Word of the Day
tour de force
noun
a feat requiring unusual strength, skill, or ingenuity.
More about tour de force
Tour de force “a feat requiring unusual strength, skill, or ingenuity” is a borrowing from French, in which the phrase literally means “turn of strength.” French tour has two separate derivations: the noun tour “a turn” in tour de force is related to the verb tourner “to turn” (from Latin tornāre), and this tour is not to be confused with tour “tower” (from Latin turris). This distinction is why the Tour de France refers to a long, winding bicycle race while the tour Eiffel is the original French name for the Eiffel Tower. Other derivatives of Latin tornāre “to turn” include return, tourniquet, tourist, and tornado. Tour de force was first recorded in English circa the year 1800.
how is tour de force used?
“The idea that nature is not bound by the artificial boundaries that we assign to physics, chemistry, biology or mathematics has been around a long time,” said astrophysicist Mayank Vahia …. He said the Nobel prize in physiology and medicine shared by Jim Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, for instance, for unraveling the double helix structure of DNA, might not have been won but for the technical (read physical) tour de force of X-ray diffraction studies achieved by Rosalind Franklin and her colleagues.
A tour de force from 1938, by the German-born Argentine Annemarie Heinrich in league with her sister Ursula, finds the two reflected in a mirrored orb. In the background—from our point of view—Annemarie grins as she snaps the shutter of a standing camera; Ursula looms gigantically and wildly distorted as she leans forward to grasp the sphere. It takes time, enjoyably, to puzzle out the picture’s vertiginous structure.
azimuth
noun
the arc of the horizon measured clockwise from the south point, in astronomy, or from the north point, in navigation, to the point where a vertical circle through a given heavenly body intersects the horizon.
More about azimuth
Azimuth “the arc of the horizon measured clockwise” derives by way of Middle French azimut from Arabic as-sumūt “the ways,” an assimilated plural form of al-samt “the way.” As we learned from the recent Word of the Day acequia, the prefix al- “the” assimilates to match the first sound in the word that follows—but only when that sound is pronounced with the tip of the tongue. Azimuth shares an origin with zenith “the point on the celestial sphere vertically above a given position,” but while azimuth closely resembles its Arabic source, zenith arose when Arabic samt was borrowed into Old Spanish as zemt and was subsequently misread as zenit. We never know when a small scribal error can end up creating a new word! Azimuth was first recorded in English in the late 14th century.
how is azimuth used?
While we say that the sun sets in the west, most times that’s not exactly the case …. [B]etween the first day of spring and the first day of autumn, the position on the horizon where the sun appears to set, known as the azimuth, actually occurs somewhat north of due west. The azimuth of the sunset slowly shifts northward until the day of the June solstice; thereafter, it reverses course and shifts back to the south. On June 21, the sun sets at an azimuth of 302 degrees, or 32 degrees north of due west. But for the setting sun to be seen from all of Manhattan’s cross streets, its azimuth must be 299 degrees, or 29 degrees north of due west.
sciamachy
noun
an act or instance of fighting a shadow or an imaginary enemy.
More about sciamachy
Sciamachy “an act of fighting a shadow” is adapted from Ancient Greek skiamachía, equivalent to skiá “shadow” and máchē “battle.” Skiá is sometimes romanized as scia-, consistent with the Latin trend of changing Greek kappa to Roman c, but other derivatives of skiá in English hew closely to the original spelling and appear as skia-, as in skiagraph “a photographic image produced by the action of x-rays or nuclear radiation.” Máchē is a popular element in technical terms related to fighting or warfare. When combined with taûros “bull,” we get tauromachy “bullfighting,” and when combined with lógos “word,” we get logomachy “a dispute about or concerning words.” Sciamachy was first recorded in English circa 1620.
how is sciamachy used?
As farewells were played,
Order became disorder
And sciamachy took root.
In the dark place, where mirrors
Refracted black light
Breathing became ragged.
…
And, I, cannot now
Recognise a face.
There is but a record
Of a dark place.
Aru is indulging in sciamachy. She has the frustrated look of a person combating a shadow, a shadow that absorbs her anger and gives her nothing in return. As for me, it was not only her questions that daunted me, it was her look as well, the clear-eyed, judging gaze…