Category: Vocabulary
-
Word of the Day: Assuasive
Merriam-Webster: soothing, calming. Example: "Like all good listeners, he has a way of attending that is at once intense and assuasive: the supplicant feels both nakedly revealed and sheltered, somehow, from all possible judgment." (David Foster Wallace) I am a good listener, but far more intense than assuasive. You have the verb 'assuage' in your…
-
Word of the Day: Prodromal
From 'prodrome,' a premonitory symptom of disease. Etymology: French, literally, precursor, from Greek prodromos, from pro- before + dromos act of running, racecourse — more at PRO-, DROMEDARY Example of use found at Diogenes' Middle Finger: Now we are engaged in a prodromal civil war, and American constitutional democracy is the contest’s prize. The universities and the media, always diseased, have…
-
Word of the Day: Indiscerptible
Not discerptible : not subject to being separated into parts // simple and indiscerptible entities— James Ward. (Merriam-Webster)
-
On Looking Up Words
Patrick Kurp of Anecdotal Evidence is a man after my own mold: When I encounter a new word, lengthy or not, I like to know what it means and where it comes from. I won’t necessarily use it, in writing or speech, but I’ve grown accustomed to plugging holes in my knowledge of the world.…
-
On Acquiring a Large Vocabulary
How does one acquire a large vocabulary? The first rule is to read, read widely, and read worthwhile materials, especially old books and essays. The second rule is to look up every word the meaning of which you do not know or are not certain of: don't be lazy. The third rule is to compile…
-
Word of the Day: Gallimaufry
A gallimaufry is a hodgepodge. The word is of course white-supremacist so be careful of the contexts in which you use it, assuming you dare use it. After all, if correct grammar is racist, as per the Rutgers English Department, then a large vocabulary must also be. Don't forget: anything blacks are poor at is…
-
Words of the Day
Thanks to, or rather, because of 'liberal' dumbing-down, people these days have terribly limited vocabularies. Here are a couple you should know. Both definitions from Merriam-Webster. Definition of avulsion : a forcible separation or detachment: such as a : a tearing away of a body part accidentally or surgically b : a sudden cutting off…
-
Latin and Greek for Philosophers
Here, by James Lesher. Sample: Ex vi terminorum: preposition + the ablative feminine singular of vis/vis(‘force’) + the masculine genitive plural of terminus/termini (‘end’, ‘limit’, ‘term’, ‘expression’): ‘out of the force or sense of the words’ or more loosely: ‘in virtue of the meaning of the words’. ‘We can be certain ex vi terminorum that…
-
Word of the Day: Recusant
Merriam-Webster: 1: an English Roman Catholic of the time from about 1570 to 1791 who refused to attend services of the Church of England and thereby committed a statutory offense. 2: one who refuses to accept or obey established authority. Example: So, like atheists in a theocracy, or recusants in Elizabethan England, we go underground. We are…
-
Four Senses of ‘Absurd’
Clarity will be served if we distinguish at least the following senses of 'absurd.' The word is from the Latin surdus, meaning deaf, silent, or stupid. But etymology can take one only so far and is no substitute for close analysis. And beware the Dictionary Fallacy. 1) Logico-mathematical. The absurd is the logically contradictory or…
-
Word of the Day: Oubliette
Merriam-Webster: A dungeon with an opening only at the top. Used in a sentence: Since [Kamala] Harris is now on her way to the political oubliette, however, Schweizer’s discussion of her depredations is of less exigent interest than his discussion of other figures, especially Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders, all, remarkably enough,…
-
Word of the Day: Zaftig
Said of a woman. Having a full, shapely figure. Voluptuous. Plump and vigorous. Rubenesque. A Yiddish word. Supposedly from the German saftig, juicy. More here. Trigger Warning! Snowflakes of the distaff persuasion will be offended. Time was when 'female persuasion' and the like were used figuratively as a kind of joke; after all, one cannot…
-
What is the Opposite of ‘Desuetude’?
Consuetude. Disuse versus usages and customs. Conseuetudines Camaldulenses: Customs of the Camaldolese. Cf. Thomas Merton, Journal, vol. 5, p. 349.
-
Word of the Day: Praeteritio
Explanation here. Example from Victor Davis Hanson: "French’s modus operandi has been to deplore incivility and to call for an end to ad hominem attacks—and yet sometimes as praeteritio in order to liberate himself to do the opposite."
-
Word of the Day: Obvelation
A concealing, concealment, hiding, veiling. Antonym: revelation. My example: Her selective self-revelation was as much an intended obvelation. Example from Stewart Umphrey, Complexity and Analysis, Lexington Books, 2002, 140: Since divine revelation is never without obvelation, those bound back to God in inquiry need a hermeneutics to distinguish what belongs to Him from what belongs…