Word of the Day
moonshot
noun
a very challenging and innovative project or undertaking.
More about moonshot
Moonshot, “a launching of a spacecraft to the moon,” a transparent compound of moon and shot, entered English in 1949, near the beginning of large-scale rocket development in the U.S. Moonshot in its extended sense “a challenging and innovative project” first appears in 1967.
how is moonshot used?
Jennifer Granholm, the energy secretary, called the U.S. plan to tackle climate change “our generation’s moonshot.”
Moonshots don’t begin with brainstorming clever answers. They start with the hard work of finding the right questions.
judder
verb (used without object)
to vibrate violently.
More about judder
Judder as a verb means “to vibrate or shake violently,” and as a noun, “violent shaking.” It is first recorded in 1926 and refers to the shaking of automobiles (or their parts); it was later applied to aircraft. Judder has no precise etymology: it may be a combination of jolt or jerk and shudder, or it may be a variant pronunciation of shudder.
how is judder used?
Huw stalks through both sets of automatic doors, which judder and groan.
Other times, the vehicle’s robotic brain appeared confused, lingering at an all-way stop and juddering when a group of pedestrians crossed in front.
pecuniary
adjective
of or relating to money.
More about pecuniary
Pecuniary, “relating to money,” comes from the Latin adjective pecūniārius, a derivative of pecūnia “property, possessions, wealth, money,” itself a derivative of pecū “flock, herd, farm animals,” livestock being a very important source of wealth in early farming societies. Pecū and its related nouns are derivatives of the Proto-Indo-European noun peku– “sheep,” from the root pek-, pok- “to pluck, fleece, card (wool, flax).” Peku- is the source of Umbrian pequo “cattle” (Umbrian was an Italic language spoken in Umbria, north of Rome), Greek pókos and pékos “sheep’s wool, fleece,” and Lithuanian pekus “cattle.” By regular phonetic change peku- becomes fehu– in Proto-Germanic, becoming Gothic faihu “possessions, property,” German Vieh “cattle, beast, brute,” Old English feoh, fioh, feh “cattle, property (in cattle),” Middle English fe, feo, feh “livestock, herd of livestock, movable property, wealth, money.” Modern English fee “charge, payment, sum paid, “ but also “landed estate, inherited estate,” comes partly from the Middle English and Old English nouns, but fee in the sense “inherited estate, feudal estate” also comes from Old French fieu, fief “estate in land” and Anglo-French fe, fee, fie, from Germanic fehu. Pecuniary entered English in the early 16th century.
how is pecuniary used?
Whatever Mr. Penson’s civic convictions, he also has a pecuniary interest in the outcome.
As of last year, nearly half of America’s middle-aged adults found themselves members, willing or not, of what’s been called “the sandwich generation,” so named because these people have a child below them and an aging parent above them. … Given the pecuniary strain involved, it’s surprising that, about 150 years ago, parents might have gone out of their way to set up a situation like this.