Word of the Day
Word of the day
flexitarian
noun
a person whose diet is mostly vegetarian but sometimes includes meat, fish, or poultry.
What is the origin of flexitarian?
Flexitarian was first recorded in 1990-95. It’s a portemanteau of the words flexible and vegetarian.
how is flexitarian used?
A flexitarian is someone who rarely, though occasionally, consumes meat, including red meat, poultry, and seafood. A climatarian is someone who eats less meat—especially the most energy-consuming meats, like beef and lamb—specifically for environmental reasons.
The moderate, conscious eater—the flexitarian—knows where the goal lies: a diet that’s higher in plants and lower in both animal products and hyperprocessed foods, the stuff that makes up something like three-quarters of what’s sold in supermarkets.
Word of the day
transmundane
adjective
reaching beyond or existing outside the physical or visible world.
What is the origin of transmundane?
Transmundane was first recorded in 1770-80. It combines Latin trans- “beyond” and mundane, which finds its roots in the Latin word meaning “world.”
how is transmundane used?
Below me along the lifelines I was aware of many sailors joining in these observations, gazing dumbstruck at it as something transmundane.
… a common labourer and a travelling tinker had propounded and discussed one of the most ancient theories of transmundane dominion and influence on mundane affairs.
Word of the day
farouche
adjective
French. sullenly unsociable or shy.
What is the origin of farouche?
The adjective farouche, accented on the second syllable, shows that it is still an unnaturalized borrowing from French. The Old French adjective faroche, forasche derives from the Late Latin forāsticus “belonging outside or out of doors” (i.e., not fit to be inside), a derivative of the adverb and preposition forās (also forīs) “(to the) outside, abroad.” A similar semantic development can be seen in savage, from Middle French salvage, sauvage, from Medieval Latin salvāticus (Latin silvāticus) “pertaining to the woods.” Farouche entered English in the 18th century.
how is farouche used?
He’s a bit farouche, but I like the way he enthuses about what interests him. It’s not put on.
Many of the women in these stories are farouche–they’re outsiders, they’re troubled, they lack polish, they dream too much.
Word of the day
benedict
noun
a newly married man, especially one who has been long a bachelor.
What is the origin of benedict?
Benedict is a familiar correction of Benedick (Benedicke), the former confirmed bachelor newly married in Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing (1600). Benedict as a common noun entered English in the 19th century.
how is benedict used?
It had, when I first went to town, just become the fashion for young men of fortune to keep house, and to give their bachelor establishments the importance hitherto reserved for the household of a Benedict.
“Why are you so anxious for all England to be informed that you are a Benedict?” I enquired scornfully.
Word of the day
scupper
verb
British. Informal. to prevent from happening or succeeding; ruin; wreck.
What is the origin of scupper?
The origin of the verb scupper is uncertain. It originated as military slang (“to surprise and slaughter; utterly defeat”). The verb scupper may be a development from the noun scupper “an opening in a ship’s side even with the deck to allow water to flow away,” but the semantic development is unclear. Scupper entered English in the 19th century.
how is scupper used?
A row between the EEC and the US is threatening to scupper the UN Convention on the Ozone Layer, which was to have been agreed in Vienna next month.
McMaster has tried to prevent his celebrity from scuppering his career.
Word of the day
What is the origin of edentate?
Edentate means “lacking teeth, toothless,” a neutral term; it is also used in taxonomic names for an order of mammals lacking front teeth, e.g. sloths, armadillos, another neutral sense. The origin of edentate is the Latin adjective ēdentātus, the past participle of the verb ēdentāre “to knock (someone’s) teeth out,” definitely not a neutral sense. Edentate entered English in the 19th century.
how is edentate used?
As would have been the case a million years ago, a typical colonist can expect to be edentate by the time he or she is thirty years old, having suffered many skull-cracking toothaches on the way.
Anyway, an edentate man led a bloated, mouth-foaming goat down a road webbed with knee-deep gullies.
Word of the day
backstairs
adjective
secret, underhanded, or scandalous: backstairs gossip.
What is the origin of backstairs?
Backstairs was first recorded in 1635-45. It’s the adjectival extension of the noun back stairs.
how is backstairs used?
I say to Lord Hartington before you all, not by any backstairs intrigue and not by any secret negotiations, but in the face of this great meeting held in this great town and before all of England … “Come over and help us!”
He would never believe it–it was a nasty piece of backstairs gossip!