Word of the day: subvention

The word of the day is subvention:

1. a grant of money, as by a government or some other authority, in aid or support of some institution or undertaking, especially in connection with science or the arts.
2. the furnishing of aid or relief.

c.1400, from M.Fr. subvention, from L.L. subventionem (nom. subventio) "assistance," from pp. stem of L. subvenire "come to one's aid," from sub "up to" + venire "to come" (see venue).

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

"He was rescued by Miller's friend Anaïs Nin, who, after shopping the manuscript around and finding no one else who was willing to print it, offered to subvent publication."

 - Louis Menand, "People of the Book: Two faces of American publishing", 12 December 2016 The New Yorker (https://www.google.com/amp/www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/12/12/people-of-the-book-2/amp?client=safari)

Word of the day: strait

The word of the day is strait:

Middle English streit, < Old French estreit tight, close, narrow, also as n., narrow or tight place, strait of the sea, distress (modern French étroit narrow) = Provençal estreit, Spanish estrecho, Portuguese estreito, Italian stretto < Latin strictus (see strict adj.) past participle of stringĕre to tighten, bind tightly: see strain v.¹, stringent adj.

 

A. adj.

I. In physical senses: Tight, narrow.

1.a. Of a garment, etc.: Tight-fitting, narrow. Obs. exc. dial.

b. Of bonds, a knot: Tightly drawn. Obs. 

c. Of an embrace: close. Obs. 

d. Tense, not lax. Obs. 

e. Of the chest: Constricted, ‘tight’. Of the breath: Difficult, ‘short’. Obs. 

 

2.a. Scanty or inadequate in spatial capacity; affording little room; narrow. Of bounds, limits: Narrow. Now rare exc. in too strait.

b. Of a place of confinement. lit. and fig. Obs. 

 

3.a. Of a way, passage, or channel: So narrow as to make transit difficult. Now rare in lit. sense.

b. fig. and in figurative context. Now arch. after Bible use, esp. as strait and narrow (ellipt.), a conventional, limited procedure or way of life. 

 

4.a. Having little breadth or width; narrow. Obs. 

b. Of cloth, ribbon, etc.: Narrow. Obs. 

 

II. Strict, rigorous. 

5.a. Of conditions, sufferings, punishment, etc.: Pressing hardly, severe, rigorous. Obs.

b. Of modes of living, diet, etc.: Involving hardship or privation; severely regulated. Obs. 

c. Of a religious order, its rules, etc., also of a sect: Rigorous, strict. Obs. 

 

6.a. Of a person, an agent: Severe, stern, strict, exacting in actions or dealings. Obs. 

b. Rigorous in principles; strict or scrupulous in morality or religious observance. arch. 

 

7.a. Of a commandment, law, penalty, vow: Stringent, strict, allowing no evasion. Obs. exc. arch. 

b. Of a legal instrument: Stringently worded, peremptory. Obs. 

 

8.a. Of actions, proceedings: Conducted with strictness. Obs. 

b. Of guard, watch, imprisonment: Rigorous, strict. Cf. A. 2b. Now rare.

c. Of a siege: Close. Obs. 

 

III. Limited in scope, degree, or amount. 

9. Scanty, poor in degree. Obs. 

 

10.a. Of fortune, means, circumstances: Limited so as to cause hardship or inconvenience; inadequate. Obs.

b. Of a person: In want of, straitened for. Obs. exc. dial. 

 

11. Of words: Limited in application or signification. Obs. exc. dial. 

 

12. Strictly specified, exact, precise, definite; esp. of an account, exactly rendered. Obs. 

 

13. Of friendship, alliance, etc.: Close, intimate. Now rare.

 

14.a. Reluctant and chary in giving; close, stingy, illiberal. Obs. 

b. Of a person's ‘heart’: Contracted in sympathies, narrow. (OED)

 

"In 1948, through the exertions of people like James Bryant Conant, the president of Harvard, the Educational Testing Service went into business, and standardized testing (the S.A.T. and the A.C.T.) soon became the virtually universal method for picking out the most intelligent students in the high-school population, regardless of their family background, and getting them into the higher-education system. Conant regarded higher education as a limited social resource, and he wanted to make more strait the gate. Testing insured that only people who deserved to go to college did. The fact that Daddy went no longer sufficed."

 - Louis Menand, "Live and learn: why we have college", 6 June 2011 The New Yorker

I'm going with "rigorous" here.

This appears to be an allusion to "Invictus", by William Ernest Henley:

OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.