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

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

You could also make this a French WOTD...

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.

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/

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

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?

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

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

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