word of the day: crotchet

The word of the day is crotchet:

 

Etymology:  Middle English < French crochet hook, diminutive of croche crook, hook: see crochet n.

I. = crocket n.¹ 

1. Archit. = crocket n.¹ 2; also transf. to buds or branches. 

2. = crocket n.¹ 1. Obs. (Cf. French crochet.) In mod. dial. cratchet = the crown of the head.

II. A hook or hooked instrument. 

3. A small hook, esp. for fastening things; an ornamental hook serving as a brooch or fastening.

4. Surg.a. A hook-like instrument.

b. spec. an instrument employed in obstetrical surgery. 

5.a. A hook used in reaping: see quot. 1833. 

b. A hook fastened with straps on the back of a porter for carrying parcels.  [= French crochet.]

6. A natural hook-like organ or process: spec.a. ‘The tushe, tuske, or fang of a beast’ (Cotgrave)  [French crochet] . 

b. One of the minute hooks or claws on the prolegs of many lepidopterous larvæ.

c. Anat. The hook-like extremity of the superior occipito-temporal convolution of the brain.

III. Derived and figurative senses. 

7.a. Music. A symbol for a note of half the value of a minim, made in the form of a stem with a round (formerly lozenge-shaped) black head; a note of this value. Also attrib. 

b. Often used with playful allusion to sense 9. 

8. A square bracket in typography; = crook n. 7: formerly also called hook. Obs.

9.a. A whimsical fancy; a perverse conceit; a peculiar notion on some point (usually considered unimportant) held by an individual in opposition to common opinion. 

b. A fanciful device, mechanical, artistic, or literary. 

10. Fortification. A passage formed by an indentation in the glacis opposite a traverse, connecting the portions of the covered way on both sides of the traverse. 

11. Mil. ‘The arrangement of a body of troops, either forward or rearward, so as to form a line nearly perpendicular to the general line of battle’ (Webster 1864). Obs. 

12. quasi-adv. Oddly. nonce-use. (OED)

"He became an ever more convinced Copernican, but he had his crotchets.  He never accepted Kepler's proof that the orbits of the planets in the Copernican system had to be ellipses, because he loved the perfection of circles; and he was sure that the movement of the tides was the best proof that the earth was turning, since the ocean water on the earth's surface was so obviously sloshing around as it turned."

 - Adam Gopnik, "Moon man: What Galileo saw", 11 & 18 February 2013 The New Yorker

word of the day: gesso

The word of the day is gesso:

Etymology:  < Italian gesso < Latin gypsum : see gypsum n. 

1. Plaster of Paris; gypsum. 

a. in the native state (obs.). 

b. as prepared for use in painting and sculpture. 

c. A prepared surface of plaster as a ground for painting. 

2. A work of art executed in plaster. Obs. (OED)

"Part of Galileo’s genius was to transfer the spirit of the Italian Renaissance in the plastic arts to the mathematical and observational ones. He took the competitive, empirical drive with which Florentine painters had been looking at the world and used it to look at the night sky. The intellectual practices of doubting authority and trying out experiments happened on lutes and with tempera on gesso before they turned toward the stars. You had only to study the previous two centuries of Florentine drawing, from the rocky pillars of Masaccio to the twisting perfection of Michelangelo, to see how knowledge grew through a contest in observation."

 - Adam Gopnik, "Moon man: What Galileo saw", 11 & 18 February 2013 The New Yorker

word of the day: tempera

The word of the day is tempera:

Etymology:  < Italian tempera, in phr. pingere a tempera to paint in distemper.

The method of painting in distemper: see distemper n.² 1.

Also the paint used in this method, usu. an emulsion in which pigment dissolved in water is mixed with egg yolk, or any of various gums, glues, or oils.  (OED)

"Part of Galileo’s genius was to transfer the spirit of the Italian Renaissance in the plastic arts to the mathematical and observational ones. He took the competitive, empirical drive with which Florentine painters had been looking at the world and used it to look at the night sky. The intellectual practices of doubting authority and trying out experiments happened on lutes and with tempera on gesso before they turned toward the stars. You had only to study the previous two centuries of Florentine drawing, from the rocky pillars of Masaccio to the twisting perfection of Michelangelo, to see how knowledge grew through a contest in observation."

 - Adam Gopnik, "Moon man: What Galileo saw", 11 & 18 February 2013 The New Yorker

acronym of the day: S.E.O.

The acronym of the day is S.E.O.: "search engine optimization":

"“Girls” has been attacked, and lauded, and exploited as S.E.O. link bait, and served up as the lead for style-trend pieces, to the point of exhaustion."

 - Emily Nussbaum, "Hannah barbaric: 'Girls', 'Enlightened', and the comedy of cruelty", 11 & 18 February 2013 The New Yorker

word of the day: gormless

The word of the day is gormless:

Etymology:  < gaum, dial. < gome n.² notice, understanding + -less suffix.

orig. dial.

Wanting sense, or discernment. (OED)

"Of the Old and New People of Willesden I speak; I have been chosen to speak for them, though they did not choose me and must wonder what gives me the right. I could say, “Because I was born at the crossroads of Willesden, Kilburn, and Queen’s Park!” But the reply would be swift and damning: “Oh, don’t be foolish, many people were born right there; it doesn’t mean anything at all. We are not one people and no one can speak for us. It’s all a lot of nonsense. We see you standing on the balcony, overlooking the Embassy of Cambodia, in your dressing gown, staring into the chestnut trees, looking gormless. The real reason you speak in this way is because you can’t think of anything better to do.”"

 - Zadie Smith, "The Embassy of Cambodia", 11 & 18 February 2013 The New Yorker

word of the day: Abernethy biscuit

The word of the day is Abernethy biscuit:

Etymology:  Probably < the name of John Abernethy, British surgeon (1764–1831), who is said to have developed the biscuit as an aid to digestion.

More fully Abernethy biscuit. A hard biscuit flavoured with caraway seeds. (OED)

"One Bruichladdich whisky—the “classic” twenty-two-year-old expression—promises to deliver a dizzying chain of sensations: “sweet yellow fruits, drizzled with honey and crushed almonds”; “freshly picked summer flowers”; “custard cream and toasted barley”; “banana bread and vanilla fudge”; “marzipan”; “Abernethy biscuit”; “marine citrus meringue.""


 - Kelefa Sanneh, "Spirit guide: Reinventing a great distillery", 11 & 18 February 2013 The New Yorker

word of the day: tatty

The word of the day is tatty:

Etymology:  < tat n.⁵ + -y suffix¹.

colloq.

1. Of a person, an animal: untidy, disreputable, ‘scruffy’. Cf. tatty adj.¹ 

2. Of clothes, decoration, etc.: shabby, tawdry, cheap. 

3. Of a place or a building: badly cared for, neglected, run down.

4. transf. In other miscellaneous uses. (OED)

"The walls were tiled with awards and citations, and next to his computer sat a tatty thesaurus, which he uses to write the digressive essays that form the basis for the company’s official tasting notes."

 - Kelefa Sanneh, "Spirit guide: Reinventing a great distillery", 11 & 18 February 2013 The New Yorker

word of the day: hawser

The word of the day is hawser:

Etymology:  apparently Anglo-Norman hauceour , < Old French haucier to hawse v., hoist; in reference to the original purpose of a hawser. 

Naut. 

a. A large rope or small cable, in size midway between a cable and a tow-line, between 5 and 10 inches in circumference; used in warping and mooring; in large ships now made of steel.  (OED)

"At about five-fifteen in the afternoon, the hawsers began to snap as the surge lifted the boats above the piers."

 - Ian Frazier, "The toll: Sandy and the future", 11 & 18 February 2013 The New Yorker

Ondansetron study

I am very pleased to see the article “Ondansetron in Pregnancy and Risk ofAdverse Fetal Outcomes” in the New England Journal for two reasons:

1.  Drugs generally aren’t tested on pregnant women during clinical trials, so for most drugs (and food additives: see the recent FDA warning on SimplyThick), we just have no idea whether they’re safe for pregnant women or not.

2.  This is a negative result (no difference between the women who took the drug and the control).  Many journals are biased against publishing negative results, because they’re thought to be uninteresting, but knowing that a drug is safe is actually really important, so I’m glad that it’s prominently featured in the journal and on their web site.