homily - Word of the Day - 31/07/16

homily

noun

Pronunciation

HAH-muh-lee

Definition

1 : a usually short sermon
2 : a lecture or discourse on a moral theme
3 : an inspirational catchphrase; also : platitude

Examples

The calendar features serene photographs captioned by inspirational proverbs and homilies.
"Deacons are ordained ministers in the Catholic Church but do not have the rank of priest. They can give homilies and preside at weddings, funerals and baptisms, but they cannot celebrate Mass." — Tom Kington, The Los Angeles Times, 13 May 2016

Did You Know?

Gather around for the history of homily. The story starts with ancient Greek homilos, meaning "crowd" or "assembly." Greeks used homilos to create the verb homilein ("to consort with" or "to address"), as well as the noun homilia ("conversation"). Latin speakers borrowed homilia, then passed it on to Anglo-French. By the time it crossed into Middle English, the spelling had shifted to omelie, but by the mid-16th century the term had regained its "h" and the "y" of the modern spelling was added.

Name That Synonym

Fill in the blanks to create a synonym of homily meaning "platitude": s _ i _ b _ l _ t _.
 
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littoral - Word of the Day - 30/07/16

littoral

adjective

Pronunciation

LIT-uh-rul

Definition

: of, relating to, or situated or growing on or near a shore especially of the sea

Examples

The report shows dramatic improvement in the condition of the state's littoral waters since the cleanup effort began.

"But this project will permanently add new sand to the beach and dune system of Dauphin Island's East End, and the new sand will stay in the littoral system for centuries." — Scott Douglass, The Mobile (Alabama) Register, 6 Mar. 2016

Did You Know?

You're most likely to encounter littoral in contexts relating to the military and marine sciences. A littoral combat ship is a fast and easily maneuverable combat ship built for use in coastal waters. And in marine ecology, the littoral zone is a coastal zone characterized by abundant dissolved oxygen, sunlight, nutrients, and generally high wave energies and water motion. Littoral can also be found as a noun referring to a coastal region or, more technically, to the shore zone between the high tide and low tide points. The adjective is the older of the two, dating from the mid-17th century; the noun dates from the early 19th century. The word comes to English from Latin litoralis, itself from litor- or litus, meaning "seashore."

Test Your Vocabulary

Unscramble the letters to create an adjective meaning "relating to or living or located on the bank of a river": PAIARNIR.

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flounder - Word of the Day - 29/07/16

flounder

verb

Pronunciation

FLOUN-der

Definition

1 : to struggle to move or obtain footing : thrash about wildly
2 : to proceed or act clumsily or ineffectually

Examples

"The four Royal Air Force pilots ditched their broken bomber and dropped into the North Sea, near Britain. It was February 23, 1942…. Floundering in the frigid water, the pilots released their last hope: a tiny, bedraggled carrier pigeon named Winkie." — Sarah Kaplan, The Washington Post, 9 June 2016

"But She-Ra's sales floundered from the start. Roger Sweet, a Mattel toy creator and the author of Mastering the Universe, estimated her total sales at $60 million, an anemic number compared with He-Man ($2 billion) or Barbie ($350 million)." — Maria Teresa Hart, The Atlantic, 16 June 2016

Did You Know?

Despite the fact that flounder is a relatively common English verb, its origins in the language remain obscure. It is thought that it may be an alteration of an older verb, founder. To founder is to become disabled, to give way or collapse, or to come to grief or to fail. In the case of a waterborne vessel, to founder is to sink. The oldest of these senses of founder, "to become disabled," was also used, particularly in reference to a horse and its rider, for the act of stumbling violently or collapsing. It may have been this sense of founder that later appeared in altered form as flounder in the sense of "to stumble."

Name That Synonym

Fill in the blanks to create a synonym of flounder: _ lo _ n _ e.

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numinous - Word of the Day - 28/07/16

numinous

adjective

Pronunciation

 NOO-muh-nus

Definition

1 : supernatural, mysterious
2 : filled with a sense of the presence of divinity : holy
3 : appealing to the higher emotions or to the aesthetic sense : spiritual

Examples

Pilgrims to the shrine spoke to the congregation about their numinous experiences.

"… the stories, different as they were from one another, shared a sense of horror as something numinous and elusive, too tricky to be approached head-on." — Terrence Rafferty, The New York Times, 5 June 2016

Did You Know?

Numinous is from the Latin word numen, meaning "divine will" or "nod" (it suggests a figurative nodding, of assent or of command, of the divine head). English speakers have been using numen for centuries with the meaning "a spiritual force or influence." We began using numinous in the mid-1600s, subsequently endowing it with several senses: "supernatural" or "mysterious" (as in "possessed of a numinous energy force"), "holy" (as in "the numinous atmosphere of the catacombs"), and "appealing to the aesthetic sense" (as in "the numinous nuances of her art"). We also created the nouns numinousness and numinosity, although these are rare.

Name That Synonym

Unscramble the letters to create a synonym of numinous meaning "mysterious": AYUCNNN.


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doff - Word of the Day - 27/07/16

doff

verb

Pronunciation

DAHF

Definition

1 a : to remove (an article of wear) from the body
b : to take off (the hat) in greeting or as a sign of respect
2 : to rid oneself of : put aside

Examples

We'd only planned to stop briefly at the pond, but the children couldn't resist doffing their shoes and were quickly waist-deep in the cool water.

"He received a standing ovation when he batted in the second inning. He stepped out of the batter's box and doffed his helmet to the 36,491 fans." — Michael Kelly, The Boston Herald, 28 June 2016

Did You Know?

Time was, people talked about doffing and donning articles of wear with about the same frequency. But in the mid-19th century the verb don became significantly more popular and left doff to flounder a bit in linguistic semi-obscurity. Doff and don have been a pair from the start: both date to the 14th century, with doff coming from a phrase meaning "to do off" and don from one meaning "to do on." Shakespeare was first, as far as we know, to use the word as it's defined at sense 2. He put it in Juliet's mouth: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet. / … Romeo, doff thy name; / And for that name, which is no part of thee, / Take all myself."

Test Your Vocabulary

What 4-letter verb beginning with "v" and ending in "l" refers to the lowering of a weapon, such as a spear or staff, as a sign of submission?
 

Merriam-Webster

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pidgin - Word of the Day - 26/07/16

pidgin

noun

Pronunciation

PIJ-in

Definition

: a simplified speech used for communication between people with different languages

Examples

"In his 1992 book, A History of American English, the late linguist J.L. Dillard … demonstrates that the most originally American form of English was a pidgin, originating with sailor's language. Early explorers of North America, he argues, would have used nautical pidgins and passed those on to native people." — Sarah Laskow, Atlas Obscura, 17 July 2015

"Hawaiian Pidgin English developed during the 1800s and early 1900s, when immigrant laborers from China, Portugal, and the Philippines arrived to work in the plantations; American missionaries also came around that time. The immigrants used pidgins—first one that was based in Hawaiian and then one based in English—to communicate." — Alia Wong, The Atlantic, 20 Nov. 2015

Did You Know?

The history of pidgin begins in the early 19th century in the South China city of Guangzhou. Chinese merchants interacting with English speakers on the docks in this port adopted and modified the word business in a way that, by century's end, had become pidgin. The word itself then became the descriptor of the unique communication used by people who speak different languages. Pidgins generally consist of small vocabularies (Chinese Pidgin English has only 700 words), but some have grown to become a group's native language. Examples include Sea Island Creole (spoken in South Carolina's Sea Islands), Haitian Creole, and Louisiana Creole. The word pidgin also gave us one particular meaning of pigeon—the one defined as "an object of special concern" or "accepted business or interest," as in "Tennis is not my pigeon."

Test Your Memory

What former Word of the Day derives from the Latin noun stirps, meaning "trunk" or "root," and can mean "to pull up by the root" or "to cut out by surgery"?

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berate - Word of the Day - 25/07/16

berate

verb

Pronunciation

bih-RAYT

Definition

: to scold or condemn vehemently and at length

Examples

When her son arrived home way past curfew without so much as a phone call or text, Nancy berated him for his lack of consideration.

"We'd announced the tour and Mick looked at it and went, 'I can't do this,' which was not great news at all. I wanted to slightly berate him, 'What the heck?!,' but he sounded so sad. He really wasn't up to it." — Paul Rodgers, Billboard.com, 13 April 2016

Did You Know?

Berate and rate can both mean "to scold angrily or violently." This sense of rate was first recorded in the 14th century, roughly two centuries before the now more familiar (and etymologically unrelated) rate meaning "to estimate the value of." We know that berate was probably formed by combining be and the older rate, but the origins of this particular rate itself are somewhat more obscure. We can trace the word back to the Middle English form raten, but beyond that things get a little murky. It's possible that rate, and by extension berate, derives from the same ancient word that led to the Swedish rata (meaning "to find blame, despise") and earlier the Old Norse hrata ("to fall, stagger"), but this is uncertain.

Name That Synonym

Fill in the blanks to create a synonym of berate: v _ _ up _ r _ _ e.

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