Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

The Word of the Day for September 05, 2009 is:
futurity • \fyoo-TOOR-uh-tee\ • noun

*1 : time to come : future

2 : the quality or state of being future

3 : future events or prospects

Felix’s Example Sentence:

Procrastination drives plans into such a vague futurity that action never redeems intention.

Did you know?

“Futurity” is a forward-looking word with a literate past. Its first known use is in Shakespeare’s Othello, when the downtrodden Cassio, mystified about why Othello has turned against him, beseeches Desdemona to tell him whether his “offense be of such mortal kind / That nor my service past, nor present sorrows, / Nor purpos’d merit in futurity / Can ransom me into his love again.” The term was also used by Benjamin Franklin (“I must one of these days go back to see him . . . but futurities are uncertain”), and Sir Walter Scott wrote of events “still in the womb of futurity” (that is, events that hadn’t happened yet). Today, “futurity” often refers to a race, usually for two-year-old horses, in which the competitors are entered at birth or before, or to a race or competition for which entries are made well in advance of the event.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

The Word of the Day for August 23, 2009 is:
qua • \KWAH\ • preposition

: in the capacity or character of : as

Felix’s Example Sentence:

For the extreme utilitarians amongst us, beauty qua beauty has no value, since only when, say, nature is marketed, can it be admired.

Did you know?

Which way? Who? No, we’re not paraphrasing lines from the old Abbott and Costello routine “Who’s on First?”; we’re referring to the etymology of “qua,” a term that comes to us from Latin. It can be translated as “which way” or “as,” and it is a derivative of the Latin “qui,” meaning “who.” “Qua” has been serving English in the capacity of a preposition since the 17th century. It’s a learned but handy little word that led one 20th-century usage writer to comment: “Qua is sometimes thought affected or pretentious, but it does convey meaning economically.”

Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

The Word of the Day for August 22, 2009 is:
animadversion • \an-uh-mad-VER-zhun\ • noun

*1 : a critical and usually censorious remark — often used with “on”

2 : adverse criticism

Felix’s Example Sentence:

Such is the fear and hatred of the poor on the part of some folks that they spout animadversions on those they despise, up to and including death, whether by disease or crime.

Did you know?

“Animadversion” comes ultimately from the Latin phrase “animum advertere,” meaning “to turn the mind to.” It is easy to see how we also get “adverse” and “adversary” from “advertere,” especially when we remember that “to turn to” easily becomes “to turn against.” Other English words descended from “advertere” include “advert,” meaning “to turn the attention (to)” or “to make reference (to),” and “advertise.”

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

The Word of the Day for August 21, 2009 is:
spear-carrier • \SPEER-kair-ee-er\ • noun

1 a : a member of an opera chorus
b : a bit actor in a play

*2 : a person whose actions are of little significance or value in an event or organization

Felix’s Example Sentence:

Being a spear-carrier is a fairly low-stress role in any endeavor, unless you find low pay and job insecurity stressful in themselves.

Did you know?

“Spear-carrier” began to be used for a person having a non-speaking or supernumerary role in opera or theater in the 1950s. The name likely came from the nondescript, often spear-carrying soldiers who appear in the background or as walk-ons in plays about ancient Rome or Greece. Off-stage, “spear-carrier” refers to a person having a minimal role in the undertaking of some major event or in the workings of some major organization.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

The Word of the Day for August 20, 2009 is:
contemn • \kun-TEM\ • verb

: to view or treat with contempt : scorn

Felix’s Example Sentence:

The raucous shouters at the various town hall meetings on health care obviously contemn any proposed reform, though such “populist” champions would never use such a bookish word, lest they appear to be above their raisin’.

Did you know?

“Contemn” is derived from the Latin verb “contemnere,” a word formed by combining “con-” and “temnere” (“to despise”). Surprisingly, our verb may have come within a hair’s breadth of being spelled “contempn.” The Middle French word “contempner” arrived in Middle English as “contempnen,” but that extra “p” disappeared, leaving us with “contemn.” You may be wondering about the connection between “contemn” and “contempt,” and not surprisingly, they are related. “Contempt” comes from Latin “contemptus,” which comes from “contemnere.” “Contemn” first turned up in print in the 15th century; “contempt” dates from the 14th century.

Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

The Word of the Day for August 19, 2009 is:
inordinate • \in-OR-dun-ut\ • adjective

: exceeding reasonable limits : immoderate

Felix’s Example Sentence:

As a nation and as individuals, we have indulged in staggeringly inordinate excesses of spending and borrowing until now the bills are coming due.

Did you know?

At one time if something was “inordinate,” it did not conform to the expected or desired order of things. That sense, synonymous with “disorderly” or “unregulated,” is now archaic, but it offers a hint at the origins of “inordinate.” The word traces back to the Latin verb “ordinare,” meaning “to arrange,” combined with the negative prefix “in-.” “Ordinare” is also the ancestor of such English words as “coordination,” “subordinate,” “ordination,” and “ordain.” “Ordinare” did not give us “order,” “orderly,” or “disorderly,” but the root of those words is the same Latin noun (“ordo”) from which “ordinare” itself derives.

Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

The Word of the Day for August 18, 2009 is:
canicular • \kuh-NIK-yuh-ler\ • adjective

: of or relating to the dog days (the period between early July and early September when the hot sultry weather of summer usually occurs in the northern hemisphere)

Felix’s Example Sentence:

Ancient hunters saw the familiar in the stars, including the canicular star, Sirius.

Did you know?

The Latin word “canicula,” meaning “small dog,” is the diminutive form of “canis,” source of the English word “canine.” “Canicula” is also the Latin name for Sirius, the star that represents the hound of Orion in the constellation named for that hunter from Roman and Greek mythology. Because the first visible rising of Sirius occurs during the summer, the hot sultry days that occur from early July to early September came to be associated with the Dog Star. The Greeks called this time of year “hēmerai kynades,” which the Romans translated into Latin as “dies caniculares,” or as we know them in English, “the dog days.”

Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

The Word of the Day for August 17, 2009 is:
trichologist • \trih-KAH-luh-jist\ • noun

: a person who specializes in hair and scalp care; broadly : a person whose occupation is the dressing or cutting of hair

Felix’s Example Sentence:

When going for a haircut, the word pedant would casually refer to a visit to his trichologist.

Did you know?

Although you can accurately call the person who cuts your hair your “trichologist” if you want to, the term is usually applied as it is in our example sentence: to someone who studies and treats hair and scalp ailments. The “trich” in “trichologist” is the Greek “trich-,” stem of “thrix,” meaning “hair.” This root makes an appearance in a number of other similarly technical-sounding words, such as “trichiasis” (“a turning inward of the eyelashes often causing irritation of the eyeball”), “trichome” (“an epidermal hair structure on a plant”), and “trichotillomania” (“an abnormal desire to pull out one’s hair”).

Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

The Word of the Day for August 16, 2009 is:
abstemious • \ab-STEE-mee-us\ • adjective

: marked by restraint especially in the consumption of food or alcohol; also : reflecting such restraint

Felix’s Example Sentence:

Since abstinence from everything will be enforced by death, for those with Falstaffian appetites for food and drink an abstemious lifestyle is needlessly rushing things.

Did you know?

“Abstemious” and “abstain” look alike, and both have meanings involving self-restraint or self-denial. So they must both come from the same root, right? Yes and no. Both get their start from the Latin prefix “abs-,” meaning “from” or “away,” but “abstain” traces to “abs-” plus the Latin verb “tenēre” (meaning “to hold”), while “abstemious” gets its “-temious” from a suffix akin to the Latin noun “temetum,” meaning “intoxicating drink.”

Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

The Word of the Day for August 15, 2009 is:
chorography • \kuh-RAH-gruh-fee\ • noun

*1 : the art of describing or mapping a region or district

2 : a description or map of a region; also : the physical conformation and features of such a region

Felix’s Example Sentence:

My fascination with maps led me over the years to shop often at the TVA Map Store, acquiring both many topographic maps and a lot of information on chorography, especially how three-dimensional renderings of land contours are achieved.

Did you know?

The word “chorography” was borrowed in the 16th century from Latin “chorographia,” which in turn comes from Greek “chōrographia,” a combination of “chōros” (“place”) and “graphia” (“writing”). Chorography was distinguished from geography in that the former was concerned with smaller regions and specific locations whereas the latter was concerned with larger regions or with the world in general. The maps and the art of mapping that once were the field of chorography have since passed into the spheres of geography and topography. As with the art it names, the word “chorography” is now primarily encountered in historical discussions of geography and cartography.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.