plangent (PLAN-juhnt), adjective:

1. Beating with a loud or deep sound, as, "the plangent wave."
2. Expressing sadness; plaintive.

Plangent derives from the present participle of Latin plangere, to beat, to strike (noisily), especially to strike the breast, head, etc. as a sign of grief.

plan•gen•cy, noun
plan•gent•ly, adverb

She moans along with the woman who is singing -- wailing, really -- her hands gripping the steering wheel to the plangent cries of the singer and the sobbing of violins.
- Alice Walker, By the Light of My Father's Smile

What undoubtedly touched those soldiers is the play's plangent nostalgia, the ache for home, for home's rootedness and security.
- J. D. McClatchy, "Wilder and the Marvels of the Heart", New York Times, April 13, 1997
- http://www.dictionary.com

“A gorgeous, plangent work: a cri de coeur for the cranes’ protection and a testament to Matthiessen’s enduring high caliber as writer and world traveler . . . [He] projects an undiminished passion for the specific creature, the distinct landscape, the cultural oddity, the startling word. In The Birds of Heaven, he conveys that feeling through serendipitous prose as elegant as the stately birds that inspire him.” —The New York Times Book Review

I like pronouncing this- Gail

Word of the Day: Lagniappe (noun)

Pronunciation: [lahn-'yahp]
Definition: A gratuity given by a merchant to a customer beyond the value of a purchase; a bonus or additional benefit of any sort.

Usage: Today's word entered US English directly from the language of the Acadians (Cajuns) of Louisiana and has spread rapidly eastward. In 'Life on the Mississippi' (1883) Mark Twain writes, "We picked up one excellent word—a word worth travelling to New Orleans to get; a nice limber, expressive, handy word 'lagniappe.'" He was so right. The custom of tipping the customer is wide-spread around the world but it must be new in the English-speaking world, since English had to go elsewhere for a word expressing it.

Suggested Usage: Kids, here a way to really impress your parents with your progress in school, "Guess what, Mom? Linda gave me two of her kittens as a lagniappe for taking one of the puppies!" Adults will find uses for it, too, whenever they need a word for a pleasant, unexpected bonus, "Frieda had thoroughly enjoyed the party and seeing the dog bite her boss' leg was the perfect lagniappe to cap the evening off."

Etymology: Louisiana French Creole, from American Spanish la ñapa "the gift, tip" from la "the," derived from Latin illa, feminine of ille "that," originally "yonder." The same pronoun is also the origin of French "le" and "la" which also mean "the." This word traces its root to *al- which we find in alter "other" at the base of English "altercation," "alter ego," and "alternate." In English it emerged as "else." The noun ñapa is even more interesting. It comes from yapa, which means "gift" in the South American Indian language, Quechua, from the verb yapay "to give more."

—Dr. Language, yourDictionary.com

psychograph, noun

1. A photographic image attributed to a supernatural or spiritualistic cause.

1882 ‘M. A. OXON.’ Psychography (ed. 2) 11 The book is illustrated by thirty fac-similes of Psychographs thus obtained. Ibid. 12 He..obtained his..Psychographs by the simple process of putting blank paper on the table of his room. 1920 London Mag. July 443/1 Most puzzling of all forms of super-normal pictures is the psychograph so-called because it is assumed to be psychic in its origin and production. 1939 H. PRICE Fifty Yrs. Psychical Res. i. 35 If a message in writing or a drawing spontaneously appears on a photographic plate, with or without it being exposed in the camera it is known as a scotograph or a psychograph. 1973 D. A. SPENCER Focal Dict. Photogr. Technologies 496 All available evidence suggests that these psychographs were fakes or the result of a combination of chemical fog and wishful thinking.

2. = PSYCHOGRAM 2.

1909 Q. Rev. Oct. 500 This is no caricature, but almost a psychograph of the spirit which permeates many if not most of the descriptive reports of cricket matches in popular sporting papers. 1921 Education XLI. 513 A character psychograph of the individual is obtained. 1932 C. LANDIS in K. S. Lashley Stud. in Dynamics of Behav. 299 In order to visualize more clearly the results of the tests, three psychographs were drawn to represent the performance of each subject.

3. = PSYCHOBIOGRAPHY a.

1932 Sunday Times 6 Mar. 8/2 It was with some anxiety I saw Dame Una Pope-Hennessy was committed to writing a psychograph of Walter Scott. 1961 Times Lit. Suppl. 29 Sept. 637/2 Professor Edward Wagenknecht has been driven to compose a ‘psychograph’, in which he competently balances opinion against opinion in the hope of discovering what Hawthorne was really like. 1967 Amer. N. & Q. Sept. 14/2 Forrest, first of the American tragic actors in this assemblage of ‘psychographs’. 1974 Times Lit. Suppl. 11 Oct. 1130/3 Dickens was the principal exemplar, and Wilson's penetrating psychograph, ‘The Two Scrooges’, coincided with George Orwell's revaluation in focusing upon a great novelist whose very popularity had caused him to be critically neglected.

- Word of the Day at the Oxford English Dictionary http://www.oed.com/cgi/display/wotd

Word of the Day: Obnubilate (verb)

Pronunciation: [êb-'nu-bê-leyt or ahb-'nyu-bê-leyt]
Definition: To darken, dim, especially to becloud.

Usage: The adjective, obnubilate [êb-'n(y)u-bê-lêt] "beclouded" is rarely used in favor of the regular past participle, "obnubilated," as in "The faces in the room became obnubilate in the thick cigar smoke." As you can see, it deserves better.

Suggested Usage: This is a swell word with which to obnubilate the fact that you aren't very smart (if that is the case), "This is a purely intuitive issue, Francine; don't obnubilate it with facts and figures." If you are smart, there are many more ways to use it: "Esther did not allow her husband's funeral to obnubilate her Saturday morning golf match with Francine."

Etymology: Latin obnubilat-, past participle of obnubilare "to cover with clouds or fog" from nubilus "cloudy" the adjective from nubes "cloud." This word is akin to nebula "vapor, fog, smoke," nimbus "rainstorm," and nubo "to cover, veil." The same ancient root gave Sanskrit nabhas "vapor, cloud," German Nebel "fog, mist," Greek nephos "clouds," Russian nebo "sky." This word is unrelated to "nubile" which comes from nubilis "marriageable" the adjective from nubere "take a husband."

—Dr. Language, yourDictionary.com

Word of the Day: Jejune (adjective)

Pronunciation: [ji-'jun]
Definition: Lacking in nutrient content, hence insipid, dull, lacking in intellectual content.

Usage: This is another word that has recently picked up an illegitimate meaning that has become so widespread that it now appears in many dictionaries. Because of its resemblance to French jeune "young" and Latin juvenilus (whence "jeune"), it is occasionally used in the sense of "puerile, childish." We recommend you use "puerile" and "childish" for those meanings and limit "jejune" to the work it was designed for. However you use it, "jejunely" is the adverb and "jejuneness" is the noun.

Suggested Usage: Do not forget that today's word may refer to physical lack of nutrients, "Their promise of a feast brought us to a dinner of unidentifiable meat surrounded by jejune vegetables boiled of all their taste and bodily good." The promise itself turns out a bit jejune in this example. This is the word to use where less careful speakers would ask, "Where's the meat?" "His first novel is so jejune I read only half of it. There is more content in the telephone directory."

Etymology: Latin jejunus "empty of food, hungry, meager."

—Dr. Language, yourDictionary.com

I never knew there was a name for this- Gail

Word of the Day: Quincunx (noun)

Pronunciation: ['kwing-kungks]
Definition: Five objects arranged so that four are at the corners of a square or rectangle and one is at the center; the pattern of "five" on a 6-sided die.

Usage: Sir Francis Galton used a box with a triangular arrangement of pegs inside which he called a quincunx in order to explore laws of variation. Beads dropped from the top of the box hit each peg with equal probability of going left to right. But at the bottom of the triangle, the beads form a bell curve, suggesting that variation leads to mediocrity. The pinball machine works along the same principles: any ball that hits a series of obstacles is more likely to end up in the middle, where the gap between the flippers lies, than on either side.

Suggested Usage: "Aurora blamed her divorce from George on a quincunx in their horoscopes." Yes, the quincunx is important in astrology, where it means two planets are 150 degrees from each other and have very little in common. In Christianity, the quincunx means the four wounds in Jesus' hands and feet, plus the spear through the side. To the ancient Greeks, the quincunx signified divine perfection—the four elements of fire, water, earth and air, plus the fifth, mystery element, the quintessence.

Etymology: From the Latin for "five ounces," from quinque "five" + uncia "ounce, a twelfth part." Latin "quinque" [kwenkwe] originates in the Indo-European root *penkwe after an anticipatory assimilation of the [p] to the final [kw]. German fünf "five" is expected. English "five" suffers a loss of the nasal [n] which did not drop out of "finger," originally meaning a "fiver." Russian pjat' "five"comes from *penti and Greek penta provides the name of the five-sided Pentagon.

—Dr. Language, yourDictionary.com

genial (JEE-nee-ul), adjective

1 : favorable to growth or comfort : mild
*2 : marked by or diffusing sympathy or friendliness
3 : displaying or marked by genius

Example Sentence:
Our genial host immediately offered us refreshments and introduced us to everyone.

Did you know?
"Genial" derives from the Latin adjective "genialis," meaning "connected with marriage." When "genial" was first adopted into English in the mid-16th century, it meant "of or relating to marriage," a sense that is now obsolete. "Genialis" was formed in Latin by combining the "-alis" suffix (meaning "of, relating to, or characterized by") with "genius," meaning "a person's disposition or inclination." As you may have guessed, Latin "genius" is the ancestor of the English word "genius," meaning "extraordinary intellectual power"-- so it's logical enough that "genial" eventually developed a sense (possibly influenced by the German word "genial") of "marked by very high intelligence."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

deliquesce (del-ih-KWESS), verb

*1 : to dissolve or melt away
2 : to become soft or liquid with age or maturity -- used of some fungal structures (as the gills of a mushroom)

Example Sentence:
Someone forgot to put the butter back in the refrigerator, instead leaving it to deliquesce on the kitchen counter.

Did you know?
"Deliquesce" derives from the prefix "de-" ("completely, away") and a form of the Latin verb "liquēre," meaning "to be fluid." Things that deliquesce, it could be said, turn to mush in more ways than one. In scientific contexts, a substance that deliquesces absorbs moisture from the atmosphere until it dissolves in the absorbed water and forms a solution. When plants and fungi deliquesce, they lose rigidity as they age. When "deliquesce" is used in non-scientific contexts, it is often in a figurative or humorous way to suggest the act of "melting away" under exhaustion, heat, or idleness, as in "teenagers deliquescing in 90-degree temperatures."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
- Merriam-Webster Online

acerbic (uh-SER-bik), adjective

: acid in temper, mood, or tone

Example Sentence:
Liam's speech was punctuated by his usual acerbic wit, and some people in the audience thought that his comments went too far.

Did you know?
English speakers created "acerbic" in the 19th century by adding "-ic" to the adjective "acerb." "Acerb" had been around since the 17th century, but for most of that time it had been used with only a literal "sour-tasting" sense. (The word "acerb" is still around today, but it is now simply a less common synonym of "acerbic.") "Acerbic" and "acerb" ultimately come from the Latin adjective "acerbus," which can mean "harsh," "bitter," or "unpleasant." Another English word that comes from "acerbus" is "exacerbate," which means "to make more violent, bitter, or severe."

-Merriam-Webster Online

Word of the Day: Lexiphanic (adjective)

Pronunciation: [lex-ê-'fahn-ik]
Definition: Employing pretentious words; using overblown language in speech or writing.

Usage: Lexiphanic has a lot of synonyms: bombastic, pompous, ostentatious, affected, showy and splashy are just a few. With such a wide variety of similar meanings to choose from, we run the risk of sounding lexiphanic ourselves if we use this rare word to talk about somebody else's fustian language.

Suggested Usage: "Lexiphanic" is a word pretty much restricted to describing the way we write and talk. "The content of Richard's paper was simple enough, but the way he put his ideas was lexiphanic." "A lexiphanic choice of words doesn't necessarily impress people, but often confuses them."

Etymology: From Greek lexifanis "a phrase monger." Lexis "speech" comes from the PIE root leg-, which gives us the word lexicon "dictionary," of course. It also lends us dialect, dialogue, allege, delegate, prologue, and syllogism—all of which have to do with language use.

—Dr. Language, yourDictionary.com