Word of the Day
tump
noun
British Dialect. a small mound, hill, or rise of ground.
More about tump
The noun tump has an obscure etymology. It is a dialect word used mostly in the British West Country (Somerset, Cornwall) and the West Midlands (around Birmingham). Tump may come from the Welsh noun twmp “round mass, hillock,” unless the Welsh word comes from English. Tump entered English in the 16th century.
how is tump used?
Despite the fine afternoon sunlight all around, the tump itself seemed steeped in perpetual shadow, brooding and ominous.
They buried the coffin in their garden. No cross marked it, just a brown tump in the bleak landscape.
notionate
adjective
Chiefly Midland and Southern U.S. strong-willed or stubborn.
More about notionate
Notionate, an adjective from the noun notion and the adjective suffix -ate, is a dialect word used mostly used in the Midland and Southern U.S., Northern Ireland, and Scotland. Notionate entered English in the 19th century.
how is notionate used?
He wouldn’t let me give a direction. He’s fussy sometimes and notionate.
In Saturday’s stretch run, Alysheba turned rank, or sour, refusing to run in a straight line, his head twisted in the manner of notionate colts, and he came out to sideswipe second-place Cryptoclearance.
rewild
verb
to return (land) to a more natural state: rewilding an unpopulated island for use as an animal preserve.
More about rewild
Rewild combines the word wild with the prefix re-, used to indicate withdrawal or a motion backwards toward another point. Rewild was first recorded in 1980–85.
how is rewild used?
“A big effort was made to rewild a huge swath of the Great Plains to its original flora, fauna and animal life,” Fallows says.
I argue that the three r’s of the climate-catastrophe generation – reduce, reuse, recycle – need a serious upgrade. In their place I propose resist, revolt, rewild.