word of the day: sidelight

The word of the day is sidelight:

noun

1. an item of incidental information.

2. either of two lights carried by a vessel under way at night, a red one on the port side and a green on the starboard.

3. light coming from the side.

4. a window or other aperture for light in the side of a building, ship, etc.

5. a window at the side of a door or another window. 

 

(https://www.dictionary.com/browse/sidelight)

 

 

"Then in 1969 came an unusual tree from Robert H. Whittaker, a plant ecologist at Cornell University for whom 'broad classification,' as he called it - numbering and delineating the kingdoms of life - was a sidelight."

 - David Quammen, The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life

word of the day: bruit

The word of the day is bruit:

to voice abroad; rumor (used chiefly in the passive and often followed by about)

1400–50; late Middle English (noun) < Anglo-French, Old French, noun use of past participle of bruire to roar < Vulgar Latin *brūgere, a conflation of Latin rūgīre to bellow and Vulgar Latin *bragere; see bray¹

(https://www.dictionary.com/browse/bruit?s=t)

"At the very least, the stories bruiting 'Oldest Life Form' were missing an essential point presented by Woese and Fox.  A headline about 'Weirdest Life Form' might have captured that better."

 - David Quammen, The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life

word of the day: perspicacity

The word of the day is perspicacity:

noun

1. keenness of mental perception and understanding; discernment; penetration.

2. Archaic. keen vision. 

 

1540–50; earlier perspicacite < Late Latin perspicācitās sharpness of sight, equivalent to perspicāci- (stem of perspicāx sharp-sighted; see perspicuous) + -tās -ty²

 

(https://www.dictionary.com/browse/perspicacity)

"One of the bacteria he cultured and squashed was Clostridium perfringens, the microbe responsible for gas gangrene, an ugly form of necrosis that takes hold in muscle tissue made vulnerable by wounds, especially the sort that lay open among injured soldiers on battlefields.  When he realized this, Luehrsen complained, but Woese 'just chuckled and said not to worry' in the absence of an open wound.  He had been to medical school for 'two years and two days,' Woese said, and he could assure Luehrsen that Clostridium perfringens was unlikely to give him gangrene.  Luehrsen took the episode as a lesson - not a lesson to trust Woese but to rely on his own perspicacity more - and never probed the matter of why Woese had quit medical school two days into his third-year rotation in pediatrics."

 - David Quammen, The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life

Word of the day: consigliere

The word of the day is consigliere:

a member of a criminal organization or syndicate who serves as an adviser to the leader.

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

"The two men were often in agreement about how to approach their cases—Bharara has called Zabel 'my consigliere and my closest friend'—but Bharara relied on him especially for his insight into white-collar opponents and their highly compensated defense lawyers."

 - Sheelah Kolhatkar, "Total Return: What happened when the Feds went after a hedge-fund legend", 16 January 2017 The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/16/when-the-feds-went-after-the-hedge-fund-legend-steven-a-cohen)

Word of the day: tyro

The word of the day is tyro:

1. a beginner in learning anything; novice.

1611, from M.L. tyro, variant of L. tiro (pl. tirones) "young soldier, recruit, beginner," of unknown origin.

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

"Over the next thirty years he worked in seventeen campaigns across Europe.  But he made his first important discovery while a tyro."

 - Sam Kean, The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery

Word of the day: bilharzia

The word of the day is bilharzia:

schistosome

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

"Invalided back to France with bilharzia, he had opened a practice in Grenoble."

 - Caroline Moorehead, Village of Secrets

Word of the day: millenarian

The word of the day is millenarian:

1. of or pertaining to a thousand, especially the thousand years of the prophesied millennium.
2. of or pertaining to the millennium, especially of Christian prophecy, or millennialism.

1550s, "one who believes in the coming of the (Christian) millennium," from L. millenarius (see millennium) + -ian. As an adj., from 1630s.

"After the Battle of Armageddon would follow the second coming of Christ, when his elected would reign in happiness and prosperity for a thousand years.  Much of what Darby preached was not new, but he wove the strands of earlier millenarianism and prophecy into a tightly spun system of his own, supported by Biblical texts, then communicated it to his followers in his endless writings and during his impassioned speaking tours."

 - Caroline Moorehead, Village of Secrets

Word of the day: roneo

The word of the day is roneo:

1. :  to produce (printed copies) on a duplicating machine that is similar in principle to the mimeograph
   (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/roneo)
   
   "They had hastily typed out and roneoed forms bearing the words 'Paternal responsibility and rights of guardianship abandoned by me' – a necessary formula under French law – and leaving room for names and signatures."
    - Caroline Moorehead, Village of Secrets

Word of the day: soutane

The word of the day is soutane:

1. a cassock.

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

"He was a shabby, dishevelled-looking man, of great charm and energy, with an old soutane and shoes with flapping soles."

 - Caroline Moorehead, Village of Secrets

Word of the day: clinker

The word of the day is clinker:

1. a mass of incombustible matter fused together, as in the burning of coal.
2. a hard Dutch brick, used especially for paving.
3. a partially vitrified mass of brick.
4. the scale of oxide formed on iron during forging.
5. Geology. a mass of vitrified material ejected from a volcano.

1769, from klincard (1641), a type of paving brick made in Holland, from Du. klinkaerd, from klinken "to ring" (as it does when struck), from M.Du., of imitative origin. 

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

"The courtyard was made of clinker, which turned into dust in the summer and mud when it rained."

 - Caroline Moorehead, Village of Secrets

Word of the day: prevaricate

The word of the day is prevaricate:

1. to speak falsely or misleadingly; deliberately misstate or create an incorrect impression; lie.

1580s, "to transgress," from L. praevaricari "to make a sham accusation, deviate," lit. "walk crookedly;" in Church L., "to transgress" (see prevarication). Meaning "to speak evasively" is from 1630s.

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

"At every stage, the bureaucrats prevaricated.  The prefect of the Bouches-du-Rhône did all he could to keep too many would-be emigrants out of Marseilles, while the individual camps dragged their heels about transferring people to Les Milles, the only camp in which they were permitted to complete the formalities."

 - Caroline Moorehead, Village of Secrets

Word of the day: chilblains

The word of the day is chilblains:

1. an inflammation of the hands and feet caused by exposure to cold and moisture.

"Unable to go outside, permanently damp, the inmates huddled close together; their faces were red and chafed, their hands and feet purple and covered in chilblains."

 - Caroline Moorehead, Village of Secrets

Word of the day: rota

The word of the day is rota:

1. Chiefly British.
   1. a round or rotation of duties; a period of work or duty taken in rotation with others.
   2. an agenda or circuit of sporting events, as a round of golf tournaments, played in different localities throughout the year.
2. a roster.
3. Official name Sacred Roman Rota. the ecclesiastical tribunal in Rome, constituting the court of final appeal.

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

"A 'commission for children and old people' was set up and arranged for deliveries of fruit, olives, jam, cereals, rice, milk products and, just occasionally, chocolate.  A rota was established, providing extra meals to the most malnourished for a fixed number of weeks."

 - Caroline Moorehead, Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France

Word of the day: impetigo

The word of the day is impetigo:

1. a contagious skin disease, especially of children, usually caused by streptococcal bacteria, marked by a superficial pustular eruption, particularly on the face.

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

"The internees were now losing weight steadily and beginning to show the first signs of malnutrition: loose skin, weakened muscles, trembling.  The cold brought rheumatism.  Fleas made people itch and scratch, their bodies covered with sores, eczema and impetigo."

 - Caroline Moorehead, Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France

Word of the day: gauleiter

The word of the day is gauleiter:

1. the leader or chief official of a political district under Nazi control.

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

"But the camp at Gurs had room for many more when, at dawn on 22 October 1940, the gauleiters Joseph Bürkel and Robert Wanger began to round up 6,508 Jews in the newly annexed territories of Baden and the Palatinate and, without consulting the French, dispatched them in sealed trains over the border into south-western France."

 - Caroline Moorehead, Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France

Word of the day: indite

The word of the day is indite:

1. to compose or write, as a poem.
2. to treat in a literary composition.
3. Obsolete. to dictate.
4. Obsolete. to prescribe.

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

"So I kissed his hand, and lay quiet, while he proceeded to indite a note to Biddy, with my love in it."

 - Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Word of the day: exordium

The word of the day is exordium:

1. the beginning of anything.
2. the introductory part of an oration, treatise, etc.

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

"There was something charmingly cordial and engaging in the manner in which after saying 'Now, Handel,' as if it were the grave beginning of a portentous business exordium, he had suddenly given up that tone, stretched out his honest hand, and spoken like a schoolboy."

 - Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Word of the day: wherry

The word of the day is wherry:

1. a light rowboat for one person; skiff.
2. any of various barges, fishing vessels, etc., used locally in England.

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

"Early as it was, there were plenty of scullers going here and there that morning, and plenty of barges dropping down with the tide; the navigation of the river between bridges, in an open boat, was a much easier and commoner matter in those days than it is in these; and we went ahead among many skiffs and wherries briskly."

 - Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Word of the day: collier

The word of the day is collier:

1. a ship for carrying coal.
2. a coal miner.
3. Obsolete. a person who carries or sells coal.

1276, "charcoal maker and seller," from M.E. col (see coal). They were notorious for cheating. Sense of "ship for hauling coal" is from 1625.

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

"At that time, the steam-traffic on the Thames was far below its present extent, and water men's boats were far more numerous.  Of barges, sailing colliers, and coasting-traders, there were perhaps, as many as now; but of steam-ships, great and small, not a tithe or a twentieth as many."

 - Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Word of the day: bow window

The word of the day is bow window:

1. a rounded bay window.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bow+window)

"Selecting from the few queer houses upon Mill Pond Bank a house with a wooden front and three stories of bow-window (not bay-window, which is another thing), I looked at the plate upon the door, and read there, Mrs. Whimple."

 - Charles Dickens, Great Expectations