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Archive through December 29, 2005

The TVClubHouse: General Discussions ARCHIVES: 2005 Dec. ~ 2006 Feb.: Free Expression: Word a day (ARCHIVES): Archive through December 29, 2005 users admin

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Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Thursday, September 29, 2005 - 7:07 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    
Word of the Day for Thursday September 29, 2005


hobbledehoy \HOB-uhl-dee-hoy, noun:
An awkward, gawky young fellow.

For early on, girls become aware -- as much from their fathers' anguished bellows of "You're not going out dressed like that, Miss" as from the buffoonish reactions of the spotty hobbledehoys at the end-of-term disco -- of the power of clothes to seduce.
--Jane Shilling, "Soft-centred punk," Times (London), October 27, 2000

His memories, even only reveries, of incomparable women, made me feel like a hulking hobbledehoy.
--Edith Anderson, Love in Exile

Unfortunately, they have to contend with ignorant hobbledehoys who, on seeing these rows of shingle heaps, feel compelled to jump on them.
--Susan Campbell, "He grows seakale on the seashore," Daily Telegraph, March 27, 1999


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The origin of hobbledehoy is unknown, though it perhaps derives from hobble, from the awkward movements of a clumsy adolescent.





Lumbele
Member

07-12-2002

Thursday, September 29, 2005 - 7:26 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Lumbele a private message Print Post    
Oh good, you are back, Nancy! I was afraid you had run out of words.

Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Thursday, September 29, 2005 - 8:23 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    
Lol never Lumbele, my computer's been acting up very very slow but i think i got it fixed now..(plus i'm on my brother's pc today LOL :-)

Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Friday, September 30, 2005 - 5:38 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    
Word of the Day for Friday, 9/30/05


recherche \ruh-sher-SHAY, adjective:
1. Uncommon; exotic; rare.
2. Exquisite; choice.
3. Excessively refined; affected.
4. Pretentious; overblown.

. . . recherche topics interesting only to university specialists.
--Katharine Washburn and John F. Thornton, Dumbing Down

[S]he was mocking the pretensions of the cookery writer who insists on recherche ingredients not because of their qualities but their snob value.
--Angela Carter, Shaking a Leg: Collected Writings

In recent years, Garber's appetite for the rigors of theory seems to have diminished. The books have kept coming, but the italics-heavy meditations and the recherche terminology have receded.
--Zoë Heller, "House Arrest," The New Republic, July 3, 2000


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Recherche comes from French, from rechercher, "to seek out," from re- + chercher, "to look for, to seek."


Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Monday, October 03, 2005 - 2:36 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    
Word of the Day for Monday October 3, 2005

effulgence \i-FUL-juhn(t)s, noun:
The state of being bright and radiant; splendor; brilliance.

The purity of his private character gave effulgence to his public virtues.
--Congressman Henry Lee's Eulogy for George Washington, 1799

The setting sun as usual shed a melancholy effulgence on the ruddy towers of the Alhambra.
--Washington Irving, The Alhambra

Nice gave him a different light from Paris -- a high, constant effulgence with little gray in it, flooding broadly across sea, city and hills, producing luminous shadows and clear tonal structures.
--Robert Hughes, "Inventing A Sensory Utopia," Time, November 17, 1986


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From Latin ex- "out of, from" + fulgere, "to shine." The adjective form of the word is effulgent.



Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Tuesday, October 04, 2005 - 4:13 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    
Word of the Day for Tuesday October 4, 2005

inchoate \in-KOH-it, adjective:
1. In an initial or early stage; just begun.
2. Imperfectly formed or formulated.

Mildred Spock believed that, at about the age of three, her children's inchoate wills were to be shaped like vines sprouting up a beanpole.
--Thomas Maier, Dr. Spock: An American Life

She also had a vision, not yet articulated, an inchoate sense of some special calling that awaited her.
--Linda Lear, Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature

You take on a project because of the feeling, perhaps inchoate, that it may in some way contribute to your deeper understanding of the larger-scale research program you have chosen as your life's work.
--Christopher Scholz, Fieldwork: A Geologist's Memoir of the Kalahari


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Inchoate comes from the past participle of Latin inchoare, alteration of incohare, "to begin."



Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Wednesday, October 05, 2005 - 6:55 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    
Word of the Day for Wednesday, October 5, 2005

abulia, also aboulia \uh-BOO-lee-uh; uh-BYOO-, noun:
Loss or impairment of the ability to act or to make decisions.


I was suffering from an aboulia, you know. I couldn't seem to make decisions.
--Anatole Broyard, "Reading and Writing; (Enter Pound and Eliot)," New York Times, May 30, 1982

There's little escape from her black hole of abulia.
--James Saynor, "Woman in the Midst of a Nervous Breakdown," New York Times, June 12, 1994


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Abulia derives from Greek a-, "without" + boule, "will." The adjective form is abulic.


Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Friday, October 07, 2005 - 7:19 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    
Word of the Day for Friday October 7,2005


arcanum \ar-KAY-nuhm, noun;
plural arcana \-nuh\:

1. A secret; a mystery.
2. Specialized or mysterious knowledge, language, or information that is not accessible to the average person (generally used in the plural).


Through the years, Usenet evolved into an international forum on thousands of topics, called Usenet news groups, from the arcana of programming languages to European travel tips.
--Katie Hafner, "James T. Ellis, 45, a Developer of Internet Discussion Network, Is Dead," New York Times, July 1, 2001

Here we must enter briefly into the technical arcana of employment law.
--Paul F. Campos, Jurismania The Madness of American Law


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Arcanum is from the Latin, from arcanus "closed, secret," from arca, "chest, box," from arcere, "to shut in."



Heyltslori
Moderator

09-15-2001

Friday, October 07, 2005 - 7:43 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Heyltslori a private message Print Post    
Hmmm...I'll have to remember this word in case it comes up on Lost. :-) Thanks Nancy!!

Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Thursday, October 13, 2005 - 4:52 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    
Word of the Day for Thursday October 13, 2005


conurbation \kon-uhr-BAY-shuhn, noun:
An aggregation or continuous network of urban communities.

To live there in that great smoking conurbation rumbling with the constant thunder of locomotives, filled with the moaning of train whistles coming down the Potomac Valley, was beyond my most fevered hopes.
--Russell Baker, "Memoir of a Small-Town Boyhood," New York Times, September 12, 1982

Indeed the population in the greater London conurbation grew by 125 per cent in the period 1861 to 1911 when the population of England as a whole grew by 80 per cent.
--Terence Brown, The Life of W. B. Yeats


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Conurbation is from Latin con-, "with, together" + urbs, "city" + the suffix -ation.


Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Friday, October 14, 2005 - 12:54 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    
Word of the Day for Friday October 14, 2005


contumacious \kon-t(y)oo-MAY-shuhs; kon-tuh-, adjective:

1. Exhibiting contempt for authority; obstinate; stubbornly disobedient.
2. (Law) Willfully disobedient to the summons or orders of a court.


As though our President didn't have enough to worry about, with the confusion on Kosovo policy and the collapse of the China World Trade Organization deal, now he must finally face the music on being contumacious about his concupiscence.
--Maureen Dowd, "Contempt, She Says," New York Times, April 14, 1999

A religious enemy... once described her as "an unstable, restless, disobedient and contumacious female."
--"Think Positive," The Economist, November 13, 1999


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Contumacious derives from Latin contumax, contumac-, insolent.

Synonyms: obdurate, disobedient, perverse, unyielding, headstrong


Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Saturday, October 15, 2005 - 11:20 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    
Word of the Day for Sat. October 15, 2005

furbelow \FUR-buh-low, noun:

1. A pleated or gathered flounce on a woman's garment; a ruffle.
2. Something showy or superfluous; a bit of showy ornamentation.

In a season of ruffles, frills and furbelows, simple cuts in neutral shades stand out.
--"Designers Head for Neutral Territory," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 27, 1997

Gilt. Red velvet. Brocade. Flocked wallpaper. Swags, frills, furbelows and ornamentation beyond comprehension. We're talking rococo loco.
--Liz Braun, "Time Flies When You're Having Fun," Ottawa Sun, April 3, 2000

It is a story that, for all its hyper-animatedness, all its flips and furbelows of style, is confusing and wearisome.
--Christine Stansell, "Details, Details," New Republic, December 10, 2001

Patience is required to get past some of the director's more baroque cinematic touches, decorating the story's dark center with visual furbelows . . . and aural gimmicks.
--Lisa Schwarzbaum, "Movies: The Evil That Men Do," Entertainment Weekly, October 23, 1998


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Furbelow is perhaps an alteration of Provençal farbella.


Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Wednesday, October 19, 2005 - 4:53 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    
Word of the Day for Oct. 19, 2005



pelf \PELF, noun:
Money; riches; gain; -- generally conveying the idea of something ill-gotten.

. . . a master manipulator who will twist and dodge around the clock to keep the privileges of power and pelf.
--Nick Cohen, "Without prejudice," The Observer, February 20, 2000

She writes about those she might have known first-hand: teenage girls cowering in bunkers . . . friends making promises they can never keep . . . rich folk fattened on wartime pelf, poor folk surviving by wit alone.
--Harriet P. Gross, "Author roots her stories in Vietnam War," Dallas Morning News, July 20, 1997

As so often happens, pelf is talking louder than principle at the Colorado legislature.
--"Legislature Goes Belly Up," Denver Rocky Mountain News, April 27, 1997

In advertising, show business, and journalism, people work themselves to the nub for glitz and glory more than for pelf.
--Ford S. Worthy, "You're Probably Working Too Hard," Fortune, April 27, 1987

Some of the rich classmates were keeping their pelf to themselves.
--Nicholas von Hoffman, "The Class of '43 Is Puzzled," The Atlantic, October 1968


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Pelf comes from Old French pelfre, "booty, stolen goods." It is related to pilfer.


Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Thursday, October 20, 2005 - 10:00 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    

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Word of the Day forThursday October 20, 2005

ukase \yoo-KAYS; -KAYZ; YOO-kays; -kayz, noun:
1. In imperial Russia, a published proclamation or order having the force of law.
2. Any order or decree issued by an authority; an edict.

I took a playwriting course from the noted Prof. A. M. Drummond, a huge man on crutches who right off the bat delivered a ukase never to begin a play with the telephone ringing.
--Arthur Laurents, Original Story By

This new ukase, however, ignited bureaucratic warfare and spawned rival and conflicting rules and concepts, frittering away time and effort.
--Richard B. Frank, Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire


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Ukase derives from Russian ukaz, "decree," from Old Church Slavonic ukazu, "a showing, proof," from u-, "at, to" + kazati, "to point out, to show."



Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Wednesday, October 26, 2005 - 4:44 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    
Word of the Day for October 26, 2005

panoply \PAN-uh-plee, noun:
1. A splendid or impressive array.
2. Defensive armor in general; a full suit of defensive armor.


To the east, out over the Ocean, the winter sky is a brilliant panoply of stars and comets, beckoning to adventurers, wise and foolish alike, who seek to divine its mysteries.
--Ben Green, Before His Time: The Untold Story of Harry T. Moore, America's First Civil Rights Martyr

What a panoply of smiles the duchess wears tonight.
--Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Devereux

The conception of a United States of Europe is right. Every step taken to that end which appeases the obsolete hatreds and vanished oppressions, which makes easier the traffic and reciprocal services of Europe, which encourages nations to lay aside their precautionary panoply, is good in itself.
--Winston Churchill, quoted in This Blessed Plot: Britain and Europe from Churchill to Blair by Hugo Young

Those young men and women brought up in Hong Kong, and increasingly born there too, who, at universities... had been encouraged to read Locke, Hume, Paine, Mill, and Popper, those who had been examined in the histories of Britain's and America's struggles for freedom, could hardly be expected to accept that in Britain's last colonial redoubt the full panoply of civil liberties they had been taught to cherish should be denied them.
--Christopher Patten, East and West: China, Power, and the Future of Asia


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Panoply is from Greek panoplia, a full suit of armor, from pan, all + hoplia, arms, armor, plural of hoplon, implement, weapon


Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Thursday, November 10, 2005 - 3:53 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    
Word of the Day for November 10, 2005

oneiric \oh-NY-rik, adjective:
Of, pertaining to, or suggestive of dreams; dreamy.

On this score, the novel might easily drift off into an oneiric never-never land, but Mr. Welch doesn't let this happen.
--Peter Wild, "Visions of Blackfoot," New York Times, November 2, 1986

Her large images, which are cloaked in an elegant oneiric mist, transport the viewer to an ideal world where bodies seem to have become weightless ghosts of themselves.
--Simona Vendrame, "Nature and the solitary self," translated by Jacqueline Smith, Temaceleste

Some -- not all -- of Caravaggio's painting uniquely compels you to grope for words in order to describe the optical novelty and disturbing immediacy of the images. They're at once coldly precise, voluptuously real and strangely oneiric.
--Peter Robb, "Candid camera," The Guardian, October 20, 2001


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Oneiric comes from Greek oneiros, "dream."

Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Friday, November 11, 2005 - 3:13 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    
Word of the Day for Friday November 11, 2005


puissant \PWISS-uhnt; PYOO-uh-suhnt; pyoo-ISS-uhnt, adjective:
Powerful; strong; mighty; as, a puissant prince or empire.

As an upcoming young corporate lawyer in San Francisco in the 1930's, Crum tended the interests of some of California's most puissant businesses, starting with William Randolph Hearst's newspaper empire.
--Richard Lingeman, "The Last Party," New York Times, April 27, 1997

If we are to believe that country's literary pundits, "irreparable damage to a great British institution" may soon be done by an invading army more puissant than Hannibal's or Alexander's, an army marching out of the creative writing schools of American universities, leaving Will Shakespeare's sceptred isle "smothered amid a landslide of books from the US".
--Jonathan Yardley, "Bring on the Yanks," The Guardian, June 5, 2002


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Puissant is from Old French puissant, "powerful," ultimately from (assumed) Vulgar Latin potere, alteration of Latin posse, "to be able." The noun form is puissance.

Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - 6:49 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    
Word of the Day for Wednesday November 23, 2005


crepuscular \krih-PUS-kyuh-luhr, adjective:
1. Of, pertaining to, or resembling twilight; dim.
2. (Zoology) Appearing or active at twilight.

I've been through their checkout and noted its resemblance to Hades - the crepuscular gloom, the dungeon lighting, the mile-long shuffling queue, the glum, sickly faces, the trolleys piled high with flat-pack cardboard units.
--John Walsh, "btw," Independent, February 12, 2005

In the crepuscular lobby, a broad circle of monitors laid on their backs on the floor blinked up at a laser show spiraling across a tentlike scrim stretched just below the building's blacked-out skylight.
--David Joselit, "Planet Paik - Nam June Paik's works," Art in America, June, 2000

But Monet pursued the blood-red sun rather than the blanched moon, favouring the strangely crepuscular effects created by noxious London smogs during the day.
--Richard Cork, "Relay race," New Statesman, February 28, 2005

Most communication systems in luminescent fireflies have been studied in nocturnal species; little is known concerning communication in crepuscular and diurnal species.
--Nobuyoshi Ohba, "Flash Communication Systems of Japanese Fireflies," Integrative and Comparative Biology, June 2004

Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Monday, November 28, 2005 - 3:12 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    
Word of the Day for Monday November 28, 2005


lassitude \LASS-uh-tood; LASS-uh-tyood, noun:
Lack of vitality or energy; weariness; listlessness.

The feverish excitement . . . had given place to a dull, regretful lassitude.
--George Eliot, Romola

A long exercise of the mental powers induces a remarkable lassitude of the whole body.
--Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

She felt aged, in deep lassitude and numb despair, and regretted not marrying Mai Dong before he left for the front.
--Ha Jin, Waiting


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Lassitude is from Latin lassitudo, from lassus, "weary, exhausted."

Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 10:54 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    
Word of the Day for Tuesday December 6, 2005


logorrhea \law-guh-REE-uh, noun:
Excessive talkativeness or wordiness.

By his own measure, he is a man of many contradictions, beginning with the fact that he is famous as a listener but suffers from "a touch of logorrhea." He is so voluble that one wonders how his subjects get a word in edgewise.
--Mel Gussow, "Listener, Talker, Now Literary Lion: It's Official." New York Times, June 17, 1997

It's also not good if your date has logorrhea.
--Monte Williams, "8 Minutes in the Life of a Jewish Single: Not Attracted? Next!" New York Times, March 5, 2000

Mr. King, who possesses an enviable superabundance of imagination, suffers from a less enviable logorrhea.
--Michele Slung, "Scare Tactics." New York Times, May 10, 1981


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Logorrhea is derived from Greek logos, "word" + rhein, "to flow."

Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 3:42 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    
Word of the Day for December 7, 2005

wassail \WAH-sul; wah-SAYL, noun:

1. An expression of good wishes on a festive occasion, especially in drinking to someone.
2. An occasion on which such good wishes are expressed in drinking; a drinking bout; a carouse.
3. The liquor used for a wassail; especially, a beverage formerly much used in England at Christmas and other festivals, made of ale (or wine) flavored with spices, sugar, toast, roasted apples, etc.

adjective:
Of or pertaining to wassail, or to a wassail; convivial; as, a wassail bowl.

transitive verb:
To drink to the health of; a toast.

intransitive verb:
To drink a wassail.

Christmas often means plum pudding, fruitcake, roast goose and wassail.
--Florence Fabricant, "Recipes to Summon the Holiday Spirit," New York Times, December 21, 1988

But have you ever tried to spear a buffalo after a hard night at the old wassail bowl?
--Gore Vidal, The Smithsonian Institution


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Wassail is from the Middle English expression of festive benevolence, wæs hæil!, be well!, from Old Norse ves heill, be (ves) well (heill).

Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Friday, December 09, 2005 - 1:01 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    
Word of the Day for Friday December 9, 2005

clinquant adjective:
Glittering with gold or silver; tinseled.


clinquant, noun:
Tinsel; imitation gold leaf.

Fine sparks... very clinquant, slight, and bright... make a very pretty show.
--Thomas Shadwell, The Virtuoso

In `clinquant gold' the sovereign sun walks round.
--Fraser's Magazine, no. 115, 1839


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Clinquant is from the French.

Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Thursday, December 22, 2005 - 1:50 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    
Word of the Day for December 22. 2005


Hobson's choice \HOB-suhnz-CHOIS, noun:
A choice without an alternative; the thing offered or nothing.

Fagan's defense revolves around his insistence that he faced a Hobson's choice and had to act.
--Laura Parker, "Discovery of daughters never followed by reunion," USA Today, May 11, 1999

They're faced with a Hobson's choice: Make the plunge . . . or face a terrifying alternative -- gradual extinction.
--Heather Green, "The Great Yuletide Shakeout," Business Week, November 1, 1999


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The origin of the term Hobson's choice is said to be in the name of one Thomas Hobson (ca. 1544-1631), at Cambridge, England, who kept a livery stable and required every customer to take either the horse nearest the stable door or none at all.

In 1914 Henry Ford offered customers of the Model T a famous Hobson's choice, making it available in "any color so long as it is black."

Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Wednesday, December 28, 2005 - 11:10 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    
Word of the Day for Wednesday December 28, 2005


cynosure \SY-nuh-shoor; SIN-uh-shoor, noun:
1. Anything to which attention is strongly turned; a center of attraction.
2. That which serves to guide or direct.
3. [Capitalized]. The northern constellation Ursa Minor, which contains the North Star; also, the North Star itself.

The monarch, at the apex of court power and centre of its ritual, and the greatest patron of the arts, was the cynosure of this culture, standing (or, more usually, sitting) at the centre of a system of artistic practice intended to represent his or her sacred omnipotence and monopoly of power.
--John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination

Lucy is very pretty and becomes the cynosure not only of the aforementioned characters, but also of several faceless and epicene young men who also loiter about.
--John Simon, "Stealing Beauty," National Review, July 15, 1996

Then, feeling himself the cynosure of every eye in the library, he extemporized a brief speech on his "lucky day."
--Peter Schneider, Eduard's Homecoming


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Cynosure derives from Latin cynosura, from Greek kunosoura, "dog's tail, the constellation Ursa Minor," from kuon, kun-, "dog" + oura, "tail."

}}}

Nancy
Member

08-01-2000

Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 4:18 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Nancy a private message Print Post    
Word of the Day for Thursday December 29, 2005


quiddity \KWID-ih-tee, noun:
1. The essence, nature, or distinctive peculiarity of a thing.
2. A hairsplitting distinction; a trifling point; a quibble.
3. An eccentricity; an odd feature.

He wanted to capture not just live animals, but the aliveness of animals in their natural state: their wildness, their quiddity, the fox-ness of the fox and the crow-ness of the crow
--Thomas Nye, quoted in "Ted Hughes, 68, a Symbolic Poet And Sylvia Plath's Husband, Dies," New York Times, October 30, 1998

So far, I have tried to intimate, through meshed parallels and contrasts, something of the nature, the quiddity, of Japanese and of American literature.
--Ihab Hassan, "In the mirror of the sun: reflections on Japanese and American literature, Basho to Cage," World Literature Today, March 1, 1995

Boswell set biography a new ambition: capturing the copiousness and quiddity of a personality -- the self peculiarly revealed in odd quirks and, especially, in unpredictable, evanescent talk.
--John Mullan, "Dreaming up the Doctor," The Guardian, November 11, 2000

It is neither grammatical subtleties nor logical quiddities, nor the witty contexture of choice words or arguments and syllogisms, that will serve my turn.
--Michel de Montaigne, "Of Books"

She has looked after my interests with consummate skill, dealt with my quiddities and constantly kept up my spirits.
--John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination

I began . . . to give some thought to the memoir I had promised to write and wondered how I would go about it -- his freaks, quiddities, oddities, his eating, drinking, shaving, dressing and playfully savaging his students.
--Saul Bellow, Ravelstein


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Quiddity comes from the scholastic Medieval Latin term quidditas, "essence," from quid, "what."