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Word of the day

unguinous

[ uhng-gwi-nuhs ]

adjective

resembling, containing, or consisting of fat or oil; greasy; oily.

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More about unguinous

Unguinous “containing fat or oil” derives from Latin unguen “fat, grease,” plus the suffix -ōsus “full of.” Unguen, in turn, comes from the verb unguere “to smear” (stem unct-), which is also the source of English terms such as unction “an act of anointing,” unctuous “having an oily feel,” and unguent “a salve applied to wounds.” The stem unct- regularly became oint in French, leading to words such as anoint and ointment. Unguinous was first recorded in English at the turn of the 17th century.

how is unguinous used?

She was sitting in the tent, languidly waiting for the women to come and prepare her for the wedding ceremony. Anointed from head to toe with an unguinous, aromatic oil, her pomaded hair suffused with a sharp scent, she sat vacantly on a pile of sacks, her embroidered gown and jewelry in a corner, chafing her oiled arms as if to dry them.

Shulamith Hareven, Thirst: The Desert Trilogy, translated by Hillel Halkin, 1996

The suit and vest were of an old style, obviously not clean, an unguinous stain down the vest front, and the jacket ashen-white along the lapels and cuff edges where it was worn, but she could see that it had once been a good proper suit, and something about its tidy narrow cut and the way the man fit inside it, comfortably and with a cute sort of pride, reminded her of Poppy and the suit he kept for special occasions and in which he had been buried.

Lynn Stegner, Because a Fire Was in My Head, 2007

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Word of the day

ankh

[ ahngk ]

noun

a tau (T-shaped) cross with a loop at the top, used as a symbol of generation or enduring life.

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More about ankh

Ankh “a tau (T-shaped) cross with a loop at the top” is a borrowing from Egyptian ʿnh̬ “live; life, soul.” In this word, ʿ represents a voiced throaty sound that does not exist in English, and represents the sound spelled as ch in German Buch, Hebrew Chanukah, and Scottish loch. While Arabic is the official language of Egypt today, the Egyptian language was spoken in the country for thousands of years until its latest form, Coptic, became largely extinct in the 1700s. Although the Egyptian source of ankh is transliterated today as ʿnh̬, while its spelling remained consistent in Egyptian hieroglyphics, its pronunciation during the several stages of the Egyptian language varied greatly. Ankh was first recorded in English in the late 1880s.

how is ankh used?

In a period when paganism and Christianity coexisted, there was cross-pollination between the two. The ancient Egyptian symbol for life, the ankh—a cross shape with an oval loop—influenced the development of the cross known as the crux ansata, used extensively in Coptic symbolism.

José Pérez-Accino, “Ancient Egypt gave rise to one of the world's oldest Christian faiths,” National Geographic, April 19, 2019
[King] Hezekiah faced an all-but-certain death from something that … may have been anthrax. Hezekiah prayed to God, recovered and went on to live another 15 years, biblical accounts state. His brush with death may have made the ankh symbols, which represented life, even more significant to the Judean king…

Tia Ghose, "Seal of a biblical king is found in a trash heap in Jerusalem," Washington Post, December 7, 2015

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Word of the day

spendthrift

[ spend-thrift ]

noun

a person who spends possessions or money extravagantly or wastefully; prodigal.

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More about spendthrift

Spendthrift “a person who spends wastefully” is a compound of the verb spend and the noun thrift. Spend has been in the English language for well over 1000 years, but it is in fact of Latin origin; while most English words derived from Latin entered following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, there are a select few that spread from Latin long beforehand and took root in West Germanic languages such as English and German. In this case, spend derives from Latin expendere “to weigh out, lay out, pay,” a compound of the prefix ex- “out of, from” and the verb pendere “to hang.” Thrift, in contrast, derives from Old Norse, in which the word means “well-being” or “prosperity,” and is related to the verb thrive. This “prosperity” sense is obsolete, of course; thrift shifted in definition during the 16th century to mean “savings,” and from there, it adopted its current meaning of “economy” and “spending little money.” Spendthrift was first recorded in English at the turn of the 17th century.

how is spendthrift used?

The final step toward extending Roman citizenship to nearly all the subject peoples of the empire came with the Edict of Caracalla. Promulgated in A.D. 212, it granted citizenship to all the free men of the Roman Empire. Historians point out that this decidedly bold move was not as enlightened as it may appear. Caracalla was a spendthrift and unstable ruler, and extending citizenship to the huge populations that inhabited his mighty realm was a quick way to increase his tax base.

Clelia Martínez Maza, “In ancient Rome, citizenship was the path to power,” National Geographic, November 4, 2019

It will be interesting to see how Friedman’s more wallet-friendly methods match up with the Dodgers seemingly endless vault of money. Although the Dodgers exited the playoffs early in the last two consecutive years, the team’s spendthrift strategy, which allows the Dodgers to maintain the highest payroll, has managed to get them to the playoffs in the first place.

Marissa Payne, "Andrew Friedman leaves Rays to join Dodgers as president of baseball operations," Washington Post, October 14, 2014

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