Word of the Day
hominid
noun
any member of the family Hominidae, consisting of all modern and extinct humans and great apes, and all their immediate ancestors.
More about hominid
Hominid “a member of the family consisting of humans and great apes” is adapted from New Latin Hominidae, the name for this family, from Latin homō (stem homin-) “man, human being.” As we learned with recent Word of the Day chernozem, homõ derives from the Proto-Indo-European root dhghem- “earth,” which is the source of person-related terms such as Latin hūmānus (compare human) and Old English guma “man” (compare bridegroom) as well as land-related words such as Latin humus “earth,” Ancient Greek khthōn “earth” (compare chthonian), and Ancient Greek chamaí “on the ground” (compare chameleon, literally “ground lion”). Hominid was first recorded in English in the late 1880s.
how is hominid used?
We know [the Denisovans] were a distinct ancestral species;…They participated in one (or many) of the waves of migration out-of-Africa…when Neanderthals began their migration, and 60,000 years ago when modern humans followed. And we know these groups did not keep to themselves: Denisovan DNA can be found in living humans from Asia (less than 1%) and Melanesia (up to 6%) …. How these different groups of hominids interacted remains something that is less understood.
One and a half billion years ago, the planet’s only life-forms were single-celled. Fermentation ruled the earth. Then an anaerobic bacterium engulfed an aerobic bacterium …. This accidental collaboration made possible the proliferation of multicellular life-forms and, eventually, tool-wielding hominids who would come to complain that they feel tired all the time.
More about asterism
Asterism “a group of stars” derives from Ancient Greek asterismós “a marking with stars,” from astḗr “star.” Astḗr comes from the Proto-Indo-European root ster-, of the same meaning, which is also the source of English star and Latin stella. For the latter, compare constellation “any of various groups of stars to which definite names have been given,” which is often conflated with asterism, but the two share a slight distinction. An asterism is a group of stars, while a constellation is the named shape that multiple asterisms form. For example, the Big Dipper is an asterism comprising seven stars, but Ursa Major is the constellation that contains the Big Dipper as well as several other asterisms. Asterism was first recorded in English in the 1590s.
how is asterism used?
In a sky so full of stars it’s often difficult to figure out where constellations are, one dark spot stands out: The Coalsack Nebula. Parked near one of the five brightest stars comprising the Southern Cross—perhaps the most easily spotted asterism in the southern sky—the nebula looks like an inky black thumbprint. Where it hangs, the stars struggle to shine. It’s as if someone outlined a portion of the sky and dimmed the lights.
Examples of confusing and misleading scientific terms abound. When astronomers say “metals,” they mean any element heavier than helium, which includes oxygen and nitrogen, a usage that is massively confusing not just to laypeople but also to chemists. The Big Dipper isn’t a constellation to them; it is an “asterism.”
persnickety
adjective
overparticular; fussy.
More about persnickety
Persnickety “overparticular, fussy” is a variant of pernickety, a Scottish English word of uncertain origin. Per- is a common prefix in expressive words in the Scots language, such as perjink “exact, neat, trim,” perskeet “fastidious,” and perjinkity “exact detail,” all of which are similar in meaning to persnickety. One hypothesis is that persnickety and pernickety are compounds of this prefix per- and the noun nick “small notch, hollow place” or a diminutive of nick such as nickett. Alternatively, persnickety could be related to the adjective snickety, also meaning “fussy,” or to the noun snicket “passageway between walls or fences,” but the connection is unclear. The final theory is that persnickety and pernickety are heavily corrupted variants or fusions of particular “exceptionally selective” and finicky “excessively fastidious.” Persnickety was first recorded in English in the late 1880s.
how is persnickety used?
Many of the women (and a few men) were tourist attractions in their own right, with visitors flocking to the hotel as much to glimpse a quirky widow as to see the Pulitzer Fountain or to have a drink in the Oak Room. The Plaza staff grew accustomed to the widows’ peculiarities. One hotel manager began walking outside to get from one end of the building to the other, to avoid passing through the lobby, where persnickety widows would invariably be positioned on the divans, ready to greet him with a barrage of complaints.