Word of the day: menshevik

The word of the day is menshevik:

1. a member of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party in opposition to the Bolsheviks: advocated gradual development of full socialism through parliamentary government and cooperation with bourgeois parties; absorbed into the Communist party formed in 1918.

1917, from Rus. men'shevik, from men'she "lesser" (comp. of malo "little," from PIE base *men- "to lessen, diminish") + -evik "one that is." So called by Lenin because they were a minority in the party. Earlier used in ref. to the minority faction of the Social-Democratic Party, when it split in 1903. Russian pl. mensheviki occasionally was used in Eng.

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

"Maybe this was the main reason Mike was later to tell me, in reference to the 2016 presidential election and only half jokingly, that he could never bring himself to vote for the menshevik (Hillary Clinton) or the bolshevik (Bernie Sanders)."

 - Arlie Russell Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right

Word of the day: boyar

The word of the day is boyar:

1. Russian History. a member of the old nobility of Russia, before Peter the Great made rank dependent on state service.
2. a member of a former privileged class in Romania.

(1590s, "member of a Russian aristocratic class (abolished by Peter the Great)," from Rus. boyarin, perhaps from boji "struggle," or from O.Slav. root bol- "great.")

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

"When January dawned in 1924, Vladimir (a year older than the century) was in Prague, helping his mother and his two younger sisters settle into their cheap and freezing new apartment... These former boyars were now displaced and deracinated—and had 'no money at all.'"

 - Martin Amis, "Oktober", 7 December 2015 The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/07/oktober)

word of the day: knout

The word of the day is knout:

noun

a stout whip used formerly in Russia as an instrument of punishment

from Russian knut, of Scandinavian origin; compare Old Norse knūtr knot (dictionary.com)

 

 

"He was determined to help establish liberal values and institutions - civil society, free speech, democratic norms - in a land that, for a thousand years, had known only absolutism, empire, and the knout.  'That's me,' he says even now.  'Mr. Anti-Cynicism.  Mr. It Will All Work Out.'"

 

 - David Remnick, "Watching the eclipse: Ambassador Michael McFaul was there when the promise of democracy came to Russia - and when it began to fade", 11 & 18 August 2014 The New Yorker 

Word of the day: ukase

The word of the day is ukase:

Etymology:  < Russian ukaz, < ukazat′ to show, direct, order, decree. Hence also French ukase, oukase, Portuguese ukase, Spanish ucase, German, Danish, Swedish ukas. 

1. A decree or edict, having the force of law, issued by the Russian emperor or government. 

2. transf. Any proclamation or decree; an order or regulation of a final or arbitrary nature. (OED)

"Like a doctor who realizes that what was taught in medical school twenty years previously may no longer apply, the editor has to realize that time may have passed by the ukases of his sixth-grade English teacher or her first managing editor."

 - John E. McIntyre, "Prescription for prescriptivists", 1 September 2011 You Don't Say