Word of the Day
picayune
adjective
Informal.
of little value or account; small; trifling: a picayune amount.
More about picayune
In the early 1800s in Louisiana, Florida, and other Southern U.S. states, the noun picayune designated a coin equal to a Spanish half-real, which was worth a mere six-and-one-quarter cents. Picayune comes from Provençal picaioun (compare French picaillons “money”), a type of copper coin from the historical region of Savoy in southeastern France. While the picayune, as currency, fell out of circulation in the U.S., the word picayune did not. Picayune—on the basis of the coin’s paltry sum—extended as an adjective meaning “of little value or account; small; trifling.” The name of the former coin also survives in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, which cost one picayune when the newspaper was established (as The Picayune) in 1837.
how is picayune used?
The point is less to dwell on the picayune details of what was once known as the “browser wars” than to show how hard it is to escape the hold these companies’ ecosystems have on our lives.
“My client is determined to have his day in court.” “But why?” Swan said. “It’s such a picayune amount of money.”
turophobia
noun
an irrational or disproportionate fear of cheese.
More about turophobia
People who desperately avoid cheese may at least be pleased to learn there is a word they can use for their experience: turophobia “an irrational or disproportionate fear of cheese.” This term is formed on tur-, a variant of Greek tȳrós “cheese” and -phobia, a combining form meaning “fear,” itself from Greek phóbos “fear, panic.” Fear not, cheese lovers: a turophile is a connoisseur or lover of cheese, with –phile a Greek-derived combining form meaning “lover of.” Turophobia is fairly new formation in English, recorded in the early 2000s.
how is turophobia used?
Stossel’s own fears include turophobia, a fear of cheese; asthenophobia, a fear of fainting; and claustrophobia.
What is your main character’s worst fear? Is it something universal, like the death of a loved one? Or a rare phobia, like turophobia (fear of cheese).
thither
adverb
to or toward that place or point; there.
More about thither
The adverb thither “to or toward that place or point; there” is an old one in English. Its original form in Old English was thæder, altered to thider (among other forms) due to hider. This adverb hider evolved into a word thither frequently appears together with: hither, as in hither and thither “here and there.” Thither was largely replaced by there (as hither was by here). If you go back far enough in time, you’ll find that thither and there share a common root, as do many humble English function words beginning with th-, including that, this, and the.
how is thither used?
We told them that we were travelling, that we had been transported thither, and that they had nothing to fear from us.
He was a thorough-going old Tory … who seldom himself went near the metropolis, unless called thither by some occasion of cattle-showing.