Word of the day: fillet

The word of the day is fillet:

2. a narrow band of ribbon or the like worn around the head, usually as an ornament; headband.

early 14c., "headband," from O.Fr. filet, dim. of fil "thread." Sense of "cut of meat or fish" is early 15c., apparently so called because it was prepared by being tied up with a string.

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

"Her long, fair hair was held back by a fillet and fell loosely onto her shoulders."

 - Connie Willis, Doomsday Book

Word of the day: yeoman

The word of the day is yeoman:

1. a petty officer in a navy, having chiefly clerical duties in the U.S. Navy.

c.1300, "attendant in a noble household," of unknown origin, perhaps a contraction of O.E. iunge man "young man," or from an unrecorded O.E. *geaman, equivalent of O.Fris. gaman "villager," from O.E. -gea "district, village," cognate with O.Fris. ga, ge, from P.Gmc. *gaujan. Sense of "commoner who cultivates his land" is recorded from early 15c.; also the third order of fighting men (late 14c., below knights and squires, above knaves), hence yeomen's service "good, efficient service" (c.1600). Meaning "naval petty officer in charge of supplies" is first attested 1660s. Yeowoman first recorded 1852: "Then I am yeo-woman O the clumsy word!" [Tennyson, "The Foresters"]

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

"Helen taught the fourth grade before serving as a yeoman in the Navy during World War II."

 - "SPLC supporter known for her 'attitude of gratitude'", Spring 2016 SPLC Report

Word of the day: pink-collar

The word of the day is pink-collar:

1. of or pertaining to a type of employment traditionally held by women, especially relatively low-paying work: secretaries, phone operators, and other pink-collar workers.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pink-collar)

"Their wives were nurses, pink-collar workers, retail clerks, service workers, or blue-collar workers themselves."

 - Francine M. Deutsch, Halving It All: How Equally Shared Parenting Works

Word of the day: lassitude

The word of the day is lassitude:

1. weariness of body or mind from strain, oppressive climate, etc.; lack of energy; listlessness; languor.
2. a condition of indolent indifference.

1533, from M.Fr. lassitude, from L. lassitudinem (nom. lassitudo) "faintness, weariness," from lassus "faint, tired, weary," from PIE base *lad- "slow, weary" (cf. O.E. læt "sluggish, slow;" see late (adj.)).

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

"If I broke up with these girls, it was more out of a sense of discouragement, of lassitude: I just didn't feel up to maintaining a relationship, and I didn't want to disappoint them or lead them on."

 - Michel Houellebecq, as translated by Lorin Stein, Submission

Word of the day: apotheosis

The word of the day is apotheosis:

1. the elevation or exaltation of a person to the rank of a god.
2. the ideal example; epitome; quintessence.

1600s, from L.L. apotheosis "deification," from Gk. apotheosis, from apotheoun "deify, make (someone) a god," from apo- special use of this prefix, meaning, here, "change" + theos "god" (see Thea). Verb apotheosize is attested from 1760.

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

"Relationships of various duration (a year being, according to my own observations, an acceptable amount of time) and of variable number (an average of ten to twenty might be considered a reasonable estimate) were supposed to succeed one another until they ended, like an apotheosis, with the last relationship, this one conjugal and definitive, which would lead, via the be getting of children, to the formation of a family."

 - Michel Houellebecq, as translated by Lorin Stein, Submission

Word of the day: dithyrambic

The word of the day is dithyrambic:

1. a Greek choral song or chant of vehement or wild character and of usually irregular form, originally in honor of Dionysus or Bacchus.
2. any poem or other composition having similar characteristics, as an impassioned or exalted theme or irregular form.
3. any wildly enthusiastic speech or writing.

c.1600, from L. dithyrambus, from Gk. dithyrambos, of unknown origin, perhaps a pre-Hellenic loan-word. A wild choric hymn, originally in honor of Dionysus. Related: Dithyrambic.

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

"I'd written a good dissertation and I expected an honorable mention.  Yet to my surprise I received a special commendation, and I was even more surprised when I saw the committee's report, which was excellent, practically dithyrambic."

 - Michel Houellebecq, as translated by Lorin Stein, Submission

Word of the day: ecdysiast

The word of the day is ecdysiast:

1. stripper (def 3).

H.L. Mencken's invented proper word for "strip-tease artist," 1940, from Gk. ekdysis "a stripping or casting off" (used scientifically with ref. to serpents shedding skin or crustacea molting), from ekdyein "to put off" (contrasted with endyo "to put on"), from ex- + dyo "sink, plunge, enter."

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

"But to my dismay, I discovered his friend was the famous ecdysiast Gypsy Rose Lee."

 - Doris Grumbach, "The Remains of My Days", Spring 2016 The American Scholar (https://theamericanscholar.org/the-remains-of-my-days/#.VzZSJdm9LCQ)

Word of the day: tachistoscope

The word of the day is tachistoscope:

1. an apparatus for use in exposing visual stimuli, as pictures, letters, or words, for an extremely brief period, used chiefly to assess visual perception or to increase reading speed.

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

"Arthur was the head of the foreign division of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, so he managed to slip me into the small department where the captions of the spoken soundtrack were made and then translated into French and German.

"I was totally inept at reducing the spoken words to single sentences that fit in one camera shot... I was using a machine called a tachistoscope on a reel of Red Dust, a steamy film in which Jean Harlow bathed almost nude in a barrel."

 - Doris Grumbach, "The Remains of My Days", Spring 2016 The American Scholar (https://theamericanscholar.org/the-remains-of-my-days/#.VzZSJdm9LCQ)

Word of the day: Weebles

The word of the day is Weebles:

Weebles is a trademark for several lines of children's roly-poly toys originating in Hasbro's Playskool division on July 23, 1971.

(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weeble, accessed May 13, 2016)

"I am I am the iambs

and trochees of assertion wobbling

like Weebles who always

get up as I now do"

- Maureen M. McLane, "Mz N Enough", Spring 2016 The American Scholar (https://theamericanscholar.org/maureen-mclane-three-poems/#.VzZNQdm9LCQ)

Word of the day: qualia

The word of the day is qualia:

1. a quality, as bitterness, regarded as an independent object.
2. a sense-datum or feeling having a distinctive quality.

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

"If I say fir and fescue

and clover and lover

whither identity and qualia?"

 - Maureen M. McLane, "Mz N Enough", Spring 2016 The American Scholar (https://theamericanscholar.org/maureen-mclane-three-poems/#.VzZNQdm9LCQ)

Word of the day: fescue

The word of the day is fescue:

1. Also called fescue grass. any grass of the genus Festuca, some species of which are cultivated for pasture or lawns.
2. a pointer, as a straw or slender stick, used to point out the letters in teaching children to read.

1513, "pointer," from O.Fr. festue, a kind of straw, from L. festuca "straw, stalk, rod," probably related to ferula (see ferule). Sense of "pasture, lawn grass" is first recorded 1762.

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

"If I say fir and fescue

and clover and lover

whither identity and qualia?"

 - Maureen M. McLane, "Mz N Enough", Spring 2016 The American Scholar (https://theamericanscholar.org/maureen-mclane-three-poems/#.VzZNQdm9LCQ)

Word of the day: inchoate

OThe word of the day is inchoate:

1. not yet completed or fully developed; rudimentary.
2. just begun; incipient.
3. not organized; lacking order

1534, from L. inchoatus, pp. of inchoare, alteration of incohare "to begin," originally "to hitch up," from in- "on" + cohum "strap fastened to the oxen's yoke."

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

"I was an ambivalent atheist at that point, beset with an inchoate loneliness and endless anxieties, contemptuous of Christianity but addicted to its aspirations and art."

 - Christian Wiman, "I Will Love You in the Summertime", Spring 2016 The American Scholar (https://theamericanscholar.org/i-will-love-you-in-the-summertime/#.VzRq3dm9LCQ)

Word of the day: stultify

The word of the day is stultify:

1. to make, or cause to appear, foolish or ridiculous.
2. to render absurdly or wholly futile or ineffectual, especially by degrading or frustrating means: Menial work can stultify the mind.
3. Law. to allege or prove (oneself or another) to be of unsound mind.

1766, "allege to be of unsound mind" (legal term), from L.L. stultificare "turn into foolishness," from L. stultus "foolish" + root of facere "to make" (see factitious). The first element is cognate with L. stolidus "slow, dull, obtuse" (see stolid). Meaning "cause to appear foolish or absurd" is from 1809.

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

"Heidegger’s implicit hope was that the human ability to draw a distinction between technological and nontechnological perception would release us from 'the stultified compulsion to push on blindly with technology.'"

 - James McWilliams, "Saving the Self on the Age of the Selfie", Spring 2016 The American Scholar (https://theamericanscholar.org/saving-the-self-in-the-age-of-the-selfie/#.VzMaDNm9LCQ)

Word of the day: rum

The word of the day is rum:

rum²

—adjective Chiefly British.

1. odd, strange, or queer: a rum fellow.
2. problematic; difficult.

"excellent," 1567, from rome "fine" (1567), said to be from Romany rom "male, husband" (see Romany). A very common 16c. cant word, by 1774 it had come to mean "odd, strange, bad, spurious," perhaps because it had been so often used approvingly by rogues in ref. to one another. This was the main sense after c.1800.

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

"As he said to his wife over the dining table a few hours later, that half-clean swath of window was one of the rummest things he'd ever seen."

 - Laurie R. King, The Murder of Mary Russell

Word of the day: spall

The word of the day is spall:

—noun

1. a chip or splinter, as of stone or ore.

—verb (used with object)

2. to break into smaller pieces, as ore; split or chip.

—verb (used without object)

3. to break or split off in chips or bits.

"chip of stone," 1440, from M.E. verb spald "to split" (c.1400), from M.L.G. spalden, cognate with O.H.G. spaltan "to split" (see spill).

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

"The spalled paint around the door was scrubbed to the wood beneath, and the sash window — the constable had to walk over for a closer examination."

 - Laurie R. King, The Murder of Mary Russell