nexus - Word of the Day - 07/02/17

nexus

noun

Pronunciation

 NEK-sus

Definition

1 : connection, link; also : a causal link
2 : a connected group or series
3 : centre, focus

Examples

The new art exhibition is devoted to those artists whose work first began to form a nexus between high art and popular culture.

"Starting a weekly column about the nexus between media, technology, culture and politics in the middle of the 2016 presidential campaign was like parachuting into a hail of machine-gun crossfire." — Jim Rutenberg, The New York Times, 26 Dec. 2016

Did You Know?

Nexus is all about connections. The word comes from nectere, a Latin verb meaning "to bind." A number of other English words are related to nectere. The most obvious is connect, but annex (meaning "to attach as an addition," or more specifically "to incorporate into a political domain") is related as well. When nexus came into English in the 17th century, it meant "connection." Eventually, it took on the additional meaning "connected series" (as in "a nexus of relationships"). In the past few decades it has taken a third meaning: "center" (as in "the trade nexus of the region"), perhaps from the notion that a point in the center of an arrangement serves to join together the objects that surround it.

Name That Synonym

Fill in the blanks to complete a synonym of nexus meaning "center" or "focus": o _ _ h _ l _ s.

Merriam-Webster

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extremophile - Word of the Day - 06/02/1

extremophile

noun

Pronunciation

ik-STREE-muh-fyle

 Definition

: an organism that lives under extreme environmental conditions (as in a hot spring or ice cap)

Examples

"Beetles with antifreeze blood, ants that sprint on scorching sand and spiders that live high up Mount Everest. These incredible creatures are the extremophiles: animals that survive some of the most inhospitable conditions on Earth, and sometimes even further." — Christopher Brooks, BBC.co.uk, 26 Mar. 2016

"[Andrew] Czaja said research into extremophiles in general gives scientists confidence that life can exist anywhere where the appropriate building blocks, including a liquid medium (such as water) and a source of energy, exist." — Stephanie Margaret Bucklin, Astronomy Magazine, 8 Dec. 2016

Did You Know?

No, an extremophile is not an enthusiast of extreme sports (though -phile does mean "one who loves or has an affinity for"). Rather, extremophiles are organisms—mostly microorganisms—that thrive in environments once considered uninhabitable, from places with high levels of toxicity and radiation to boiling-hot deep-sea volcanoes to Antarctic ice sheets. Scientists have even created a new biological domain to classify some of these extremophiles: Archaea (from Greek archaios, meaning "ancient"). These extremophiles may have a lot in common with the first organisms to appear on earth billions of years ago. If so, they can give us insight into how life on our planet may have arisen. They are also being studied to learn about possible life forms on other planets, where conditions are extreme compared to conditions on Earth.

Test Your Vocabulary

Fill in the blanks to complete an adjective that describes an organism that is tolerant of wide variation in one or more environmental factors: e _ _ y _ opi _.


Merriam-Webster

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luculent - Word of the Day - 05/02/17

luculent

adjective

Pronunciation

 LOO-kyuh-lunt

 Definition

: clear in thought or expression

Examples

The professor gave a luculent introduction to quantum mechanics.

"These glimpses of the Crown-Prince, reflected on us in this manner, are not very luculent to the reader … but some features do gleam forth, good and not so good; which, with others coming, may coalesce into something conceivable." — Thomas Carlyle, The History of Frederick II of Prussia, 1858–1865

Did You Know?

To shed light on the meaning of luculent, one need only look at its root—the Latin noun lux, meaning "light." The English word first appeared in the 15th century with the meaning "brilliant" or "shining," as in "a luculent flame." By the mid-16th century, the "clear in thought or expression" sense had begun to shine, and by that century's end another sense was flickering with the meaning "illustrious" or "resplendent," as in Ben Jonson's 1599 description of a "most debonair and luculent lady." Both the "illustrious" and the "emitting light" senses have fallen out of use, and even the "clear" sense is now rare. Today's writers seem to prefer another lux descendant with a similar meaning: lucid.

Name That Antonym

What word is an antonym of luculent that can also mean "lacking in sharpness or quickness of sensibility or intellect"?

Merriam-Webster

http://creatingcharactersforfictionwriters.blogspot.com.au/

grandee - Word of the Day - 04/02/17

grandee

noun

Pronunciation

grand-DEE

Definition

: a man of elevated rank or station; especially : a Spanish or Portuguese nobleman of the first rank

Examples

After winning the golf tournament, the young player shook hands and posed for pictures with the grandees who had supplied the prize fund.

"People from around the nation and the world, who could not afford to live here full-time, increasingly come to California as tourists so they can live like Mediterranean grandees for a week or two." — Joel Kotkin, The San Bernardino (California) Sun, 4 Dec. 2016

Did You Know?

In Medieval Spain and Portugal, the grandes ("great ones," from Latin grandis, meaning "great") were at the pinnacle of the ranks of rich and powerful nobles. A grandee (as it came to be spelled in English) could wear a hat in the presence of the king and queen—the height of privilege—and he alone could address a letter directly to royalty. (Even Christopher Columbus had to direct his reports of the to an important noble at court, who read them to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.) Today the term can still be applied to nobility, but it can also be used for anyone of importance and influence anywhere, such as the "pin-striped grandees of London's financial district."

Word Quiz

What verb is derived from Latin grandis and can mean "to enhance the power, wealth, position, or reputation of"?


Merriam-Webster

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abyssal - Word of the Day - 03/02/17

abyssal

adjective

Pronunciation

uh-BISS-ul

Definition

1 : of or relating to the bottom waters of the ocean depths
2 : impossible to comprehend : unfathomable

Examples

"Since the accident, researchers from the Guangzhou Institute of Oceanology have mapped several deep eddies in the Xisha Trough, an area of abyssal ocean off Hainan." — David Hambling, The Guardian (UK), 29 Dec. 2016

"I'm referring to something that was revealed when the federal opposition parties were talking about a coalition government: The abyssal ignorance, even in parts of the media, about how our own parliamentary system works." — Josée Legault, The Gazette (Montreal), 26 Dec. 2008

Did You Know?

Abyssal is a relatively rare word, though it's derived from the more prevalent noun, abyss. In contrast, the adjective abysmal is more common than its corresponding noun abysm. All four terms descend from the Late Latin word abyssus, which is in turn derived from the Greek abyssos ("bottomless"). Abyss and abysm are synonymous (both can refer to the mythical bottomless pit in old accounts of the universe or can be used more broadly in reference to any immeasurably deep gulf), but the adjectives abyssal and abysmal are not used identically. Abyssal can mean "incomprehensible" (as in "showed abyssal ignorance") but it's most often found in contexts referring to the bottom of the sea. Abysmal shares the oceanographic sense with abyssal, but it more frequently means "immeasurably great" or "absolutely wretched."

Name That Synonym

Fill in the blanks to complete a synonym of abyssal meaning "unfathomable": s _ u _ d _ es _.

Merriam-Webster

http://grammarandpunctuationmodule4.blogspot.com.au/

imprecate - Word of the Day - 02/02/17

imprecate

verb

Pronunciation

IM-prih-kayt

Definition

: to invoke evil on : curse

Examples

"Mallory imprecated the weather when the ink froze in his fountain pen…." — Stanley Snaith, At Grips with Everest, 1938

"The people would pause, look out at the Missouri rolling past and quietly carrying down trees like doomed pinnaces, and the workers' sweating brows wrinkled, but I heard no one imprecate the river; each just went back to passing along stories and sandbags." — William Least Heat-Moon, River-Horse, 1999

Did You Know?

It may surprise you to learn that a word that refers to wishing evil upon someone has its roots in praying, but imprecate ultimately derives from the Latin verb precari, meaning "to pray, ask, or entreat." Precari is also the ancestor of such English words as deprecate (which once meant "to pray against an evil," though that sense is now archaic), precatory ("expressing a wish") and even pray itself (which has deeper roots in the Latin noun for a request or entreaty, prex).

Name That Synonym

Fill in the blanks to complete a synonym of imprecate: m _ _ ed _ c _.

Merriam-Webster

http://creatingcharactersforfictionwriters.blogspot.com.au/

hard-boiled- Word of the Day - 01/02/17

hard-boiled

adjective

Pronunciation

HAHRD-BOYLD

Definition

1 a : devoid of sentimentality : tough
   b : of, relating to, or being a detective story featuring a tough unsentimental protagonist and a matter-of-fact attitude towards violence
2 : hardheaded, practical

Examples

The young tycoon proved that to be successful in the cutthroat world of business you need to occasionally put aside hard-boiled business practices and go with your gut instincts.

"The real attraction, as with previous books in the series, is [Tana] French's complex, deeply flawed detectives and her hard-boiled yet poetic way with words." — David Martindale, The Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram, 28 Sep. 2016

Did You Know?

As a writer of local color, Mark Twain often used colloquialisms and regionalisms that were unfamiliar to many of his readers. When some of these expressions eventually caught on in the language at large, they were traced back to Twain. For example, he is credited with the first printed use of blow up ("to lose self-control") in 1871, of slop ("effusive sentimentality") in 1866, and of the phrase sweat out ("to endure or wait through the course of") in 1876. Hard-boiled is documented as being first used by Twain in 1886 as an adjective meaning "emotionally hardened." Apparently, Twain and others saw the boiling of an egg to harden the white and yolk as a metaphor for other kinds of hardening.

Name That Synonym

Unscramble the letters to create a synonym of hard-boiled: AAEHDCSR.

Merriam-Webster

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