Word of the Day

[Guest]

We must have resonant circiuts! Well I was just getting bored and have a while to waste until supper so that word syntony had been ratteling around in my craniumn for a while. Sometime syntony is rare on this forumn. Ha Ha.

So those are the kinds of words that rattle around in your noggin eh? You must have a vast vocabulary.

[D. Allan]

Quote:

dae-dal [deed-l]

–adjective

1. skillful; ingenious.

2. cleverly intricate.

3. diversified.

dae-dal

1. Ingenious and complex in design or function; intricate.

2. Finely or skillfully made or employed; artistic.

A very interesting word indeed. Is it connected to that mythical character Daedalus?

[D. Allan]

Quote:

D. Allen, it's about time! Welcome back. Don't be gone so long, stranger.

Thanks, John. Just stopping by. Might get back on my horse and ride on into the sunset. Never can tell.

[D. Allan]

I found one usage of the word dedal in the New York Times:

"A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" bore the un-Joycean title of "Stephen Hero." Joyce’s daedal hand later turned Hero into Dedalus. (Incidentally, I have seen a holograph letter signed Stephen Daedalus (sic) dated as early as 1904.) - Horace Reynolds , - The Man Who Wrote ‘Ulysses’ NYTimes, Feb. 18, 1940

Daedalus : from Ancient Greek. The mythological Daedalus was the crafty, skillful guy who made the waxen wings for Ikaros (greek spelling). He flew too close to the sun and his wings melted!

It's a neat word. Thanks for it Richard!

[Gail]

I saw D. Allan and just had to come have a look!

Come back again SOON!

[D. Allan]

I really like your signature. The one with the claw marks!

[D. Allan]

miscible adj. (physics)(of liquids) that can be mixed together in all proportions

Related term: miscibility, noun, the property of liquids to mix in all proportions, forming a homogeneous solution. In principle, the term applies also to other phases (solids and gases), but the main focus is usually on the solubility of one liquid in another. Water and ethanol, for example, are miscible since they mix in all proportions.

Antonym: immiscible

Quote:

“The petroleum-based oil's purity is also an important factor. Those available for home-garden use are now miscible, that is they will mix with water.” –Joan Lee Faust, NYTimes, March 31, 1991

[Guest]

Great

[D. Allan]

im-mure verb

1. To imprison someone

2. To shut away or seclude someone

3. T o enclose or surround someone or something within walls

"The explorers were immured in the cave after the landslide blocked their exit."

Let the straight-laced sermonize as they will, it has not been ordered for all Americans to immure themselves within their troubles. They will dance, sing or fight, alternating as the courtesies of life, or the warm blood of loyalty in the defense of right, may demand. NYTimes, From Key West, Dec. 4, 1862

Of course, the Hasidim cannot immure themselves completely; the film is filled with scenes of them riding the subway, reading English-language newspapers, walking past X-rated-video stores. Professor Samuel Heilman of Queens College describes seeing a Satmar Hasid waiting on a scantily clad woman in a Manhattan electronics store, then wishing her a nice day. ''That is already being swallowed up by America,'' Professor Heilman observes. –David Margolick, ‘Opening A Window On Hasidism,’ NYTimes, July 20, 1997

[Gail]

Thank you again, dAb!!

I immure myself in my office often!

[Gail]

Has anyone noticed that this is the thread with the most views out of the entire board? At this point it has 495,227 views!! Incredible!

[D. Allan]

Quote:

I immure myself in my office often!

It keeps you from being immured in debt, right ! Save up some of your earnings so that when you retire you will not have to immure yourself within the confines of your home.

[D. Allan]

fascicle noun, also facicule

1. a small bundle (as of sticks or straw)

2. one of the separately published of parts of a book

3. bot. a bundlelike cluster as of flowers, stems or leaves

4. anatomy, a bundle of anatomical fibers such as nerves, a fasciculus

related :

fascicled, adj.

fascicular, adj

fasciculus, n. pertaining to or resembling a fascicle

Birching, the ultimate sanction, was an elaborate ritual of fear and public degradation. The miscreant would be summoned from his classroom in midmorning by a senior boy, who also had the duty of insuring that the headmaster did not raise the fascicle of birch twigs above shoulder height, lest he get carried away and cause excessive injury. - Nicholas Wade, NYTimes, July 23, 1995

AT first sight, Czeslaw Milosz's most recent collection seems to be a poet's scrapbook rather than a book of poems. It reminds one of the silva rerum, a ''forest of things,'' the 17th-century term for a fascicle containing loosely arranged notes, occasional poems, copies of letters and memorable quotations. - NYTimes, July 6, 1986

D considers his hair, as many African and Rastafarian men also do, a talisman of his power, so he never cuts it. A thick fascicle of dreadlocks sheathed in wax thread is slung rakishly over his right shoulder and spliced to an equally long but spindlier cable of beard. - Judith Thurman, ‘Roots’ The New Yorker magazine, March 15, 2004

[Gail]

Wires also fascicled in the construction of suspension bridges.

[D. Allan]

It is a word with many applications, evidently. Could not one say that a girl's ponytail is facicled hair?

[Gail]

I guess you could, but the example of the dreadlocks above just forms a picture in my mind so well!

[D. Allan]

esplanade, noun

1. A long, open, level stretch of pavement or grass where people may walk for pleasure; a promenade; esp. along a shore or river bank.

2. Also a flat, level area outside the walls of a fort, or citadel where an enemy may be easily seen and fired upon.

1591, from Fr. esplanade, from Sp. esplanada "large level area," from esplanar "make level," from L. explanare "to level"

Behind the Museum is an esplanade park, with a widely spaced display of sculpture-much of it bequeathed by Billy Rose. –Edmund Wilson ‘On The Eve’ The New Yorker, Aug. 19, 1967, p.38

An embalmed Norwegian whale on view in a tent on the Esplanade des Invalides is attracting many visitors. – Janet Flanner, ‘Letter From Paris,’ The New Yorker Magazine, Oct. 10, 1953

The master plan for an East River esplanade, which was unveiled last month by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, is a welcome reprieve from that New York cliché. Covering a two-mile stretch of waterfront from Battery Park to East River Park in Lower Manhattan, the project will transform a series of abandoned piers and derelict corners beneath the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive into a vibrant urban panorama without sacrificing the rough edges. –Nicolai Ouroussoff, NYTimes, June 28, 2005

[Stan]

so nice to see your name pop up my friend.

[D. Allan]

Thank you, Stan. It is very kind of you to welcome me back. I'll try not to dissapear too often and then not for too long.

[Woody]

Woody likes this.

[D. Allan]

crêpy adj. or crepy or crêpey

1. Similar to or resembling crêpe

“The jockey waited with his back to the wall and scrutinized the room with pinched, crêpy eyes.” - from a short story, ‘The Jockey’ by Carson McCullers.

Skelly advertised these cosmetics as good for correcting wrinkles, crow's feet, double chin and crepy throat. –NYTimes, Aug. 6, 1944

Easy-Eye Solutions bye bye to Puffy Crepy Eyes & Dark Circles -Zack Eye Solutions on You Tube

Crêpe noun

1. a light thin fabric with a wrinkled surface.

2. a black band of this fabric worn on the sleeve or hat as a sign of mourning

3. wrinkled rubber used for the soles of shoes

4. also a thin pancake

1797, from Fr. crêpe, from O.Fr. crespe (14c.), from L. crispa, fem. of crispus "curled, wrinkled"

Meaning "small, thin pancake" is from 1877. Crepe paper is first attested 1895. –online etymological dictionary

Instead of ice blue crepe she will wear ciel bleu (sky blue) crepe. –Mary Pickford’s Bridal, NYTimes, June 26, 1937

East Berlin, always a city of flags, was a city of black crepe today because of the death of Premier Stalin. –NYTimes, March 7, 1953

The French street food socca is a sort of cross between polenta and a pancake made with chickpea flour, water and olive oil. The crêpes below, inspired by socca, have a wonderful chickpea flavor, but they’re lighter. You can fill them like a regular crêpe to serve as a main course. –NYTimes, June 2010

[Gail]

That word crêpy makes me think of faces. I envision Uriah Heep as having a crêpy-looking face.

[D. Allan]

Uriah Heep - a character in a Dicken's novel? I think of the artist, Georgia O'Keefe in her later years.

[D. Allan]

awry adj. & adverb (a . rye’)

1. crooked, turned or twisted to one side, askew

2. off the expected course or position

3. amiss, wrong or distorted, not in the intended way

a "on" + obs. verb wry "to contort, to twist or turn," 1520’s –Online Etymology Dictionary

Quotes:

Albany, Feb. 2. --Plans for a suffrage demonstration in the Senate on Tuesday night, when the suffragists thought their 1913 resolution would pass, went awry tonight. –NYTimes, Feb. 3, 1915

She was a big, blonde woman, all soft and awry like an unmade bed. –Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., from the short story ‘Next Door.’

Like many best-laid plans, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center concert Friday night at Alice Tully Hall went a bit awry when Gunther Schuller could not deliver the octet that the society had commissioned from him for the group's 10th anniversary (it will be completed in time to be performed next season). – Peter G. Davis, NYTimes, March 4, 1979

[Gail]

Love that word! Both of them- awry and askew!