Word of the Day
euchred
adjective
Australian Informal.
utterly done in or at the end of one's tether; exhausted.
More about euchred
In Australian English euchred has meant “exhausted, destitute” since the second half of the 19th century, a meaning that formerly existed in American English. The sense derives from the card game euchre (originally American) in which, if a player plays a round and fails to take three tricks, they are euchred “done for,” a sense that was extended to “outwitted, outdone, deceived, cheated.” Euchre, the name of the card game, dates from the first half of the 19th century and has no known etymology.
how is euchred used?
You had one water bottle a day for all purposes, and it would be 48 degrees, so we were euchred physically as much as anything else, and it’s very wearing on the mental factor.
My breath comes hard—I’m euchred boy …
pacific
adjective
tending to make or preserve peace; conciliatory: pacific overtures.
More about pacific
The adjective pacific ultimately derives from the Latin adjective pācificus “making peace, peaceable,” a compound derived from pāx (inflectional stem pāc– “peace”) and –ficus, a combining form of the verb facere “to do, make.” In the Vulgate (the late 4th-century Latin version of the Bible, used by the Roman Catholic Church), pācificus as an adjective means “peace-loving,” and as a noun “peace offerings.” The Romans wanted peace like everyone else, but on their own terms. The great Roman historian Tacitus in his Agricola, a biography of his father-in-law, has the British chieftain Calgacus deliver a speech in which Calgacus says of the Romans, … ubi sōlitūdinem faciunt, pācem appellant, “… where they make a desert, they call it peace.” Pacific entered English in the 16th century.
how is pacific used?
My mother was a very calm, pacific individual, and I learned from her to be the same way.
In this way arose the Roman empire, the largest, the most stable, and in its best days the most pacific political aggregate the world had as yet seen.
sidesplitter
noun
something that is uproariously funny, as a joke or a situation.
More about sidesplitter
Sidesplitter is perfectly obvious in its derivation and meaning: something that is so uproariously funny that you split your sides from laughing. Sidesplitter first appears in a weekly newspaper, the New-York Mirror, in 1834 and slightly later in England.
how is sidesplitter used?
If the lyric “In New York, you can be a real ham” sounds like a sidesplitter, this one’s for you.
My appreciation of the short form was enhanced when I discovered the quirky humor of Damon Runyon and Ring Larder, clearly at their peak in a twenty-page sidesplitter.