boniface - Word of the Day - 21/12/17

boniface

noun

Pronunciation

BAH-nuh-fuss
 

Definition

: the proprietor of a hotel, nightclub, or restaurant

Did You Know?

Boniface has been the name of eight popes, one antipope, and one saint, but none of those had anything (directly) to do with the English word boniface. The word boniface comes from the name of the jovial innkeeper in George Farquhar's 1707 play The Beaux' Strategem, the story of two penniless rakes who determine that one of them must find and marry a wealthy lady. Farquhar's play made more than one contribution to the English language. The name of the character Lady Bountiful is a byword for a generous (and often conspicuously so) philanthropist. Farquhar, incidentally, never got to see the influence his play had on the lexicon. He finished The Beaux' Strategem on his deathbed, and died on the night of its third performance.

Examples

"Vince Bommarito, boniface of Tony's restaurant at 410 Market Street, said last week was one of his busiest in years and that this week is shaping up to look the same." — Deb Peterson, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 18 Oct. 2011

"In 1901, a correspondent writing to a local paper about the pubs of Cardiff said … that its former name was Winstones, having been kept by the late Alderman John Winstone, 'a rare old bluff gentleman who, for some years, like a good many more bonifaces, was a member of our local parliament.'" — Brian Lee, WalesOnline, 20 Mar. 2014

Test Your Vocabulary

Fill in the blanks to complete a word for an English class of landed gentry or landed proprietors in the past: s _ _ ir _ a _ c _ y.

Merriam-Webster

http://plotsandtension.blogspot.com.au/

recumbent - Word of the Day - 20/12/17

recumbent

adjective

Pronunciation

 rih-KUM-bunt 

Definition

1 a : suggestive of repose : leaning, resting

   b : lying down

2 : representing a person lying down

3 : (of a bicycle) having the seat positioned so that the rider's legs are extended horizontally forward to the pedals and the body is reclined

Did You Know?

If you're ready to take your vocabulary lying down, you'll want to be familiar with the synonyms recumbent, prone, supine, and prostrate, all of which mean "lying down." Recumbent, which derives from the Latin prefix re- and the verb cumbere, meaning "to lie down," focuses on the posture or position native to sleeping or resting. Prone describes someone who is lying facedown, as, for example, in doing push-ups. Supine flips it over, suggesting the position of someone lying inert on the back, while prostrate implies a full-scale physical collapse or submission, regardless of the exact position of the defeated body. Recumbent, dating from 17th century, is the newest of the four words; the others all entered English before the 16th century.

Examples

When Bert glanced at his father's recumbent form in the armchair, he immediately realized that he could use a good nap himself.

"The exhibit includes a limestone statue of a recumbent lion carved between 305 and 30 BCE." — Amy McRary, The Knoxville News-Sentinel, 29 Jan. 2017

Name That Synonym

Fill in the blanks to complete a synonym of recumbent that is used especially to mean "lying down with the head up": c _ _ c _ a _ t.

Merriam-Webster

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

stultify - Word of the Day - 19/12/17

stultify

verb

Pronunciation

STUL-tuh-fye

Definition

1 : to cause to appear or be stupid, foolish, or absurdly illogical

2 a : to impair, invalidate, or make ineffective : negate

   b : to have a dulling or inhibiting effect on

Did You Know?

Stupid or absurd behavior can be almost laughable at times. That's the kind of situation depicted in an 1871 London Daily News article, describing how a witness "stultified himself" by admitting that he was too far off to hear what he had claimed to have heard. But there is nothing especially funny about the now-archaic original usage of stultify. The word was first used in the mid-1700s in legal contexts, where if you stultified yourself, you claimed to be of unsound mind and thus not responsible for your acts. Nor is there humor in the most common meaning of stultify nowadays, that of rendering someone or something useless or ineffective.

Examples

What started out as a promising plan to redesign the town square ended up being stultified by bureaucracy and too many conflicting special interests.

"But I have found the capacity to block off certain thoughts. Like, with this film, about the scale of it or how people loved the Potter films and what's at stake and not wanting to screw it up. I'm getting better at blocking that part of my head because it can stultify you." — Eddie Redmayne, quoted in The Straits Times (Singapore), 16 Nov. 2016

Name That Synonym

Fill in the blanks to complete a synonym of stultify meaning "to invalidate or make ineffective": _ u _ l _ _ y.

Merriam-Webster

http://writinghaikup.blogspot.com.au/

permeable - Word of the Day - 18/12/17

permeable

adjective

PER-mee-uh-bul

 Pronunciation

Definition

: capable of being permeated : penetrable; especially : having pores or openings that permit liquids or gases to pass through

Did You Know?

The synonyms permeable and pervious both make good use of the Latin prefix per-, meaning "through." Permeable traces back to a combination of per- and the Latin verb meare, meaning "to go" or "to pass," whereas the history of pervious calls upon Latin via, meaning "way." Both permeable and its more common relative, the verb permeate, still retain the original Latin idea of "passing through." Pervious also has the connotation of "penetrating through" but is also used to describe a susceptible mind, as in "Though set in his ways, the professor was pervious to reason." The prefix per- also gave English pervade, meaning "to become diffused throughout every part of." Meare also has other English descendants, including congé, which can mean "a formal permission to depart," and irremeable, meaning "offering no possibility of return."

Examples

"More rigid, less permeable foam insulation lines the home's walls to block wind and water from breaching its facade." — Troy McMullen, Forbes, 30 Aug. 2017

"Massachusetts politicians chasing the company will soon realize just how insular and secretive Amazon is. I often compare it to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. They sometimes invite people in—to hire them or pitch them to be customers of collaborators—but the current headquarters in Seattle is not a very permeable place." — Scott Kirsner, The Boston Globe, 29 Oct. 2017

Quiz

Unscramble the letters to create a verb that means "to pass through a permeable substance": NUASDTER.

Merriam-Webster

http://writingforchildrenstage.blogspot.com.au/

lothario - Word of the Day - 17/12/17

lothario

noun

Pronunciation

loh-THAIR-ee-oh
 

Definition

: a man whose chief interest is seducing women

Did You Know?

Lothario comes from The Fair Penitent (1703), a tragedy by Nicholas Rowe. In the play, Lothario is a notorious seducer, extremely attractive but a haughty and unfeeling scoundrel beneath his charming exterior. He seduces Calista, an unfaithful wife and later the fair penitent of the title. After the play was published, the character of Lothario became a stock figure in English literature. For example, Samuel Richardson modeled the character of Lovelace on Lothario in his 1748 novel Clarissa. As the character became well known, his name became progressively more generic, and lothario (often capitalized) has since been used to describe a foppish, unscrupulous rake.

Examples

"He was now quite an elderly Lothario, reduced to the most economical sins; the prominent form of his gaiety being this of lounging at Mr. Gruby's door, embarrassing the servant-maids who came for grocery, and talking scandal with the rare passers-by." — George Eliot, Scenes of Clerical Life, 1858

"He probably even envisioned himself as a prized Lothario, never for a moment identifying with this observation by the great songwriter Kinky Friedman: 'Money can buy you a fine dog, but only love can make him wag his tail.'" — Joe Fitzgerald, The Boston Herald, 16 Oct. 2017

Test Your Vocabulary

Unscramble the letters to create a word for a conceited foolish person or a fop: CMCXBOO.

Merriam-Webster

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

terpsichorean - Word of the Day - 16/12/17

terpsichorean

adjective

Pronunciation

terp-sih-kuh-REE-un

 Definition

: of or relating to dancing

Did You Know?

In Greek and Roman mythology, Terpsichore was one of the nine muses, those graceful sister-goddesses who presided over learning and the arts. Terpsichore was the patron of dance and choral song (and later lyric poetry), and in artistic representations she is often shown dancing and holding a lyre. Her name, which earned an enduring place in English through the adjective terpsichorean, literally means "dance-enjoying," from terpsis, meaning "enjoyment," and choros, meaning "dance." Choros is also the source of choreography and chorus (in Athenian drama, choruses consisted of dancers as well as singers). The only other word we know that incorporates terpsis is terpodion, an obsolete term for a piano-like musical instrument that was invented around 1816 but never really caught on.

Examples

"Cronkhite's exuberant dances look great but let the kids act like kids, and don't demand terpsichorean polish beyond the cast's abilities." — Marty Clear, The Bradenton Herald, 13 Jan. 2017

"The musical theater specialists at Signature Theatre will test their terpsichorean mettle with the toe-tappin' 'Crazy for You,' the show that clinched Susan Stroman's reputation as a gleeful and inventive choreographer...." — Nelson Pressley, The Washington Post, 8 Sept. 2017

Word  Quiz

What word derived from Greek choros refers to an old round dance with singing or to a song of joy?

Merriam-Webster

http://writingthestorypruthpunton.blogspot.com.au/

fructify- Word of the Day - 15/12/17

fructify

verb

Pronunciation

FRUK-tuh-fye 

Definition

1 : to bear fruit
2 : to make fruitful or productive

Did You Know?

Fructify derives from Middle English fructifien and ultimately from the Latin noun fructus, meaning "fruit." When the word was first used in English in the 14th century, it literally referred to the actions of plants that bore fruit; later it was used transitively to refer to the action of making something fruitful, such as soil. The word also expanded to encompass a figurative sense of "fruit," and it is now more frequently used to refer to the giving forth of something in profit from something else (such as dividends from an investment). Fructus also gave us the name of the sugar fructose, as well as usufruct, which refers to the legal right to enjoy the fruits or profits of something that belongs to someone else.

Examples

My parents are in a comfortable financial position, thanks to some investments that have recently begun to fructify.

"I don't care for the jokey body language and elaborate costuming of the four male bees in the Waltz of the Flowers, and yet I find myself paying close attention each time to how tightly they're woven into the musical tapestry. They're not just there to fructify the 16 female flowers, they also become part of one dance pattern after another…." — Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times, 16 Dec. 2013

Test Your Vocabulary

What verb can mean "to break at once into pieces" or "to drop off leaves, petals, or fruit"?

Merriam-Webster

http://plotsandtension.blogspot.com.au/