Word of the Day
impedimenta
plural noun
baggage or other things that retard one's progress, as supplies carried by an army: the impedimenta of the weekend skier.
More about impedimenta
Scores of millions of Americans will smile (or moan) at the recollection of reading (with the assistance of a pony or trot) Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War in their sophomore year high school Latin class, and seeing their old friend (or nemesis) impedīmenta “baggage train, traveling equipment” loaded with ablatives absolute and subjunctives in indirect discourse. Impedīmenta is a neuter plural noun formed from the verb impedīre “to restrict, hobble, impede” and –mentum, a neuter noun suffix for concrete objects. Impedīre is a compound of the preposition and prefix in, in– “in, into” and ped-, the inflectional stem of the noun pēs “foot”; impedīmenta therefore being the things that get caught in your feet, weigh you down. Impedimenta entered English at the end of the 16th century.
how is impedimenta used?
Games impedimenta–hockey sticks, boxing gloves, a burst football, a pair of sweaty shorts turned inside out–lay all over the floor …
Every man was piled up with impedimenta–broken, torn, soiled and cobbled impedimenta.
skimble-scamble
adjective
rambling; confused; nonsensical: a skimble-scamble explanation.
More about skimble-scamble
The rare adjective skimble-scamble shows the same, common vowel alteration in a reduplicated word as in mish-mash or pitter-patter. The reduplicated word is the verb scamble, of unknown etymology, and now obsolete or dialectal, meaning “to struggle or scramble with others for food or money tossed to a crowd,” now replaced by scramble. The lexicographer Samuel Johnson was not keen on skimble-scamble, calling it a “cant word,” one of his favorite terms of abuse. Skimble-scamble entered English at the end of the 16th century.
how is skimble-scamble used?
He complained bitterly of his reporters, saying that the skimblescamble stuff which they published would “make posterity think ill of his understanding, and that of his brethren on the bench.”
And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff, /
As puts me from my faith.
optics
noun
the way a situation, action, event, etc., is perceived by the public or by a particular group of people.
More about optics
The noun optics originally referred to that branch of physics dealing with light or other electromagnetic radiation and with the sense of sight. The now common sense “the way a situation, action, or event is perceived by the public or in a particular context, especially a political one,” was originally an Americanism first recorded in 1973. Optics entered English in the 16th century.
how is optics used?
The sentence has to be in double figures. The optics are lousy if it’s anything less.
For Romney, there is little value in trying to compete with the optics of Obama’s trip.