embargo - Word of the Day - 08/02/18

embargo

noun

Pronunciation

im-BAHR-goh

Definition

1 : an order of a government prohibiting the departure of commercial ships from its ports

2 : a legal prohibition on commerce

3 : stoppage, impediment; especially : prohibition

4 : an order by a common carrier or public regulatory agency prohibiting or restricting freight transportation

Did You Know?

Embargoes may be put in place for any number of reasons. For instance, a government may place a trade embargo against another country to express its disapproval with that country's policies. But governments are not the only bodies that can place embargoes. A publisher, for example, could place an embargo on a highly anticipated book to prevent stores from selling it before its official release date. The word embargo, dating from around the year 1600, derives via Spanish embargar from Vulgar Latin imbarricare, formed from the prefix im- and the noun barra ("bar").

Test Your Vocabulary

Fill in the blanks to complete a noun that refers to an act of war in which one country uses ships to stop people or supplies from entering or leaving another country: _ _ oc _ _ de.

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carp - Word of the Day - 07/02/18

carp

verb

Pronunciation

 KAHRP

Definition

: to find fault or complain querulously

Did You Know?

You might guess that today's word is a descendant of the noun carp, referring to a type of fish. That's a reasonable speculation, but the words are unrelated. Both entered the English language in the 15th century but from different sources. Whereas the fish's name traces back to Latin carpa, the verb is of Scandinavian origin: it may be related to the Icelandic verb karpa, meaning "to dispute" or "to wrangle," and beyond that perhaps to Old Norse karp, meaning "boasting" or "arrogance." There is a noun carp that is related to the Scandinavian verb, however: it means "complaint," and it dates to that same century.

Examples

"The play begins in 1619, three years after his death, when a few of his former colleagues are carping about the pirated versions of his plays now cluttering London stages and bookstalls." — Alexis Soloski, The New York Times, 25 July 2017

"Cynthia began her work day with a contentious discussion involving a contract dispute.... From there she went right into a staff meeting where a number of her employees carped about minor operational issues as if they were monumental. At various junctures, she found herself holding her breath and gritting her teeth." — Philip Chard, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 25 June 2017

Name That Synonym

Fill in the blanks to complete a synonym of the verb carp: b _ _ l _ a _ h _.

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logomachy - Word of the Day - 06/02/18

logomachy

noun

Pronunciation

 loh-GAH-muh-kee

Definition

1 : a dispute over or about words

2 : a controversy marked by verbiage

Did You Know?

It doesn't take much to start people arguing about words, but there's no quarrel about the origin of logomachy. It comes from the Greek roots logos, meaning "word" or "speech," and machesthai, meaning "to fight," and it entered English in the mid-1500s. If you're a word enthusiast, you probably know that logos is the root of many English words (monologue, neologism, logic, and most words ending in -logy, for example), but what about other derivatives of machesthai? Actually, this is a tough one even for word whizzes. Only a few very rare English words come from machesthai. Here are two of them: heresimach ("an active opponent of heresy and heretics") and naumachia ("an ancient Roman spectacle representing a naval battle").

Examples

"All politics is local, and that goes double for school politics. But just what does 'local' mean? Georgians are going to have an argument about that word between now and the November referendum on the proposed Opportunity School District. A great logomachy over localism, if you like." — Kyle Wingfield, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 11 Sept. 2016

"Not that anyone could accuse this city of lacking logophiles—that's 'lovers of words,' if you have to ask. But where could word warriors go to engage in spirited logomachy?" — Ron Fletcher, The Boston Globe, 29 Apr. 2007

Test Your Vocabulary

What is the meaning of misology?

Merriam-Webster

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spavined - Word of the Day - 05/02/18

spavined

adjective

Pronunciation

SPAV-ind
 

Definition

1 : affected with swelling

2 : old and decrepit : over-the-hill

Did You Know?

"His horse [is] … troubled with the lampas, infected with the fashions, full of windgalls, sped with spavins...." Petruchio's poor, decrepit horse in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew is beset by just about every known equine malady, including a kind of swelling in the mouth (lampas), skin lesions (fashions), tumors on his fetlocks (windgalls), and bony enlargements on his hocks (spavins). The spavins alone can be enough to render a horse lame and useless. In the 17th century, "spavined" horses brought to mind other things that are obsolete, out-of-date, or long past their prime, and we began using the adjective figuratively. Spavined still serves a purpose, despite its age. It originated in Middle English as spaveyned and can be traced to the Middle French word for spavin, which was espavain.

Examples

The team is sadly spavined, and the new coaching staff will have to look to rebuild over the next couple of seasons.

"Large and medium-sized canvases in varying stages of completion covered most of the wall space in the studio, a long, windowless room that was once an auto-body shop, and the floor was a palimpsest of rags, used paper palettes, brushes, spavined art books, … and other debris." — Calvin Tomkins and Dodie Kazanjian, The New Yorker, 10 Apr. 2017

Name That Synonym

Unscramble the letters to create a synonym of spavined meaning "swollen": MCETNTSEU.

Merriam-Webster

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blench - Word of the Day - 04/02/18

blench

verb

Pronunciation

BLENCH
 

Definition

: to draw back or turn aside from lack of courage : flinch

Did You Know?

If a stranger approaches you in a dark alley, it might cause you to blench. Do you flinch or turn white? Actually, you could do both, and both would be considered blenching because there are two separate verbs spelled "blench" in English. The blench that means "to flinch" derives from blencan, an Old English word meaning "to deceive." The blench meaning "to turn white" is an alteration of blanch, from the French adjective blanc ("white"). Clues to which meaning is intended can often be found in context. The "flinch" use, for example, is strictly intransitive and often followed by from or at ("blenched from the sight of blood"; "didn’t blench at the sound of thunder"). The "whiten" use, meanwhile, can be intransitive ("his skin blenched with terror") or transitive ("the cold blenched her lips").

Examples

"I blenched when my son first introduced me to the initials IRL, meaning In Real Life, as opposed to the online world where he and his generation spend so much of their time." — Allison Pearson, The Daily Telegraph (London), 26 Apr. 2017

"If you're a responsible teacher, you talk to your students about money. You say: most novelists earn around £5,000 a year from their writing. You watch them blench. You say: so if you're going to do this, you have to think about how you're going to support yourself." — Naomi Alderman, quoted in The Guardian, 15 Mar. 2014

Name That Synonym

Fill in the blanks to complete a synonym of blench: s _ _ in _ h.

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tucket - Word of the Day - 03/02/18

tucket

noun

Pronunciation

TUCK-ut 

Definition

: a fanfare on a trumpet

Did You Know?

Tucket can be found most notably in the stage directions of several of William Shakespeare's plays. In King Lear, for example, a tucket sounds to alert the Earl of Gloucester of the arrival of the Duke of Cornwall (Act II, Scene i). The word tucket likely derives from the obsolete English verb tuk, meaning "to beat the drum" or "to sound the trumpet." These days, the word fanfare itself refers to a sounding of trumpets made, for example, in celebration or to alert one of another's arrival. The presence of fanfare might be the reason that tucket is rarely used in contemporary English.

Examples

"By this time the tucket was sounding cheerily in the morning, and from all sides Sir Daniel's men poured into the main street and formed before the inn." — Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, 1888

"… Leonard Bernstein came on to lead a thunderous performance of 'Fanfare for the Common Man,' a series of ear-blasting tuckets and bass-drum explosions that Mr. Copland wrote in 1943...." — Donal Henahan, The New York Times, 15 Nov. 1985

Name That Synonym

Fill in the blanks to complete a synonym of fanfare: _ ur _ _ h.

Merriam-Webster

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divest - Word of the Day - 02/02/18

divest

verb

Pronunciation

dye-VEST 

Definition

1 a : to deprive or dispossess especially of property, authority, or title

   b : to undress or strip especially of clothing, ornament, or equipment

   c : rid, free

2 : to take away from a person

Did You Know?

Divest is one of many English words that come from the Latin verb vestire ("to clothe") and ultimately from the noun vestis ("clothing, garment"). Others include vest, vestment, invest, and travesty. Divest and its older form devest can mean "to unclothe" or "to remove the clothing of," but the word had broader applications even when it was first being used in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the opening scene of Shakespeare's King Lear, Lear uses the term to mean "rid oneself of" or "put aside":

    "Tell me, my daughters

    (Since now we will divest us both of rule,

    Interest of territory, cares of state),

    Which of you shall we say doth love us most?"

In addition to clothing, one can be divested of power, authority, possessions, or burdens.

Examples

The court's ruling does not divest the family of their ability to use the property.

"A news release went out from Governor Andrew Cuomo's office, saying that New York was going to divest its vast pension-fund investments in fossil fuels." — Bill McKibben, The New Yorker, 21 Dec. 2017

Name That Synonym

Fill in the blanks to complete a synonym of divest referring to dispossession: e _ _ r _ p _ i _ te.

Merriam-Webster

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