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#143393 - 10/27/07 01:41 AM Re: Word of the Day [Re: Gail]
D. Allan Moderator Offline
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Registered: 08/28/00
Posts: 3562
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aghast • \uh-GAST\ • adjective

: struck with terror, amazement, or horror : shocked

Example Sentence:
In an effort to impress his date, Adam ordered the most expensive items on the menu, then was aghast when the bill arrived.

Did you know?
If you are aghast, you might look like you've just seen a ghost, or something similarly shocking. "Aghast" traces back to a Middle English verb, "gasten," meaning "to frighten." "Gasten" (which also gave us "ghastly," meaning "terrible or frightening") comes from "gast," a Middle English spelling of the word "ghost." "Gast" also came to be used in English as a verb meaning "to scare." That verb is now obsolete, but its spirit lives on in words spoken by the character Edmund in Shakespeare's King Lear: "gasted by the noise I made, full suddenly he fled."

Merriam-Webster Online

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#143445 - 10/27/07 05:50 PM Re: Word of the Day [Re: D. Allan]
D. Allan Moderator Offline
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Registered: 08/28/00
Posts: 3562
Loc: les Etats-Unis d'Amerique
Both today's word and its definition are contained in the title of a Duke Ellington title from the C D The best of duke ellington - the complete rca victor mid-forties recordings.

"Transblucency (A Blue Fog That You Can Almost See Through)"

Although it has not entered the mainstream of our language, we should feel free to use it - and help it along. It could be useful describing among other things the smoke of forest fires to a medium case of depression.

It would be interesting to see how you might use it. So Please Post Your Usage. :-)



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#144008 - 11/05/07 11:43 PM Re: Word of the Day [Re: D. Allan]
D. Allan Moderator Offline
Panning for gold

Registered: 08/28/00
Posts: 3562
Loc: les Etats-Unis d'Amerique
manqué • (mahng-KAY), adjective

the "ng" is not pronounced, but the preceding vowel is nasalized

: short of or frustrated in the fulfillment of one's aspirations or talents -- used postpositively
Example Sentence:

Clarke has a remarkable gift for drawing, but unless he applies himself, he'll always be an artist manqué.
Did you know?
The etymology of "manqué" is likely to vex left-handers. English speakers picked up "manqué" directly from French more than two centuries ago, and it ultimately comes from Latin "manco," meaning "having a crippled hand." But in between the Latin and French portions of this word's history came the Italian word "manco," which means both "lacking" and "left-handed." Lefties may be further displeased to learn that "manqué" isn't the only English word with a history that links left-handedness with something undesirable. For example, the word "awkward" comes from "awke," a Middle English word meaning both "turned the wrong way" and "left-handed." And the noun "gawk" ("a clumsy stupid person") probably comes from a "gawk" that means "left-handed" in English dialect. - Merriam-Webster.com

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#144103 - 11/08/07 01:24 AM Re: Word of the Day [Re: D. Allan]
D. Allan Moderator Offline
Panning for gold

Registered: 08/28/00
Posts: 3562
Loc: les Etats-Unis d'Amerique
mollify • \MAH-luh-fye\ • verb

*1 : to soothe in temper or disposition : appease
2 : to reduce the rigidity of : soften
3 : to reduce in intensity : assuage, temper

Example Sentence:
The clerk tried his best to mollify the irate customer.
Did you know?
"Mollify," "pacify," "appease," and "placate" all mean "to ease the anger or disturbance of," although each implies a slightly different way of pouring oil on troubled waters. "Pacify" suggests the restoration of a calm or peaceful state, while "appease" implies the quieting of insistent demands by making concessions; you can appease appetites and desires as well as persons. "Placate" is similar to "appease," but it often indicates a more complete transformation of bitterness to goodwill. "Mollify," with its root in Latin "mollis," meaning "soft," implies soothing hurt feelings or anger.

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

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#144222 - 11/09/07 07:19 PM Re: Word of the Day [Re: D. Allan]
D. Allan Moderator Offline
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Registered: 08/28/00
Posts: 3562
Loc: les Etats-Unis d'Amerique
octothorpe • \AHK-tuh-thorp\ • noun

: the symbol #

Example Sentence:
Barry noticed the pound sign on the telephone and remarked about how much the octothorpe resembled a tic-tac-toe grid.
Did you know?
Stories abound about who first called the # sign an "octothorpe" (which can also be spelled "octothorp"). Most of those tales link the name to various telephone workers in the 1960s, and all claim the "octo-" part refers to the eight points on the symbol, but the "thorpe" remains a mystery. One story links it to a telephone company employee who happened to burp while talking about the symbol with co-workers. Another relates it to the athlete Jim Thorpe, and a third claims it derives from an Old English word for "village." If the plethora of theories leaves your head spinning, you might want to take the advice of the wag who asked (poetically), "Can we simply just say, / Ere it spoils your day, / It's the thorp between seven and nine?"

-Merriam-Webster online

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#144404 - 11/11/07 01:28 AM Re: Word of the Day [Re: D. Allan]
D. Allan Moderator Offline
Panning for gold

Registered: 08/28/00
Posts: 3562
Loc: les Etats-Unis d'Amerique
peripeteia • \pair-uh-puh-TEE-uh\ • noun

: a sudden or unexpected reversal of circumstances or situation especially in a literary work

Example Sentence:
In the last act of the play, the king's decision to avenge his brother leads to a peripeteia that leaves him bereft of his throne and his family.
Did you know?
"Peripeteia" comes from Greek, in which the verb "peripiptein" means "to fall around" or "to change suddenly." It usually indicates a turning point in a drama after which the plot moves steadily to its denouement. In his Poetics, Aristotle describes peripeteia as the shift of the tragic protagonist's fortune from good to bad—a shift that is essential to the plot of a tragedy. The term is also occasionally used of a similar change in actual affairs. For example, in a June 7, 2006 article in The New York Times, Michael Cooper described William Weld's second term as Massachusetts' governor as "political peripeteia": it "began with a landslide victory and ended with frustrated hopes and his resignation."


-Merriam-Webster Online

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#144511 - 11/12/07 01:37 AM Re: Word of the Day [Re: D. Allan]
D. Allan Moderator Offline
Panning for gold

Registered: 08/28/00
Posts: 3562
Loc: les Etats-Unis d'Amerique
commove • \kuh-MOOV\ • verb

*1 : to move violently : agitate
2 : to rouse intense feeling in : excite to passion

Example Sentence:
"He who has seen the sea commoved with a great hurricane, thinks of it very differently from him who has seen it only in a calm." (R.L. Stevenson, The Silverado Squatters)

Did you know?
Eighteenth-century English lexicographer Samuel Johnson declared "commove" as being "not in use," but the word had not really disappeared from the language; it was simply, at that time, popular primarily with Scottish writers. The 14th-century poet Geoffrey Chaucer is credited with the first use of "commove," and many writers since have used the word, including Sir Walter Scott and George Eliot. Though not so common today, "commove" does occasionally pop up (to the chagrin of Johnsonians). "Market values tend to commove over time," read one such recent example, which appeared in the February 2007 issue of The Journal of Banking and Finance.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

- Merriam-Webster Online

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#144580 - 11/12/07 10:15 PM Re: Word of the Day [Re: D. Allan]
D. Allan Moderator Offline
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Registered: 08/28/00
Posts: 3562
Loc: les Etats-Unis d'Amerique
stoozing n.

The practice of borrowing money from a credit card during the card's introductory no-interest period and then investing that money to earn the interest as a profit.

—stoozer n.
—stooze n.


Example Citations:
The essence is simple: if credit card companies will lend money at 0%, you can borrow it and then save it at a high interest rate so you're earning money on cash they have lent you for free. My fondest stoozing memory is being lent thousands of pounds on Egg's credit card only to shove it into Egg's savings account, so it paid me hundreds of pounds in interest on its own money.

The largest stooze I've heard of was £ 80,000 of debt put into an offset mortgage, netting that stoozer nearly £ 5,000 a year in reduced interest payments. ...

Card providers have introduced balance-transfer fees when debts are shifted to interest-free offers, but cards offering 0% on purchases escape the fees, making them the core equipment for building your "stooze-pot".
—Martin Lewis, "Get £ 1,200 of free money on your plastic," Sunday Times, May 13, 2007



"Stooze" is derived from the nickname of an online financial adviser who developed the practice of taking advantage of the introductory interest-free period offered by credit card companies to borrow money for investing profitably elsewhere.
—Ruth Wajnryb, "The explosion of the English tongue," Sydney Morning Herald, February 24, 2007

-Word Spy

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#144649 - 11/15/07 01:29 AM Re: Word of the Day [Re: D. Allan]
D. Allan Moderator Offline
Panning for gold

Registered: 08/28/00
Posts: 3562
Loc: les Etats-Unis d'Amerique
denegation • \den-ih-GAY-shun\ • noun

: denial

Example Sentence:
"The defendant's actions," the lawyer argued, "led to the denegation of my client's rights as a citizen."

Did you know?
Even if we didn't provide you with a definition, you might guess the meaning of "denegation" from the "negation" part. Both words are ultimately derived from the Latin verb "negare," meaning "to deny" or "to say no," and both first arrived in English in the 15th century. "Negare" is also the source of our "abnegation" ("self-denial"), "negate" ("to deny the truth of"), and "renegade" (which originally referred to someone who leaves, and therefore denies, a religious faith). Even "deny" and "denial" are "negare" descendants. Like "denegation," they came to us from "negare" by way of the Latin "denegare," which also means "to deny."

- Merriam-Webster Online

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#144700 - 11/15/07 11:36 PM Re: Word of the Day [Re: D. Allan]
D. Allan Moderator Offline
Panning for gold

Registered: 08/28/00
Posts: 3562
Loc: les Etats-Unis d'Amerique
williwaw • \WILL-ih-waw\ • noun

*1 a : a sudden violent gust of cold land air common along mountainous coasts of high latitudes b : a sudden violent wind

2 : a violent commotion


Example Sentence:
The sailors had all heard stories of ships capsized by the williwaws that plagued the strait.

Did you know?
In 1900, Captain Joshua Slocum described williwaws as "compressed gales of wind . . . that Boreas handed down over the hills in chunks." To unsuspecting sailors or pilots, such winds might seem to come out of nowhere -- just like word "williwaw" did some 150 years ago. All anyone knows about the origin of the word is that it was first used by writers in the mid-1800s to name fierce winds in the Strait of Magellan at the southern tip of South America. The writers were British, and indications are that they may have learned the word from British sailors and seal hunters. Where they got the word, we cannot say.

*Indicates the sense illustrated by the example sentence.

- Merriam-Webster online

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