Word of the Day
majesty
noun
regal, lofty, or stately dignity; imposing character; grandeur.
More about majesty
Majesty, “regal, lofty, or stately dignity,” comes from Middle English majeste, which ultimately comes from the Latin stem majestās, meaning “dignity, grandeur.” Majesty was used first in the Christian Church in reference to a deity, then as a title of address or of dignity for kings and queens, and then in Roman history in reference to the power and dignity of the Roman people. It also appears in past Word of the Day lese majesty, which can be defined as an attack on any custom, institution, or belief held sacred or revered by numbers of people. Majesty entered English between 1250–1300.
how is majesty used?
The Catskills are the mountains for all seasons. Some, 300,000,000 years have not dimmed the splendor and majesty of this family of almost seventy mountains and the 1,000 square miles of territory they embrace.
There is a majesty and history to this pre-war building that only our incredible orchestra is truly able to evoke. But then there are quirkier, darker elements with my voice, autoharps, affected pianos that bring a modernness to it all as well.
More about scholarch
Scholarch “the head of a school” comes from Ancient Greek scholárchēs, of the same general meaning, which is a compound of scholḗ “leisure employed in learning” and -archēs, a combining form of árchos “leader.” Scholḗ, of course, is the source of scholar, scholastic, and school. The trigraph sch has two predictable pronunciations in English: sch is pronounced as “shuh” in words of German origin (such as the recent Words of the Day schwa and Weltanschauung) and as “skuh” in words of Ancient Greek or Italian origin (such as the recent Words of the Day paschal and scherzando). Scholarch was first recorded in English in the early 1860s.
how is scholarch used?
We do know that after having served as Lector in the Academy and being described as its “Mind” by Plato, Aristotle was not chosen as the latter’s successor. The job of scholarch, or head of the school, went to Speusippus, Plato’s nephew. Aristotle left Athens shortly after Plato’s death and stayed away for around 12 years.
The scholarch had been instituted in the Strassburg gymnasium in 1528 as well as in the schools of Bern and Basel to assist the rector in his administrative tasks, particularly in the allocation of public funds, and to serve as the government’s representative to the school.
tessellate
verb
to form of small squares or blocks, as floors or pavements; form or arrange in a checkered or mosaic pattern.
More about tessellate
Tessellate “to form of small squares” comes from Latin tessellātus “mosaic,” based on tessella “small square stone or cube.” The Latin noun tessella is a diminutive of tessera, a small piece used in mosaic work that often has four sides, which comes from Ionic Greek tésseres “four.” Ionic is one of several dialects of Ancient Greek, and the word for “four” in the well-known Attic dialect is téttares. Téttares and tésseres together are the source of tetrapod “a four-limbed animal,” the game Tetris, trapezoid, trapezium, and the recent Word of the Day tesseract. Tessellate was first recorded in English circa 1790.
how is tessellate used?
You can tile a floor with certain geometric shapes–like squares, triangles and hexagons–because they tessellate, meaning that they can be slotted together in a repeating pattern with no overlaps or gaps. You can’t do this with pentagonal or heptagonal tiles. They can’t be tessellated, so they’d leave irregular gaps on your floor.
In 1975, a San Diego woman named Marjorie Rice read in her son’s Scientific American magazine that there were only eight known pentagonal shapes that could entirely tile, or tessellate, a plane. Despite having had no math beyond high school, she resolved to find another.