing through wool: of none such comes good. The man who cannot laugh is not only fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; but his whole life is already a treason and a stratagem. – Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh

“He flung his arms aloft, screams of shrill laughter pealing from his lips. "Mad!" he cackled, his utterances choked by bubbling, fevered cachinnation. "All mad!" Tearing apart the silken hangings, he ran from the room, still shrieking laughter.” -Howard Philips Lovecraft, The Inevitable Conflict

[D. Allan]

Frank “Old Blue Eyes” Sinatra

epithet (EP – uh –thet), noun

1. a word or phrase characterizing a person or thing: “Stan the man” is an epithet of Stan.

2. a descriptive substitute for name or title of a person: “The Bard of Avon” is a substitute for Shakespeare’s name

synonyms: nickname, sobriquet, designation, appellation

3. an abusive, contemptuous or hostile word or phrase : Ye scurvy dogs!

synonyms: curse, insult, abuse, expletive, obscenity

[Origin: 1570–80; < L epitheton epithet, adjective < Gk epítheton epithet, something added]

epithetic, epithetical, adjectives

[color:#CC9933] Observe, that the epithet of the Son is "Saviour"- observe, that the sign by which his human qualities are denoted is the cross. –Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, The Last Days of Pompeii

All forms of rationalism alike were called zendekism by the orthodox, the name having the epithetic force of the Christian terms “infidelity” and “atheism.” -John Mackinnon Robertson, A Short History of Free Thought Ancient and Modern

Six years ago, for example, Judge Milton Pollack of Federal District Court in Manhattan fined one Samuel J. Rosen $250 for "epithetical jurisprudence": i.e., calling his opponent "an obnoxious little twit." -David Margolick, New York Times, Feb. 12, 1993

By the ancient Romans the werewolf was commonly called a "skin changer" or "turn-coat" (versipellis), and similar epithets were applied to him in the Middle Ages. The medieval theory was that, while the werewolf kept his human form, his hair grew inwards; when he wished to become a wolf, he simply turned himself inside out. –John Fiske, The Atlantic Monthly, August 1871

Timur, or Tamerlane, was educated in a less barbarous age, and in the profession of the Mahometan religion; yet, if Attila equalled the hostile ravages of Tamerlane, either the Tartar or the Hun might deserve the epithet of the Scourge of God. –Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, VI

April 8 – Duel between Henry Clay and Senator John Randolph of Virginia near Georgetown, Va., year 1862. The duelists fired two shots each. . . . Randolph, in a speech, called the administration of President John Quincy Adams a “puritanic-diplomatic-black-legged administration.” Clay, who was the Secretary of State, regarded Randolph’s epithetic speech as a personal insult and challenged to a duel. After the affair, the men became cordial friends. –Philip Robert Dillon, American Anniversaries Every Day in the Year

[D. Allan]

A 4000BC dolmen near Andorra, in Solsona(Catalonia)

dolmen (DOLE-men ), noun

a prehistoric structure of at least two large upright stones capped by another large horizontal stone, and believed to have been a tomb.

also known as: cromlech, anta, Hünengrab, Hunebed, quoit, and portal dolmen

{1859, from Fr. dolmin applied 1796 by Fr. archaeologist Latour d'Auvergne, perhaps from Cornish tolmen "enormous stone slab set up on supporting points," such that a man may walk under it, lit. "hole of stone," from Celt. men "stone." Some suggest the first element may be Bret. taol "table," a loan-word from L. tabula "board, plank," but the Bret. form of this compound would be taolvean. "There is reason to think that this [tolmen] is the word inexactly reproduced by Latour d'Auvergne as dolmin, and misapplied by him and succeeding Fr. archaeologists to the cromlech" [OED].} -Online Etymology Dictionary

Before going to France last spring to research Romanesque churches in the region, I read an aside in a guidebook stating that there were more than 500 dolmens in Lot alone, dating from 2500 to 1500 B.C. –Pamela J. Petro, The New York Times, Oct. 13, 2002

Deep in the olive groves near Minervino di Lecce, just about a half-hour’s drive from Otranto, [italy] are some of the mysterious stone mounds known as dolmen. These strange, carefully piled rock slabs were the sites of ancient rituals, including sacrifices. Phoebe Hoban, The New York Times, Oct. 08, 2002

LATE in her lively biography of the Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali, Meryle Secrest reveals that in 1984, upon being invited by the Spanish Government to design his own monument, the 80-year-old artist sketched an enormous dolmen 60 to 70 feet high. –Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times, Nov. 27, 1988

A favorite of Christy Browne, a retired agricultural adviser who gives walking tours of the limestone region called the Burren, begins at a farm on the Ballyvaughan-Killinaboy Road a few hundred yards north of the Poulnabrone Dolmen, beneath which 22 Stone Age people are buried. –Eve Laplante, The New York Times, July 8, 2001

In the myth, the Basques had learned to worship the sun and the moon from the friendly giants known as the jentillak, who also taught them to farm and who erected the many dolmens -- upright stone structures -- throughout the countryside. One day, after seeing strange omens in the sky, the jentillak announced, "Christ is born, our time is done," and without another word disappeared under a dolmen, leaving only a trail of folktales in their stead. –Marisa Bartolucci, The Atlantic Monthly, Oct. 2000

links:

The North Salem, New York dolmen: http://members.skyweb.net/~channy/NSDolmen.html

[Woody]

There are some fantastic ones in Ireland.

[D. Allan]

Have you seen them? Ireland would be great to visit.

[D. Allan]

right: The Return of Persephone, by Frederic Leighton, oil, 1891

chthonian ( THOH-nee-uhn ) also chthonic (THON-ic)

Greek mythology: of beings living under the earth; of or relating to the underworld

[from Greek chthonios, of the earth]

“In Greek mythology, Persephone is the goddess of Spring and the daughter of the harvest goddess, Demeter. As the story goes, one day in the valley of Enna, where Spring reigns eternal, Persephone was gathering flowers with her companions. Hades, the god of the underworld, saw her and fell in love at once. He drove his chariot into the valley and carried her off. Though Persephone screamed to Demeter and her companions it was to no avail. When they reached the river Styx, Hades struck the ground with his staff, opening the earth, and proceeded down into the underworld with his young bride. Through beseeching Zeus, Demeter finally persuaded him to demand her daughter from Hades. Hades agreed to return Persephone as long as she had not consumed anything from the underworld. However, in her hunger, the young goddess had eaten a few seeds from a pomegranate, binding her to remain with Hades. After much arguing, Hades finally agreed to let Persephone return to the earth for half of every year. Thus, in the Spring, Persephone is reunited with her mother and the earth is in bloom, but in the Winter, she goes back down to the underworld and the earth is barren and cold.” - http://blogs.princeton.edu/writingart21/archives/2004/12/cazannes_abduct.html

The divinities of old Greece were divided into two classes, the Olympian and the Chthonian, the heavenly and the earthly, the gods and the demons, the good gods and the hard. –Charles Bigg, The Church’s Task Under the Roman Empire: Four Lectures, p. 33 (1905)

In Jungian psychology, the term chthonic was often used to describe the spirit of nature within, the unconscious earthly impulses of the Self, one's material depths, but not necessarily with negative connotations. For example: "Envy, lust, sensuality, deceit, and all known vices are the negative, 'dark' aspect of the unconscious, which can manifest itself in two ways. In the positive sense, it appears as a 'spirit of nature', creatively animating Man, things, and the world. It is the 'chthonic spirit' that has been mentioned so often in this chapter. In the negative sense, the unconscious (that same spirit) manifests itself as a spirit of evil, as a drive to destroy." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chthonic

Before and after Virgil, a long line of poets, epic and lyric, have chronicled perilous journeys to the underworld, traveling deeply to bring back its true booty — not Hades' gems, but the darkly glittering poems inspired by his queen, Persephone. [Poet Louise] Glück has earned a place in that distinguished company of chthonic poets. –Nicholas Christopher, The New York Times, March 12, 2006

What is worship then? More than love, homage or fear -- those chthonic, emotive things -- worship is a "total engagement and surrender of the whole person," who in this moment "recognizes the worthlessness of what he is surrendering in comparison with the transcendent glory of the reality to which surrender is made." -Larry Alan Schiereck, Max Stirner’s Egoism and Nihilism

[Woody]

This one was just sitting out in a field and you could walk right up to it. It was not protected like many things are in the States. No fence around it !!! Not even a path leading to it. Just one tiny sign that pointed to it from the road.

[Woody]

Poulnabrone Dolmen (Poll na mBrón in Irish meaning "hole of sorrows") is an ancient portal tomb in the Burren, County Clare, Ireland, dating back to the Neolithic period, probably between 4200 BC to 2900 BC. It consists of a twelve foot tabular capstone supported by two slender portal stones, and bordered by a nearby cairn. The cairn helped stabilize the tomb, and would have been much higher originally.

A crack was discovered in one of the portal stones in 1985. Following the resulting collapse, the dolmen was dismantled, and the cracked stone was replaced. Excavations during this time found that at least 22 adults and children were buried under the monument. Personal items buried with the dead included a polished stone axe, a bone pendant, quartz crystals, weapons and pottery.

In the Bronze Age, around 1700BC, a newborn baby was buried in the portico, just outside the entrance. With its dominating presence on the limestone landscape of the Burren, the tomb must have remained a center for ceremony and ritual until well into the Celtic period.

[Woody]

I saw this and took photos before the collapse. You had a sense of awe and respect when you were there even though the 22 people who were buried had not been discovered yet.

[D. Allan]

Thank you, Redwood! That is a great picture.

/dAb

[Woody]

Thanks dAb . I can't take credit for this particular photo. It was off the internet. My photos are buried too deep. How do you like that .... BURIED !!!

[D. Allan]

It's a good one. Can they be exhumed?

[D. Allan]

plangent (PLAN-gent), adjective

1. of a loud and resonant sound; with a plaintive, mournful tone

2. (Webster’s 1913, Dict.) beating, dashing, as a wave

[from Latin plangere, to strike, lament]

plangency, noun

plangently, adverb

plangorous, adjective

“It seemed that I was standing in the outer reaches of beyond -- that Chernyshevsk was lost in it, hunkered down against plangent gales blowing from nowhere to nowhere.” -Jeffrey Tayler, The Atlantic Monthly, April 1997

“When Emily returns from the dead for one final look at her life, Ms. Miller omits the sobs suggested in the author's stage directions and in so doing provokes the audience to greater emotion. Her question to the Stage Manager, ''Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? - every every minute?'' resounds with plangency through the play.” -Mel Gussow, The New York Times, Dec. 11, 1988

''Paper Cities'' is a set of ingenious variations on the theme of how we compose ourselves, how we use art - to relieve our hurt and at the same time to feel it more keenly. Other poems take up this theme austerely or plangently. –J. D. McClatchy, The New York Times, May 26, 1985

“But the most fearful and tumultuous coil and stir, the terriblest and most boisterous garboil and hurry, the chiefest rustling black santus of all, and most principal hurly-burly springeth from the grievously plangorous howling and lowing of devils. . . . “ -François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel

[D. Allan]

sus

1. a genus of the subfamily Suinae of the family Suidae which is the family of pigs, hogs and boars. (Now I know why my grandfather called his pigs with the holler: sooi, sooi, here sooi! And I thought farmers had no Latin!)

2. adj. short for ‘suspect’ or ‘suspicious.’ Hey man, I’m sus about that sus -Urban Dictionary.com

“From the petite pygmy hog Sus salvanius to the immense wild boar Sus scrofa, swine are fascinating animals.” -www.sandiegozoo.org

“Nevertheless the first published accounts of M were deeply self serving narratives, each cut and shaped to fit the author’s thesis. Each one’s version of M was wholly sus.” -Peter Robb, M, The Man Who Became Caravaggio, p. 2 (1998)

“Her quarry in these golden Mendocino hills was Sus scrofa, a squat, muscular wild boar with coarse dark hair, hairy ears, a thick armor-like hide and skewers for tusks, which is now overrunning the countryside to become the latest plague of California.” -Patricia Leigh Brown, The New York Times, Sept. 30, 2005

UNDER a 150-year-old British law, repealed in 1979, a suspect could be held in police custody for 24 hours without being formally charged with an offense. Barrie Keeffe's play ''Sus'' (for ''suspect''), which opened Sunday night at the Hudson Guild Theater, deals with one such victim of police harassment. –Mel Gussow, The New York Times, April 13, 1983

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Bornean_Bearded_Pig.jpg Sus barbatus

[D. Allan]

escapees, dAb, escapees. Into the corner and print it 100 times and no recess for you!

-dAb

[D. Allan]

Mimesis as camouflage.

mimesis (mi-MEE-sis ) noun

a. in art and literature, representation or imitation of human behavior, speech etc.

b. in biology, mimicry

From Greek mimesis, imitation < mimos imitator.

related words: mimetic, adj; mimetically, adverb; mimicry, noun

In the last song, ''Der Leiermann'' (''The Organ-Grinder''), there were hints of mimesis; the two looked hunched with age, twisted with mortality. But mostly the dancing floated free of the texts' imagery. –John Rockwell, The New York Times, July 14, 2006

Sissel Tolaas, an odor artist and perhaps the fragrance industry’s most controversial figure, pushes across her desk a small glass bottle containing pale liquid. I inhale, and then, phew! If my nose is to be trusted, a male armpit has unfurled, only inches away. And it’s perspiring heavily. She will be exhibiting nine of her sweat smells this fall.

This isn’t real sweat, but a sophisticated mimesis. It was designed at the research laboratory that Tolaas leads in Berlin, an outpost of International Flavors and Fragrances Inc. –Susie Rushton, The New York Times, August 27, 2006

One is mimesis, and few artists mimic reality to more riveting effect than Ron Mueck, the British sculptor whose ''Dead Dad'' was one of the hits of last year's ''Sensation'' exhibition. . . . . Other marvels of mimesis include an actual-size ladybug by Tom Friedman, a field of delicate red mushrooms by Roxy Pain and a lovingly carved and painted dead duck by Michael Combs. –Ken Johnson, The New York Times, June 9, 2000

“Mimesis has generally been discussed as thought it were a characteristic inhering in the image: that is, as the copy’s likeness to its archetype. This assumption comes naturally, if one assumes that the archetype and image are quite distinct. However, the distinction is by no means clear if one assumes, as Augustine himself did, that the image “participates” in the archetype.” -Karl F. Morrison, “From Form into Form”; “Mimesis and Personality in Augustine’s Historical Thought,” Proceedings, American Philosophical Soc. (Vol. 124, No. 4, 1980)

[D. Allan]

maenad ( MEE-nad) noun, also menad

1. Greek Mythology a woman participant in the rites of Dionysus; a Bacchante (a drunken reveler).

2. A frenzied, raging or distraught woman

Origin: 1570-80, from Latin Maenad < Greek Mainas, a bacchante, special use of mainas (genitive mainados) lit. “madwoman” , < stem of mainesthai “to rage, go mad”.

Related:

maenadic, adjective

maenadism, noun

Or his description of jigging for bluefish: ''It is not the most refined form of fishing, but there is something agreeably basic and brutish about it, and women, I have noticed, love it; it speaks to the latent maenad in them.'' –James Gorman (Reviewing “A Jerk on Ones End” by Robert Hughes), The New York Times, Dec. 26, 1999

“WHEN Elizabeth I was near 70, her grand half-century reign drawing to a close, a visitor to Hampton Court caught sight of her dancing in front of a mirror. Describing this maenad-like moment, Miss Erickson says: ''Not realizing that she was being observed, the old queen was tossing her head and stamping her feet with a crazy abandon,'' dancing away death. It is wonderful to observe her so closely. Miss Erickson notes that the dance was called the ''Spanish Panic''; and, as such, it is a fitting set of steps for a queen who had delivered her realm from the great power of the Spanish Armada and reigned in triumph as Empress of England, France, Ireland and Virginia.” -Maureen Quilligan, The New York Times, April 3, 1983

“On the same program on Sunday afternoon, Samantha Allen was a revelation as a ferocious maenad nibbling Mr. Askegard to death in Mr. Martins's ''Barber Violin Concerto,'' while Mr. Evans abducted Ms. Kistler in style.” -Anna Kisselgoff, The New York Times, Jan. 29, 2000

“. . . in Greek ritual, maenadism is a benign communal negation of female adherence to the household. Seaford identifies a pattern of maenadism as it operates in Greek tragedy. Accordingly, maenadic behavior is occasioned by features such as resistance to the male.” -Vassiliki Panoussi, Ego Maenas, http://www.apaclassics.org/AnnualMeeting/98mtg/abstracts/panoussi.html

recommended links:

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/greece/hetairai/maenad.html (Very good/ paste it in)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maenad