Word of the day: scud

The word of the day is scud:

1. to run or move quickly or hurriedly.
2. Nautical. to run before a gale with little or no sail set.
3. Archery. (of an arrow) to fly too high and wide of the mark.

"to move quickly," 1532, perhaps a variant of M.E. scut "rabbit, rabbit's tail," in reference to its movements, perhaps from O.N. skjota "to throw, shoot" (cf. Norw. skudda "to shove, push"), but there are phonetic difficulties. Perhaps rather from a N.Sea Gmc. source akin to M.L.G., M.Du. schudden "to shake."

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/scud)

"The clouds had scudded away, and in their place the moon and stars shone crisp and bright."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: reef

The word of the day is reef:

1. a part of a sail that is rolled and tied down to reduce the area exposed to the wind.

—verb (used with object)

2. to shorten (sail) by tying in one or more reefs.

"horizontal section of sail," late 14c., from O.N. rif "reef of a sail," probably a transferred use of rif "ridge, rib" (see rib). Cf. Ger. reff, Swed. ref, Norw. riv, Dan. reb, all from the O.N. word. Reefer as a nickname for "midshipman" (1818) is source of the meaning "coat of a nautical cut" (1878).

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/reef)

"Melville's whaleboat, meanwhile, was proving so swift that he had difficulty maintaining his designated position astern of the captain's cutter.  Melville tried reefing his sail, and still he kept gaining."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: clapboard

The word of the day is clapboard:

1. Chiefly Northeastern U.S. a long, thin board, thicker along one edge than the other, used in covering the outer walls of buildings, being laid horizontally, the thick edge of each board overlapping the thin edge of the board below it.

c.1520, partial transl. of M.Du. klapholt (borrowed into Eng. 14c.), from klappen "to fit" + L.Ger. holt "wood, board."

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/clapboard)

"Like the other boats, she was clinker-built—which meant that the wooden planks of her hull overlapped in the fashion of a clapboard house."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: transom

The word of the day is transom:

1. a crosspiece separating a door or the like from a window or fanlight above it.
2. Also called transom light, transom window. a window above such a crosspiece.
3. a crossbar of wood or stone, dividing a window horizontally.
4. a window so divided.
5. Nautical.
   1. a flat termination to a stern, above the water line.
   2. framework running athwartships in way of the sternpost of a steel or iron vessel, used as a support for the frames of the counter.
6. Artillery. a metal piece connecting the sidepieces of the tail or the cheeks of a gun carriage.

1388, transeyn "crossbeam spanning an opening, lintel," probably by dissimilation from L. transtrum "crossbeam" (especially one spanning an opening), from trans- "across" + instrumental suffix -trum. Meaning "small window over a door or other window" is first recorded 1844.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/transom)

"De Long's cutter was twenty feet, four inches from her bow to her transom stern, with a breadth of six feet at her widest point."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: thwart

The word of the day is thwart:

—noun

4. a seat across a boat, especially one used by a rower.
5. a transverse member spreading the gunwales of a canoe or the like.

c.1200, from O.N. þvert "across," originally neut. of thverr (adj.) "transverse, across," cognate with O.E. þweorh "transverse, perverse, angry, cross," from P.Gmc. *thwerkhaz (cf. M.Du. dwers, Du. dwars "cross-grained, contrary," O.H.G. twerh, Ger. quer, Goth. þwairhs "angry"), altered (by influence of *thwer- "to turn") from *therkh-, from PIE *twork-/*twerk- "twist" (cf. L. torquere "to twist," Skt. tarkuh "spindle," O.C.S. traku "band, girdle," O.H.G. drahsil "turner," Ger. drechseln "to turn on a lathe"). The verb meaning "oppose, hinder" is mid-13c., from the adv. and prep.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/thwart)

"Melville's whaleboat came closest to disaster.  At one point, wrote Danenhower, 'a heavy green sea swept over the whole port side and filled her to the thwarts; she staggered and commenced to settle, but every man with a baler in hand quickly relieved her, and she floated again.'"

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: bastinado

The word of the day is bastinado:

1. a mode of punishment consisting of blows with a stick on the soles of the feet or on the buttocks.
2. a blow or a beating with a stick, cudgel, etc.
3. a stick or cudgel.

1570s, from Sp. bastonada "a beating, cudgeling," from baston "stick," from L.L. bastum (see baton).

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bastinado)

"De Long noted that after a week of warm weather, everyone was suddenly 'freezing all the time."  Some used sticks to beat their feet 'as a bastinado,' to bring back their circulation.  This dubious technique, 'though making our feet tingle, hardly added to our comfort.'"

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: collodion

The word of the day is collodion:

1. a yellowish, viscous, highly flammable solution of pyroxylin in ether and alcohol: used in the manufacture of photographic film, in engraving and lithography, and in medicine chiefly for cementing dressings and sealing wounds.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/collodion)

Pyroxylin is another name for nitrocellulose: https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/image/imagefly.cgi?cid=44263835&width=100&height=100

"The suppurating sore on Alexey's leg would not heal, even though Ambler diligently kept it dressed in collodion solution and clean bandages."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: mephitic

The word of the day is mephitic:

1. offensive to the smell.
2. noxious; pestilential; poisonous.

1620s, from L.L. mephiticus, from L. mephitis "noxious vapor" (also personified as a goddess believed to have the power to avert it).

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mephitic)

"Inuits from far and wide believed that this seething mephitic realm was the place where the souls of the recently deceased entered the underworld."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of the Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: maar

The word of the day is maar:

1. a circular volcanic landform resulting from explosive ash eruptions.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/maar)

"All around St. Michael was an extensive volcanic field, with more than fifty cones, craters, and maar lakes pocking the surrounding tundra."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of the Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: sough

The word of the day is sough:

1. to make a rushing, rustling, or murmuring sound: the wind soughing in the meadow.
2. Scot. and North England. to speak, especially to preach, in a whining, singsong voice.

"to make a moaning or murmuring sound," O.E. swogan, from P.Gmc. *swoganan (cf. O.S. swogan "to rustle," Goth. gaswogjan "to sigh"), from PIE imitative base *(s)wagh- (cf. Gk. echo). The noun is c.1381, from the verb.

"Seawater steadily lapped at the undersides of the floes, creating a soughing sound that was comforting in its constancy, like the flutter of a million insect wings."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: davit

The word of the day is davit:

1. any of various cranelike devices used singly or in pairs for supporting, raising, and lowering especially boats, anchors, and cargo over a hatchway or side of a ship.

also david, "crane-like structure used to lower things down off a ship, etc.," late 15c., apparently a use of the masc. proper name David on the pattern of applying common Christian names to useful devices (cf. jack, jenny, jimmy).

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/davit)

"Cole and Sweetman, operating the davits, swung the cutters and one of the whaleboats onto the ice."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: the Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: cyclopean

The word of the day is cyclopean:

1. of or characteristic of the Cyclops.
2. (sometimes lowercase) gigantic; vast.
3. (usually lowercase) Architecture, Building Trades. formed with or containing large, undressed stones fitted closely together without the use of mortar: a cyclopean wall.

1640s, from L. cyclopeus, from Gk. kyklopeios, from kyklopes (see cyclops).

"Warmth and water brought the foretaste of freedom...  'We knew that the important moment was coming,' Danenhower said, 'when the Jeannette would be liberated from her cyclopean vise.'"

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: Fata Morgana

The word of the day is Fata Morgana:

1. Meteorology. a mirage consisting of multiple images, as of cliffs and buildings, that are distorted and magnified to resemble elaborate castles, often seen near the Straits of Messina.

1818, lit. "Fairy Morgana," mirage especially common in the Strait of Messina, Italy, from Morgana, the "Morgan le Fay" of Anglo-Fr. poetry, sister of King Arthur, located in Calabria by Norman settlers. Morgan is Welsh, "sea-dweller." There is perhaps, too, here an infl. of Arabic marjan, lit. "pearl," also a fem. proper name, popularly the name of a sorceress.

"It was just a vision in the distance, maybe fifty miles off, a nub of gray standing proud of the hummocks and pressure ridges.  For several days, Captain De Long studied this curiosity, wondering if it might be an illusion—a refraction of light, perhaps, a fata morgana."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: purulent

The word of the day is purulent:

1. full of, containing, forming, or discharging pus; suppurating: a purulent sore.
2. attended with suppuration: purulent appendicitis.
3. of the nature of or like pus: purulent matter.

1597, from M.Fr. purulent, from L. purulentus "full of pus," from pus (gen. puris) "pus" (see pus).

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/purulent)

"The procedure was a partial success, but over the next six months, Ambler would have to operate, again and again, to drain the 'purulent matter' off the eye."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: roister

The word of the day is roister:

1. to act in a swaggering, boisterous, or uproarious manner.
2. to revel noisily or without restraint.

1582, from an obsolete noun roister "noisy bully" (1551), from M.Fr. ruistre "ruffian," from O.Fr. ruste "rough country fellow," from L. rusticus (see rustic).

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/roister)

"This was the season when the ships from San Francisco arrived, when hundreds of Indians and Eskimos camped outside the fort to meet with representatives of the fur companies, to trade pelts and skins and dried fish for calico and guns and rum...  It was a time of roistering and wrestling and tug-of-war contests under the midnight sun, a time of 'mallemaroking,' as the whalers called their drunken sprees."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: theodolite

The word of the day is theodolite:

1. Surveying. a precision instrument having a telescopic sight for establishing horizontal and sometimes vertical angles. Compare transit (def 6).

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/theodolite)

"Stevedores hauled the Jeannette's weapons on deck...  Next came the navigational and scientific equipment: chronometers, hydrometers, ozonometers, magnetometers, aneroid barometers, transits, sextants, pendulums, zenith telescopes, microscopes, test tubes, Bunsen burners, theodolites."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: aneroid barometer

The word of the day is aneroid barometer:

1. a device for measuring atmospheric pressure, often specially calibrated for use as an altimeter, consisting of a box or chamber partially exhausted of air, having an elastic top and a pointer to indicate the degree of compression of the top caused by the external air.

Compare mercury barometer. 

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/aneroid+barometer)

"Stevedores hauled the Jeannette's weapons on deck...  Next came the navigational and scientific equipment: chronometers, hydrometers, ozonometers, magnetometers, aneroid barometers, transits, sextants, pendulums, zenith telescopes, microscopes, test tubes, Bunsen burners, theodolites."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Phrase of the day: pro forma

The phrase of the day is pro forma:

1. according to form; as a matter of form; for the sake of form.
2. Commerce. provided in advance of shipment and merely showing the description and quantity of goods shipped without terms of payment: a pro forma invoice.
3. Accounting. indicating hypothetical financial figures based on previous business operations for estimate purposes: a pro forma balance sheet.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pro+forma)

"The De Longs' meeting with President Hayes was largely a pro forma affair.  'He knew nothing about Arctic exploration,' Emma said, 'and was only doing his duty in having us.'"

 - Hampton Sides: In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: mansard

The word of the day is mansard:

1. Also called mansard roof. a hip roof, each face of which has a steeper lower part and a shallower upper part. Compare French roof.
2. the story under such a roof.

1734, from Fr. mansarde, short for toit à la mansarde, named for Fr. architect Nicholas François Mansart (1598-1666).

"It was a six-story establishment with a mansard roof and a continental restaurant that served such delicacies as 'broiled redhead duck with currant jelly sauce.'"

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

Word of the day: cooper

The word of the day is cooper:

1. a person who makes or repairs casks, barrels, etc.

"craftsman who makes wooden vessels," attested from 1176 as a surname, either from O.E. (unattested) or from a Low Ger. source akin to M.Du. cuper, E.Fris. kuper, from Low Ger. kupe (Ger. Kufe) "cask," cognate with M.L. cupa (see coop)."A dry cooper makes casks, etc., to hold dry goods, a wet cooper those to contain liquids, a white cooper pails, tubs, and the like for domestic or dairy use." [OED]The surname Cowper (pronounced "cooper") preserves a 15c. spelling.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cooper)

"Each morning, the bell announced the start of the shift, and the crews of tradesmen—carpenters and coppersmiths, tinsmiths and teamsters, plumbers and painters, caulkers and coopers—went about their smoky, cacophonous work."

 - Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette