apodictic - Word of the Day - 1/11/17

apodictic

adjective

Pronunciation

 ap-uh-DIK-tik

Definition

: expressing or of the nature of necessary truth or absolute certainty

Examples

"On the humbler level of recorded evidence, what is one to make of a thinker-scholar who ruled with apodictic, magisterial certainty that 'Shakespeare's tragedies are second-class with the exception of Lear'?" — George Steiner, The Times Literary Supplement, 4 June 1993

"Her writing, collected in a volume titled Sweet Nothings (a title intended, one suspects, to ward off serious criticism), has an apodictic, take-it-or-leave-it quality: 'Art is a low-risk, high-reward crime.'" — Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal, Winter 2016

Did You Know?

Apodictic is a word for those who are confident about that of which they speak. It's a handy word that can describe a conclusive concept, a conclusive person, or even that conclusive person's conclusive remarks. A well-known close relative of apodictic is paradigm ("an outstandingly clear or typical example"); both words are built on Greek deiknynai, meaning "to show." More distant relatives (from Latin dicere, a relative of deiknynai that means "to say") include diction, dictate, edict, and predict.

Word  Quiz

Unscramble the letters to create an adjective derived from Latin dicere that means "truthful" or "genuine": ICDLAIVRE.

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causerie - Word of the Day - 29/10/17

causerie

noun

Pronunciation

 kohz-REE

Definition

1 : an informal conversation : chat
2 : a short informal essay

Examples

The professor invited the award-winning playwright to her class to have a causerie with her literature students.

"[The book] is, to be technical, a causerie, a brilliant and engaging, though none too rigorous, monologue by a self-described archaeologist of gossip, a man who has been everywhere and seen everything and known everyone…." — Simon Callow, The Guardian (UK), 15 Mar. 2017

Did You Know?

Causerie first appeared in English in the early 19th century, and it can be traced back to French causer ("to chat") and ultimately to Latin causa ("cause, reason"). The word was originally used to refer to a friendly or informal conversation. Then, in 1849, the author and critic Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve began publishing a weekly column devoted to literary topics in the French newspaper Le Constitutionnel. These critical essays were called "Causeries du lundi" ("Monday chats") and were later collected into a series of books of the same name. After that, the word causerie acquired a second sense in English, referring to a brief, informal article or essay.

Word  Quiz

Unscramble the letters to create a noun derived from Latin causa that refers to a person who refuses to obey authority: SECNRUTA.


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alfresco - Word of the Day - 28/10/17

alfresco

adjective or adverb

Pronunciation

 al-FRESS-koh

Definition

: taking place or located in the open air : outdoor, outdoors

Examples

The restaurant has a lovely outdoor patio for customers who want to dine alfresco.

"The sleek San Fernando Road gym features ... a hand-built lounge area with highlighter-hued patio furniture and ... alfresco exercise mats and boxing bags. — Sophia Kercher, The Los Angeles Times, 27 May 2017

Did You Know?

In addition to describing a type of dining, alfresco can also describe a kind of painting. The word fresco, which comes from the Italian adjective fresco, meaning "fresh," refers to a method of painting on fresh plaster. Although the "outdoors" sense of alfresco is by far the most common in current use, the term is sometimes used to describe painting done in the fresco manner—that is, on fresh plaster.

Name That Synonym

Fill in the blanks to complete a synonym of the adverb alfresco: _ it _ _ _ t _ o _ rs.

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slapdash - Word of the Day - 26/10/17

slapdash

adjective

Pronunciation

 SLAP-dash
 

Definition

: done or made without careful planning : haphazard, slipshod

Examples

"Sunflower Cottage just above the weir had been taken by two female animals…. More, it was being done properly, the River Bank's housewives agreed. There was none of this casual, slapdash housekeeping that bachelor gentlemen were so apt to consider sufficient." — Kij Johnson, The River Bank: A Sequel to Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, 2017

"Much to my surprise, Gus didn't take me to task regarding my chronic gerund abuse or my slapdash approach to punctuation." — Jerry Nelson, The Farm Forum (Aberdeen, South Dakota), 11 Sept. 2017

Did You Know?

One of the first known uses of slapdash in English came in 1679 from the British poet and dramatist John Dryden, who used it as an adverb in his play The kind keeper; or Mr. Limberham: "Down I put the notes slap-dash." The Oxford English Dictionary defines this sense in part as "[w]ith, or as with, a slap and a dash," perhaps suggesting the notion of an action (such as painting) performed with quick, imprecise movements. Over 100 years later, the word acquired the adjectival sense with which we are more familiar today, describing something done in a hasty, careless, or haphazard manner.

Name That Synonym

Fill in the blanks to complete a synonym of slapdash: i _ d _ _ c _ _ m _ n _ te.

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overwhelm - Word of the Day - 25/10/17

overwhelm

verb

Pronunciation

oh-ver-WELM

Definition

1 : upset, overthrow
2 a : to cover over completely : submerge
   b : to overcome by superior force or numbers
   c : to overpower in thought or feeling

Examples

"The ships … [are] small enough to maneuver into tricky anchorages and light enough on passengers to not overwhelm the wildlife or fragile communities they access." — Sophy Roberts, Traveler, September 2017

"Studies have shown that people can feel empathy, attachment, and other emotions toward robots that exhibit signs of life.… When [the Mars rover] Curiosity serenaded itself with a robotic version of 'Happy Birthday' a few years ago—a very human act—some people were in tears, overwhelmed by sympathy for a machine…." — Marina Koren, The Atlantic, 15 Sept. 2017

Did You Know?

You could say that the introduction of overwhelm to the English language was a bit redundant. The word, which originally meant "to overturn or upset," was formed in Middle English by combining the prefix over- with the verb whelmen, which also meant "to overturn." Whelmen has survived in English as whelm, a verb which is largely synonymous with overwhelm. Since their appearance in the 14th century, however, overwhelm has won over English speakers who have come to largely prefer it to whelm, despite the latter's brevity. Perhaps the emphatic redundancy of overwhelm makes it seem like the more fitting word for describing the experience of being overcome by powerful forces or feelings.

Name That Synonym

Unscramble the letters to create a synonym of overwhelm: TNNUAIED.

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pelf - Word of the Day - 24/10/17

pelf

noun

Pronunciation

PELF
 

Definition

: money, riches

Examples

"Nowadays Western Union is good only if you want to wire cash to your child in college or pelf to a partner in peril." — Vincent L. Hall, The Dallas Morning News, 19 June 2011

"The glitter of guineas is like the glitter of buttercups, the chink of pelf is like the chime of bells, compared with the dreary papers and dead calculations which make the hobby of the modern miser." — G. K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men, 1912

Did You Know?

In the late Middle Ages, the Anglo-French word pelfre, meaning "booty" or "stolen goods," was borrowed into English as pelf with the added meaning of "property." (Pelfre is also an ancestor of the English verb pilfer, meaning "to steal.") Eventually, pelf showed gains when people began to use it for "money" and "riches." In some regions of Britain the word's use was diversified further, in a depreciative way, to refer to trash and good-for-nothings. The first of those meanings was a loss by about the mid-17th century; the second has little value outside of the Yorkshire region of England.

Name That Synonym

Fill in the blanks to complete a synonym of pelf: l _ _ re.

Merriam-Webster

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burke - Word of the Day - 23/10/17

burke

verb

Pronunciation

BERK PrevNext

Definition

1 : to suppress quietly or indirectly
2 : bypass, avoid

Examples

The mob boss dropped a few well-timed bribes to prosecutors in an effort to burke any investigation into possible wrongdoing.

"There is, however, a respectable and reasonable ethical argument against clinical trials of correctional treatment methods which must not be burked in our enthusiasm for the acquisition of knowledge." — Norval Morris, "Should Research Design and Scientific Merits Be Evaluated?," in Experimentation with Human Beings, 1972

Did You Know?

When an elderly pensioner died at the Edinburgh boarding house of William Hare in 1827, the proprietor and his friend William Burke decided to sell the body to a local anatomy school. The sale was so lucrative that they decided to make sure they could repeat it. They began luring nameless wanderers (who were not likely to be missed) into the house, getting them drunk, then smothering or strangling them and selling the bodies. The two disposed of at least 15 victims before murdering a local woman whose disappearance led to their arrest. At Burke's execution (by hanging), irate crowds shouted "Burke him!" As a result of the case, the word burke became a byword first for death by suffocation or strangulation and eventually for any cover-up.

Name That Synonym

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

Merriam-Webster

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