Word of the Day
bounteous
adjective
freely bestowed; plentiful; abundant.
More about bounteous
Bounteous comes from Middle English bountevous, bounteuous, bontivous (and other variant spellings) “good, worthy, virtuous; knightly, valiant; generous, liberal,” from Old French bontieus, bontif (masculine), bontive (feminine) “benevolent, full of goodness, from Old French bonté, bontet (source of Middle English bounte, English bounty “generosity, generous gift”), from Latin bonitās (stem bonitāt-) “goodness, excellence.” The spelling bounteous arose in the early 15th century as if the etymology were bounte plus the adjective suffix –ous. Bounteous entered English in the second half of the 14th century.
how is bounteous used?
Let’s not give up on pies. Usually, there’s a lush and sweet array—a loud hurrah to end the bounteous feast.
Mesmerized by the bounteous displays of freshly harvested produce, artisanal breads, and locally raised meats, I salivated with greedy glee, thinking of the market-inspired menus I could prepare if I moved here.
ambrosial
adjective
exceptionally pleasing to taste or smell; especially delicious or fragrant.
More about ambrosial
The English adjective ambrosial comes from the Greek noun ambrosía “immortality; elixir of life, food of the gods.” (Néktar is “the drink of the gods, nectar”). The initial a– of ambrosía is a variant of the prefix an– meaning “not, without, lacking,” as in atheist or anarchy. The b in ambrosía is a glide consonant between the m and the r. The mro is a derivative of mŗ-, a variant of the very common Proto-Indo-European root mer-, mor-, mŗ– “to die.” The variant mŗ– is also the source of Latin mors (stem mort-) “death,” Morta “goddess of death,” and morī “to die,” Armenian mard “man,” Sanskrit mŗtá– “dead,” and Slavic (Polish) martwy “dead.” The root variant mŗ– regularly becomes mur– in the Germanic languages, yielding murder in English and Mord “murder” in German. The root variant mor– is the source of Greek mortós and Sanskrit márta– “human (being), mortal,” and Old Persian martiya– “mortal, man.” The root variant mer– is the source of Hittite mert “died.” Ambrosial entered English in the second half of the 16th century.
how is ambrosial used?
Her dishes were threaded through with the islands’ smoke and spice and with the ambrosial sweetness of tropical fruit …
He quickly sautes the preserved duck with wild onions, bathes it with a buttery white wine sauce, and tosses in the parboiled, bite-sized pasta and the glistening green fiddleheads. After a few ambrosial bites, I call it investigative journalism.
pother
noun
a heated discussion, debate, or argument; fuss; to-do.
More about pother
All the authorities agree that pother “commotion, uproar; heated argument” has no reliable etymology; indeed, even the words that pother may be related to, like bother, have no trustworthy etymology. (The fact that an early citation of pother is spelled bother just makes things worse.) Pother originally rhymed with other and brother; it acquired its current pronunciation by the beginning of the 19th century.
how is pother used?
Yet what a pother is there of pismires over a grain of sand. But that grain of sand is their whole world.
“I don’t know what’s so very extraordinary about it, or why there should be such a pother,” he began; and he knew that he was insolently ignoring abundant reasons for pother, if there had been any pother. “Yes, I’m engaged.”