Word of the day: truculent

The word of the day is truculent:

1. fierce; cruel; savagely brutal.
2. brutally harsh; vitriolic; scathing.
3. aggressively hostile; belligerent.

c.1540, from L. truculentus "fierce, savage," from trux (gen. trucis) "fierce, wild." (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/truculent)

 

"Few acts these days make a show of shunning commercial success, perhaps because, after a decade of turmoil, the corporate-pop monolith no longer seems so monolithic.  Lady Gaga blazed a trail for truculent pop stars by treating her own celebrity as an evolving art project."

 - Kelefa Sanneh, "Pop for misfits: Can a former noise musician become a star?", 28 September 2015 The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/09/28/pop-for-misfits)

word of the day: monopsony

The word of the day is monopsony:

noun

1. the market condition that exists when there is one buyer.

Origin

Greek mon- + Greek opsōnía shopping, purchase of provisions (dictionary.com)

"Right now, the U.F.C.’s chief competitor is Bellator, owned by Viacom. But Bellator remains a minor league, and it hasn’t done much to change the perception that the U.F.C. is something of a monopsony; for an ambitious fighter, a U.F.C. contract is the only one that really matters."

 - Kelefa Sanneh, "Mean girl: Why the world's best female fighter loves to be hated", 28 July 2014 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

The word of the day is cachet:

French; cacher to conceal: in 18th cent. treated as English.(Show More)

1. A seal. letter of cachet (French lettre de cachet): a letter under the private seal of the French king, containing an order, often of exile or imprisonment.

2. fig. Stamp, distinguishing mark, ‘sign manual’.

3. attrib. Done under letter of cachet; privy, secret.

4. A covering of paste, gelatine, or other digestible material, enclosing (nauseous) medicine; = capsule n. 5. 

Draft additions September 2006 

 Prestige, high status; the quality of being respected or admired.  (OED)

"'We used their brand as a signifier of luxury and they got free advertising and credibility every time we mentioned it,' he writes.  'We were trading cachet.'  (Actually, the book, not free of typos, says 'cache.')"

 - Kelefa Sanneh, "Word: Jay-Z's 'Decoded' and the language of hip-hop", 6 December 2010 The New Yorker

The word of the day is hermeneutics:

< hermeneutic adj.: see -ics at -ic suffix 2. Also in form hermeneutic. Compare Greek ἑρμηνευτική (sc. τέχνη), Latin hermēneutica, French l'herméneutique.... 

The art or science of interpretation, esp. of Scripture. Commonly distinguished from exegesis or practical exposition. (OED)

"Throughout 'Decoded,' Jay-Z offers readers a large dose of hermeneutics and a small dose of biography, in keeping with his deserved reputation for brilliance and chilliness."

 - Kelefa Sanneh, "Word: Jay-Z's 'Decoded' and the language of hip-hop", 6 December 2010 The New Yorker

The word of the day is étude:

étude,  (French: “study”) in music, originally a study or technical exercise, later a complete and musically intelligible composition exploring a particular technical problem in an esthetically satisfying manner. (Encyclopedia Britannica)


"Early recordings of Jay-Z reveal a nimble but mild-mannered virtuoso, delivering rat-a-tat syllables (he liked to rap in double-time triplets, delivering six syllables per beat) that often amounted to études rather than songs."

 - Kelefa Sanneh, "Word: Jay-Z's 'Decoded' and the language of hip-hop", 6 December 2010 The New Yorker

The word of the day is apocope:

< Greek ἀποκοπή a cutting off, < ἀποκόπτειν to cut off.(Show More)

 

The cutting off or omission of the last letter or syllable of a word. (OED)

"Bradley also celebrated some lesser-known hip-hop lyrics, including this dense, percussive couple by Pharaohe Monch, a cult favorite from Queens:

The last batter to hit, blast shattered your hip

Smash any splitter or fastball - that'll be it

Picking through this ticket, Bradley paused to appreciate Monch's use of apocopated rhyme, as when a one-syllable word is rhymed with the penultimate syllable of a multisyllabic word (last/blast/fastball)."

 - Kelefa Sanneh, "Word: Jay-Z's 'Decoded' and the language of hip-hop", 6 December 2010 The New Yorker