Friday, December 31, 2004

Augur

(1) One of a group of ancient Roman religious officials who foretold events by observing and interpreting signs and omens.
(2) A seer or prophet; a soothsayer.

Thursday, December 30, 2004

Baluster

(1a) One of the upright, usually rounded or vase-shaped supports of a balustrade.
(1b) An upright support, such as a furniture leg, having a similar shape.
(2) One of the supporting posts of a handrail.

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Lilliputian

n.
A very small person or being.


adj.
(1) Very small; diminutive.
(2) Trivial; petty.

Etymology: After Lilliput, a country in Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, where everything was diminutive.

Sunday, December 26, 2004

Satori

A spiritual awakening sought in Zen Buddhism, often coming suddenly.

Friday, December 24, 2004

Verdigris

(1) A blue or green powder consisting of basic cupric acetate used as a paint pigment and fungicide.
(2) A green patina or crust of copper sulfate or copper chloride formed on copper, brass, and bronze exposed to air or seawater for long periods of time.

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Surreptitious

(1) Obtained, done, or made by clandestine or stealthy means.
(2) Acting with or marked by stealth.

Monday, December 20, 2004

Mephistopheles

The devil in the Faust legend to whom Faust sold his soul.

Sunday, December 19, 2004

Tsuris

Trouble; aggravation.

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

Schadenfreude

Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.

Mendacity

(1) The condition of being mendacious; untruthfulness.
(2) A lie; a falsehood.

Sunday, November 21, 2004

Tergiversate

(1) To use evasions or ambiguities; equivocate.
(2) To change sides; apostatize.

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Weltschmerz

Sadness over the evils of the world, especially as an expression of romantic pessimism.

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Provenance

(1) Place of origin; derivation.
(2) Proof of authenticity or of past ownership. Used of art works and antiques.

Mendacious

(1) Lying; untruthful: a mendacious child.
(2) False; untrue: a mendacious statement. See Synonyms at dishonest.

Sunday, November 14, 2004

Gerund

(1) In Latin, a noun derived from a verb and having all case forms except the nominative.
(2) In other languages, a verbal noun analogous to the Latin gerund, such as the English form ending in -ing when used as a noun, as in singing in We admired the choir's singing.

Friday, November 12, 2004

Imbroglio

(1a) A difficult or intricate situation; an entanglement.
(1b) A confused or complicated disagreement.
(2) A confused heap; a tangle.

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Legerdemain

(1) Sleight of hand.
(2) A show of skill or deceitful cleverness.

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Treacle

(1) Cloying speech or sentiment.
(2) A medicinal compound formerly used as an antidote for poison.

Saturday, November 06, 2004

Sybarite

A person devoted to pleasure and luxury; a voluptuary.

Friday, November 05, 2004

Enucleate

(1) Medicine.To remove (a tumor or eye, for example) whole from an enveloping cover or sac.
(2) Biology. To remove the nucleus of.
(3) Archaic. To explain; elucidate.

Monday, November 01, 2004

Pervicacious

Refusing to change one's ideas, behavior, etc.; stubborn; obstinate.

Sunday, October 24, 2004

Iniquity

(1) Gross immorality or injustice; wickedness.
(2) A grossly immoral act; a sin.

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Popinjay

A vain and talkative person.

Friday, October 15, 2004

Engram

A physical alteration thought to occur in living neural tissue in response to stimuli, posited as an explanation for memory.

Saturday, October 09, 2004

Perfidy

(1) Deliberate breach of faith; calculated violation of trust; treachery: “the fink, whose perfidy was equaled only by his gall”
(2) The act or an instance of treachery.

Pabulum

(1) A substance that gives nourishment; food.
(2) Insipid intellectual nourishment: “TV... gobbled up comedy material and spat it out as pabulum”

Thursday, October 07, 2004

Pithy

(1) Precisely meaningful; forceful and brief: a pithy comment.
(2) Consisting of or resembling pith.

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

Coruscate

(1) To give forth flashes of light; sparkled and glitter.
(2) To exhibit sparkling virtuosity.

Monday, October 04, 2004

Prolix

(1) Tediously prolonged; wordy: editing a prolix manuscript.
(2) Tending to speak or write at excessive length. See Synonyms at wordy.

Milquetoast

One who has a meek, timid, unassertive nature.

Sunday, October 03, 2004

Teopan

Mexican temple.

Useless knowledge: Teopans was Trey Wright's game-winning word at the 2004 National Scrabble Championship.

Saturday, October 02, 2004

Penurious

(1) Unwilling to spend money; stingy.
(2) Yielding little; barren: a penurious land.
(3) Poverty-stricken; destitute.

Friday, October 01, 2004

Risible

(1) Relating to laughter or used in eliciting laughter.
(2) Eliciting laughter; ludicrous.
(3) Capable of laughing or inclined to laugh.

Thursday, September 30, 2004

Parsimonious

Excessively sparing or frugal.

Monday, September 27, 2004

Privation

(1a) Lack of the basic necessities or comforts of life.
(1b) The condition resulting from such lack.
(2) An act, condition, or result of deprivation or loss.

Limn

limned, limn·ing,
(1) To describe.
(2) To depict by painting or drawing. See Synonyms at represent.

"Let a painter carelessly limn out a million of faces, and you shall find them all different."

Sunday, September 26, 2004

Hoi Polloi

The common people; the masses.

Usage Note: Hoi polloi is a borrowing of the Greek phrase hoi polloi, consisting of hoi, meaning “the” and used before a plural, and polloi, the plural of polus, “many.” In Greek hoi polloi had a special sense, “the greater number, the people, the commonalty, the masses.” This phrase has generally expressed this meaning in English since its first recorded instance, in an 1837 work by James Fenimore Cooper. Hoi polloi is sometimes incorrectly used to mean “the elite,” possibly because it is reminiscent of high and mighty or because it sounds like hoity-toity.

Saturday, September 25, 2004

Plenary

(1) Complete in all respects; unlimited or full: a diplomat with plenary powers.
(2) Fully attended by all qualified members: a plenary session of the council.

Thursday, September 23, 2004

Moiety

(1) A half.
(2) A part, portion, or share.
(3) Anthropology. Either of two kinship groups based on unilateral descent that together make up a tribe or society.

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Terpsichorean

adj. Of or relating to dancing.

n. A dancer.

Monday, September 20, 2004

Mephitic

Of, relating to, or resembling mephitis; poisonous or foul-smelling.

Sunday, September 19, 2004

Donnybrook

(1) An uproar; a free-for-all. See Synonyms at brawl.

Friday, September 17, 2004

Peccadillos

A small sin or fault. also: peccadilloes.

Platitude

(1) A trite or banal remark or statement, especially one expressed as if it were original or significant. See Synonyms at cliché.
(2) Lack of originality; triteness.

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Meretricious

(1a) Attracting attention in a vulgar manner: meretricious ornamentation.
(1b) Plausible but false or insincere; specious: a meretricious argument.
(2) Of or relating to prostitutes or prostitution: meretricious relationships.

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Longueur

A tedious passage in a work of literature or performing art: “longueurs and passages of meretricious vulgarity."

Epistolary

(1) Of or associated with letters or the writing of letters.
(2) Being in the form of a letter: epistolary exchanges.
(3) Carried on by or composed of letters: an epistolary friendship.

Saturday, September 11, 2004

Pillory

(1) A wooden framework on a post, with holes for the head and hands, in which offenders were formerly locked to be exposed to public scorn as punishment.
(2a) To expose to public ridicule and abuse.
(2b) To put in a pillory as punishment.

Clochard

A tramp; a vagrant.

Thursday, September 09, 2004

Slatternly

(1) Characteristic of or befitting a slattern (An untidy, dirty woman).
(2) Slovenly; untidy.

Prosaic

(1a) Consisting or characteristic of prose.
(1b) Matter-of-fact; straightforward.
(2) Lacking in imagination and spirit; dull.

Tuesday, September 07, 2004

Epicene

(1) Belonging to or having the characteristics of both the male and the female: an epicene statue.
(2) Effeminate; unmanly.
(3) Sexless; neuter.
(4) Linguistics. Having only one form of the noun for both the male and the female.

Monday, September 06, 2004

Scintilla

(1) A minute amount; an iota or trace.
(2) A spark; a flash.

Interlocutor

(1) Someone who takes part in a conversation, often formally or officially.
(2) The performer in a minstrel show who is placed midway between the end men and engages in banter with them.

Sunday, September 05, 2004

Elision

(1a) Omission of a final or initial sound in pronunciation.
(1b) Omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable, as in scanning a verse.
(2) The act or an instance of omitting something.

Epigone

A second-rate imitator or follower, especially of an artist or a philosopher.

Palaver

(1) Idle chatter.
(2) Talk intended to charm or beguile.
(3) Obsolete. A parley between European explorers and representatives of local populations, especially in Africa.

Friday, September 03, 2004

Ribald

Characterized by or indulging in vulgar, lewd humor.