spume (spyoom ) rhymes with fume

1. noun: foam, froth or scum
2. verb : to foam, to froth, become bubbly

[[Origin: 1300–50; ME < L sp&#363;ma foam, froth]

adjectives: spumous, spumy

synonyms : bubbles, froth, suds, spray, head, fluff

Spume can be found not only at the sea side but in our homes, too: spumy bubble baths, foaming dishwater, spumous boiling jelly scum, shaving spume; and in the gardens spittle-bug spume on plant stems.

“Swooning patchouli, fragrancy that clings –
Seeking to drug our senses to their sway:
To me more potent is the spume that flings
The tang and tingle of the clean salt spray.” - Richard Le Gallienne

“. . . and presently Dick found that they had crossed the whole width of the beach, and were now fighting above the knees in the spume and bubble of the breakers.” - Robert Louis Stevenson, Black Arrow

“. . . there was a popping sound, then a spume of foam from the neck of a Champagne bottle. ''And what exactly are we celebrating?'' Alice asked, . . . “ – Ian Rankin, New York Times Magazine, June 03, 2007

“ . . . I prefer to sit alone in the dark and think. Chattering young things about me, with nothing but foam and spume in their heads, on their tongues, would drive me mad. Of a surety they would drive me mad-so mad that I will spit into every clam shell, make faces at the moon, and bite my veins and howl." -Jack London, Jerry of the Islands

“And there had they arrived, where with his spume The horse was making his rich bridle white. . . “ - Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso

calidity (kah-LIH-dih-tee ), noun (obsolete)

heat

[L. calidus, from calere to be hot.]

related words:
calid (KAL- id?), adj . Hot; burning; ardent. [Obs.] Bailey.
caliduct, noun , A pipe or duct used to convey a heating medium such as hot air, steam or water.

Synonyms: heat, caloric, hotness; temperature, warmth, warmness, calefaction, fervor, calidity (obs) torridity; incalescense (obs), incandescence; glow, flush, fever

Dictionaries claim the word is obsolete, yet there are modern usages, I’ve found. The most useful might be as an antonym to sexual “frigidity.” I believe this is the usage of St. Thomas Aquinas, and at least implied in the quote from James Buel below.

“The male is the agent in procreation, and the female is the patient, wherefore greater calidity is required in the male than in the female for the act of procreation. Hence the frigidity which renders the man impotent would not disable the woman.” - St. Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica , Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Online Edition Copyright 2008 by Kevin Knight, http://www.newadvent.org/summa/5058.htm

“There seems to be no maximum age. Although old persons, says St. Thomas, do not have sufficient calidity to procreate, they have enough for carnal union.” Eugene Edward Slaughter, Virtue According to Love, in Chaucer, (pub. 1957)

“He was in every respect a lady’s man; symmetrical in form, with handsome features and attractive ways, but carrying in his veins the passions engendered by tropical calidity, no barrier was high enough to keep him out of pastures fruitful with opportunity.” - James William Buel, Mysteries and Miseries of America’s Great Cities Embracing New York, p. 172 (1883)

“The magistrate’s face was damp and swollen, the fever radiating from him like the calidity from a bellows-coaxed blaze.” -Robert McCammon, Speaks the Nightbird (pub. 2007)

“Day and night the land was oppressed by the same stifling heat, a sweltering calidity possessing the characteristics of a steam-laundry, . . .” –Guy Boothby, My Strangest Case (pub. 2007)

“To mitigate its heat, the author suggests starting with just a half a teaspoon of cayenne in a glass of eight ounces of lukewarm water (or even less if desired). Have another glass of just water nearby as drinking cold water after the cayenne drink will help mitigate the calidity of the drink's after effects.” – Glenn Reschke, http://ezinearticles.com/?Cayenne-Pepper-And-Heart-Health---Is-Cayenne-A-Cure-For-Heart-Disease?&id=391768

“Subterranean caliducts have been introduced.” – Evelyn , Webster’s 1913 Dictionary

numeracy, noun: the ability to reason with numbers and other mathematical concepts
numerate, adjective: possessing numeracy

innumerate, adjective: unfamiliar with mathematical concepts and methods; unable to use math.
innumerate, noun: an innumerate person
innumeracy, noun: being innumerate

Numeracy is a contraction of the phrase “numerical literacy.” If most were as “literate” with numbers as with words there might be a “Number of the Day” thread on this forum in addition to the “Word of the Day!” To many, those of us afflicted with innumeracy, Mathematics is a foreign language spoken in Mathemania. (By the way, does anyone know the capital city of Mathemania?)

“Here is another example of the ubiquitous innumeracy that is gripping this country. . . .
The secretary of defense gave the president his daily briefing. He concluded by saying:
‘Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed.’
‘Oh No!" the president exclaimed. "That's Terrible!’
His staff was stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the president sat, his head in his hands. Finally, the president looked up and asked, ‘Just how many is a brazillion?’ quoted from http://www.ilstu.edu/~gcramsey/Innumer.html

“. . . several aspects of what might now be called middle-class values changed significantly from the days of hunter gatherer societies to 1800. Work hours increased, literacy and numeracy rose, and the level of interpersonal violence dropped. –Nicholas Wade, New York Times, Aug. 07, 2007

“For 15 years, James R. Newman, a lawyer with a love for mathematics and philosophy, collected essays that he hoped would help innumerate humanists better appreciate the esoteric art. The result was a four-volume collection that includes Alan Turing on machine intelligence, Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrodinger on quantum theory, Gregor Mendel on the mathematics of heredity, Henri Poincare on mathematical creativity and Thomas Robert Malthus on the calculus of hunger. –George Johnson, New York Times, May 25, 1989

Links:

GARY C. RAMSEYER'S FIRST INTERNET GALLERY OF STATISTICS JOKES
http://www.ilstu.edu/~gcramsey/Gallery.html (you have to paste this one in)

Super-impossible math questions.
http://www.ringsurf.com/ring_browser.php?id=53261

Priceless!

brusque also brusk (bruhsk; esp. Brit. broosk), adjective

Abrupt, curt in manner or speech; impolitely blunt

brusquely, adverb
brusqueness, noun
brusquerie, noun

Synonyms: unceremonious, short, curt, gruff, peremptory, rude

Quotations:
“Outraging the sensibilities of fellow conservatives is a thing I do not want to do. When I do it, it's through carelessness. I shall try to be more careful. Honest, but polite. And not too brusque.” - John Derbyshire, National Review online, March 01, 2006

“There was much less talk in the working-class homes. Parents were more likely to issue brusque orders, not give explanations..” –joeo, -http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2006/11/do_americans_overparent.php

“After he had been called back for encore after encore — a half-dozen by the end — the crowd still stood and roared. Mr. Sokolov finally retreated, as he had arrived, expressionless, with a brusque nod, bent slightly at the waist, one hand fastened behind his back like a captain on the deck of his ship, facing into a nasty head wind.” – Michael Kimmelman, The New York Times, April 17, 2008

“The train halted at the Turkish border town of Kapikule, where a customs official brusquely ordered us outside into a freezing downpour. It was 4:30 a.m.” Robert D. Kaplan, The Atlantic Online, July 15, 1998

“. . . there was a brusqueness, a savage contempt in his manner, that made Gudrun's blood flare up, and made Loerke keen and mortified. For Gerald came down like a sledge-hammer with his assertions, anything the little German said was merely contemptible rubbish.” -D. H. Lawrence, Women in Love

“. . . and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one asked him a question about his son.” –George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss

“The door was opened brusquely. A woman appeared, her eyes flashing, and remained standing on the threshold.” –Guy De Maupassant, A Queer Night in Paris

“We borrowed "brusque" from French in the 1600s. They, in turn, had borrowed it from Italian, where it was "brusco" and meant "tart." It could suggest something good when used of wine, but it could also refer to a sour disposition. French "brusque" in the 1600s meant "brisk and lively," and "vin brusque" was pleasantly sharp, effervescent wine. But "brusque" ultimately comes from "bruscus," the Medieval Latin name for butcher's broom, a shrub whose bristly leaf-like twigs have long been used for making brooms. In the end, the good senses were swept aside in English (as well as in French). "Brusque" came to denote a harsh and stiff manner -- which is just what you might expect of a word bristling with associations to stiff, scratchy brooms.” - http://osdir.com/ml/culture.language.word-of-the-day/2003-11/msg00017.html

colloquy (KOL-uh-kwee), noun

1. a conversation, dialogue,
2. an organized public discussion or forum on a special subject

[Latin colloquium; formed of col- ‘with’ + -loqui ‘to speak’ ]

related words:
colloquial, adj. of or relating to conversation
colloquist, noun speaker
colloquium , noun a usually academic meeting at which specialists deliver addresses on a topic or on related topics and then answer questions relating to them. A religious colloquy to settle differences of doctrine or dogma, is also called a colloquium.

She would have liked to sit there, drinking more tea, and continuing to talk of herself to Rosedale. But the old habit of observing the conventions reminded her that it was time to bring their colloquy to an end, and she made a faint motion to push back her chair.” - Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth

“It was such a law, not so superfluous then, that sent Mirabeau to the Gardens of Saint-Cloud, under cloak of darkness, to that colloquy of the gods; and thwarted many things. Happily and unhappily there is no Mirabeau now to thwart.” - Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution

“In his own experience, prayer, associated with neither temple nor altar, was an intimate, familiar colloquy between his soul and God. To any one with stiff and formal attitudes in religion, Jeremiah's prayers are even today positively sacrilegious. He argued with God, questioning him – ‘Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper?’ . . . “ - Harry Emerson Fosdick, A Guide To Understanding The Bible

“...Germany's best-known contemporary authors, and Miss Oates, the American novelist and teacher, were participating in a colloquy Sunday evening on ''the writer's responsibility in an endangered world.'' - Herbert Mitgang, New York Times, 08 March 1983

“A related matter is what might be called the level of language in a translation. How formal and literary should the language be, as opposed to informal and colloquial? One answer is that ideally the English should mirror the level of the original Hebrew or Greek -- which clearly varies from book to book and sometimes from passage to passage.” -Barry Hoberman, The Atlantic Monthly, Feb. 1985

“Talk story about colloquialisms in Washington, D.C. Washington is a city with a language all its own--a jargon-studed dialect that contributes mightily to the view of most Americans that their capital is a foreign country, if not another planet. In Washington, "appropriate" is used mainly as a verb…” – John Heilemann, The New Yorker, June 09, 1997

“SHOUTS & MURMURS Casual about a clothing catalogue as it would be if written by playwright David Mamet, known for his tough, colloquial dialogue. OUR FLANNEL SHIRTS ARE AS WARM AS A CUP OF COCOA!” -Frank Cammuso, The New Yorker, May 09, 1994

adumbrate ( a-DUHM-breyt, AD-uhm-breyt ) transitive verb

1. to give a faint shadow or vague resemblance; to sketch or disclose partially
2. to prefigure; foreshadow; give a vague indication of what is to come
3. to shadow or obscure; overshadow

[L. adumbro, to shade, from umbra, a shade. –Webster’s 1828]

synonyms: hint, insinuate, imply, give an inkling of, foreshow, presage, foreshadow, predict, reflect, figure, embody, exemplify, body forth, personate, illustrate, prefigure, pretypify; darken, obscure, shade, dim, tone down, overcast, obfuscate, obumbrate, becloud, bedim bedarken, cast gloom

related:
adumbration noun
adumbrative, adjective
adumbrant, adjective, (John Ash’s dictionary, 1795)
adumbratively, adverb
adumbral, adjective: shadowy; shady

“Mr. Morris here seems primarily concerned with structure, how dance can echo and adumbrate musical form.” -John Rockwell, New York Times, March 09, 2006

“. . . what new marvels the battery might reveal. The least imaginative man could see that here was an invention that would be epoch-making, but the most visionary dreamer could not even vaguely adumbrate the real measure of its importance.” - Henry Smith Williams, A History of Science – Vol. III

“I might call it gigantic - tentacled - proboscidian - octopus-eyed - semi-amorphous - plastic - partly squamous and partly rugose - ugh! But nothing I could say could even adumbrate the loathsome, unholy, non-human, extra-galactic horror and hatefulness and unutterable evil of that forbidden spawn of black chaos and illimitable night.” - Howard Philips Lovecraft, Out of the Aeons

“In the lady, too, willing to marry her parchment-bound suitor for the sake of co-operating in his abstruse mental labours, we have a faint adumbration of the simple-minded Dorothea.” -George Eliot, Blind Mathilde

“The supreme purpose of the Christian is the imitation of Christ. That is the decisive clue to the concrete adumbration of the future.” – Julian Norris Hartt, Theological Method and Imagination

“’Twould serve but to torment
Me, whose is such content,
That weak were words and all inadequate
A tittle of my bliss to adumbrate.” -Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron

“In passing from Plato to Aristotle, we are conscious of a marked change of atmosphere. Instead of the deeply poetic temperament, which sees all things in relation to a unitary ideal, fuses them to form a single picture, and endeavors, by all sorts of partial lights, to adumbrate the infinite and unspeakable, we have what is more closely allied to the scientific type of mind,. . . “ –Arthur Kenyou Rogers, A Student’s History of Philosophy (1921)

This picture (below) illustrates well the word adumbrate. Notice the great difference between the adumbrating shadow and the reality of the ice-covered wire.

I LOVE words!

And I love learning these new words!

Thank you, thank you D.Allen for this column.

[Do you use all these words in your own active vocabulary??]
If so, you must be an interesting conversationalist.

No, I don't talk much, Jeannie, and just use whatever words come to mind at the time. But one never knows when just such an obscure word may be the precise one needed to express lucidly some idea that might otherwise remain adumbral to one's fellow colloquists. :)

Usually it is better to use more familiar words if they will do the job. Like: "You never know when some strange word might be just the one to make your conversation a pane of glass, so your listeners or readers can clearly see what's in your imagination."

But for reading it is good to know many words in order to see through some adumbral writing!

Thanks, I really appreciate your comments!

-dAb

So many words, so little time!