genuflect - Word of the Day - 28/02/17

genuflect

verb

Pronunciation

JEN-yuh-flekt

Definition

1 a : to bend the knee
   b : to touch the knee to the floor or ground especially in worship
2 : to be humbly obedient or respectful

Examples

"Other jazz pianists would pause to genuflect when they entered a room where Peterson was playing...." — David Hinckley, The New York Daily News, 25 Dec. 2007

"By abdicating [their] responsibility to provide a counterweight to the executive branch, legislative leaders are genuflecting at the feet of the governor." — Kevin Franck, The Boston Herald, 6 Oct. 2016

Did You Know?

Genuflect is derived from the Late Latin genuflectere, formed from the noun genu ("knee") and the verb flectere ("to bend"). Flectere appears in a number of our more common verbs, such as reflect ("to bend or throw back," as light) and deflect ("to turn aside"). By comparison genu sees little use in English, but it did give us geniculate, a word often used in scientific contexts to mean "bent abruptly at an angle like a bent knee." Despite the resemblance, words such as genius and genuine are not related to genuflect; instead, they are of a family that includes the Latin verb gignere, meaning "to beget."

Word  Quiz

Fill in the blanks to complete an adjective that derives from Latin flectere and means "turned or bent abruptly backward": r _ _ ro _ le _.

Merriam-Webster

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shunpike - Word of the Day - 27/02/17

shunpike

noun

Pronunciation

SHUN-pyke

Definition

: a side road used to avoid the toll on or the speed and traffic of a superhighway

Examples

David did some math to determine if the money on the extra gas needed to take the shunpike cost more than the toll for using the freeway.

"The News On 6 wanted to see if other drivers would consider a shunpike to save money.'It just depends on what kind of drive it is and how much more time it would take,' said Lisa Underhill, a Claremore resident." — Dan Bewley, Newson6.com (Oklahoma), 24 Aug. 2009

Did You Know?

America's love affair with the automobile and the development of a national system of superhighways (along with the occasional desire to seek out paths less traveled) is a story belonging to the 20th century. So the word shunpike, too, must be a 20th-century phenomenon, right? Nope. Toll roads have existed for centuries (the word turnpike has meant "tollgate" since at least 1678), and were quite common in 19th-century America. Shunpike has been describing side roads since the middle of that century, almost half a century before the first Model T rolled out of the factory.

Test Your Vocabulary

Fill in the blanks to complete a word for a road that provides access to a major artery: f _ _ d _ r.

Merriam-Webster

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indigenous - Word of the Day - 26/02/17

indigenous

adjective

Pronunciation

 in-DIJ-uh-nuss

Definition

1 : having originated in and being produced, growing, living, or occurring naturally in a particular region or environment
2 : innate, inborn

Examples

"In all its forms, stone speaks of timelessness, solidity and quality. Indigenous local versions invariably work well as a construction material for houses or for interior surfaces and accessories." — Ben Kendrick, Country Living (UK), January 2017

"About 13 percent of Brazil's land had been set aside for the country's indigenous people based on the territories they historically occupied." — Chris Arsenault, Reuters (reuters.com), 19 Jan. 2017

Did You Know?

Indigenous derives from the Latin noun indigena (meaning "native"), which was formed by combining Old Latin indu (meaning "in" or "within") with the verb gignere (meaning "to beget"). Another term that comes from the indigena root is indigene, a word for a plant or animal that lives, grows, or originates in a certain area. Indigene is the older of the two; it has been used in English since the late 16th century, whereas the earliest documented use of indigenous occurred nearly 50 years later. Indigenous is used in scientific contexts to describe organisms and the habitats to which they belong, and in expressly non-scientific contexts, as in "emotions indigenous to the human spirit." Most often, however, it's used to describe the native inhabitants of a place.

Word  Quiz

Fill in the blanks to complete a word related to the Latin verb gignere that can refer to an ancestor or to a precursor: pr _ _ e _ it _ r.

Merriam-Webster

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hoary - Word of the Day - 25/02/17

hoary

adjective

Pronunciation

HOR-ee

Definition

1 : gray or white with or as if with age
2 : extremely old : ancient

Examples

The lichen gives the rocks a hoary appearance.

"Take encouragement from this hoary truth: No matter how bad things get, you can always make them worse." — Paul McHugh, The Sacramento (California) Bee, 19 Dec. 2016

Did You Know?

"How to save the old that's worth saving ... is one of our greatest problems." British novelist John Galsworthy knew the value of preserving the past—and he would likely have counted hoary among those old things worth saving. The word is old indeed; it traces to an Old English adjective, hār, which appeared in Beowulf. That hoary ancestor evolved over time into hoar, a synonym of ancient. Hoary developed from hoar more than 475 years ago, and since then it has been used for anything that is old or that has the whitened look of age (from the hoary bat to the hoary willow). The venerable hoar also remains as a synonym of hoary and as a component of compounds such as hoarfrost.

Name That Synonym

What word beginning with "f" is a synonym of hoary that can also describe a cold temperature or manner?

Merriam-Webster

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kudos - Word of the Day - 24/02/17

kudos

noun

Pronunciation

KOO-dahss

Definition

1 : fame and renown resulting from an act or achievement : prestige
2 : praise given for achievement

Examples

"I'd like to be a widow. Then I'd have the freedom of the unmarried, with the kudos of the married. I could eat my cake and have it, too. Oh, to be a widow!" — Lucy Maud Montgomery, "The End of a Quarrel," 1912

"But Kraft deserves kudos for the way he has allowed Belichick to do his job. A man that is obsessed with public relations, he has gotten out of the way when it comes to running the football operations." — Bill Burt, The Eagle-Tribune (Massachusetts), 23 Jan. 2017

Did You Know?

Deriving from Greek, kudos entered English as slang popular at British universities in the 19th century. In its earliest use, the word referred to the prestige or renown that one gained by having accomplished something noteworthy. The sense meaning "praise given for achievement" came about in the 1920s. As this later sense became the predominant one, some English speakers, unaware of the word's Greek origin, began to treat the word as a plural count noun, inevitably coming up with the back-formation kudo to refer to a single instance of praise. For the same reason, when kudos is used as a subject you may see it with either a singular or plural verb.

Name That Synonym

Unscramble the letters to create a synonym of kudos: CEACLDOA.


Merriam-Webster

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finesse - Word of the Day - 23/02/17

finesse

verb

Pronunciation

fuh-NESS

Definition

1 : to make a finesse in playing cards : to play (a card) in a finesse
2 a : to bring about, direct, or manage by adroit maneuvering
   b : evade, skirt

Examples

"No author can finesse wry, homespun humor better than Fannie Flagg …, whose main claim to literary fame remains the award-winning 'Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe.'" — Allen Pierleoni, The Sacramento (California) Bee, 20 Jan. 2017

"My base in Johannesburg was the superb Saxon Hotel…. Outside that cocoon of safety a guide was essential. Mine showed a marked reluctance to venture into the badlands of the city centre…. But he finessed the security barriers to take me around Parktown, which more than made up for it." — Clive Aslet, The Daily Telegraph (London), 21 Jan. 2017

Did You Know?

Finesse was a noun for more than 300 years before it became a verb. In the 15th century the noun finesse was used to refer to refinement or delicacy of workmanship, structure, or texture. During the 16th century, it developed the "skillful handling of a situation" meaning most common today. The first use of the verb finesse, however, was not as a corollary of one of these meanings. Instead, its meaning had to do with cards: if you finesse in a game like bridge or whist, you withhold your highest card or trump in the hope that a lower card will take the trick because the only opposing higher card is in the hand of an opponent who has already played. The other verb meanings of finesse developed soon after this one.

Name That Antonym

Unscramble the letters to create an antonym of finesse: MEFUBL.

Merriam-Webster

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mayhap - Word of the Day - 22/02/17

mayhap

adverb

Pronunciation

MAY-hap

Definition

: possibly but not certainly : perhaps

Examples

"The very footmen sometimes grinned too broadly, the maidservants giggled mayhap too loud, and a provoking air of intelligence seemed to pervade the whole family." — Sir Walter Scott, Waverly, 1814

"Mayhap this thought will lead to another, that perhaps we should have second thoughts about becoming a society all about consumption." — Cheryl Long Feather (Hunkuotawin), The Bismarck Tribune, 21 Nov. 2007

Did You Know?

If mayhap looks to you like a relative of its synonym perhaps, you're right—the words are related. Both ultimately derive from the Middle English noun hap, meaning "chance" or "fortune." Mayhap was formed by combining the phrase "(it) may hap" into a single word (the word maybe, another synonym of mayhap and perhaps, was developed similarly from may and the verb be). Hap in the phrase is a verb essentially meaning "to happen," and the verb hap comes from the noun hap. Perhaps came about when per (meaning "through the agency of") was combined directly with the noun hap to form one word. Today, mayhap is a rare word in contrast with the very common maybe and perhaps, but it does show up occasionally.

Word  Quiz

What noun has hap as a root and refers to an unfortunate accident or bad luck?

Merriam-Webster

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