Words encountered online, used by smarty-pants writers showing off their superior vocabulary and worldly knowledge. Mostly lawyers who should know better. And in Yahoo group emails by linguistic experts who cannot help themselves. And YouTube videos about food. Heard on t.v. on such shows as The Last Kingdom and NCIS, two shows fond of bizarre words. And in books.
Speaking of books, care to hear something funny? Yesterday I showed Reinhart's pop-up book Disney Princesses to two new ladies working downstairs. I don't like the book because of its content and I think it's too complex mechanically for little girls. It's too clever by 500%. I told one woman that flipping through the book the Disney princesses seem awfully white. Without looking up from the book she said, "Oh, I don't know." Then she rattled off Jasmine, Pocahontas, Tiana, Elsa, Mulan, Queen Kida, Moana. I was stunned that a grown woman, a grandmother, knows the names and races of Disney Princesses. "Boy, you sure know your Disney Princesses." They both laughed. In their world Disney princesses are common knowledge, and they both really like the book.
104 words follow, plus a few more within definitions.
* amerce: to punish by inflicting any discretionary or arbitrary penalty.
* anadem: A wreath or garland for the head.
* anhedonic: a psychological condition characterized by inability to experience pleasure in normally pleasurable acts
Like his Guardian colleague Oliver James - another anhedonic hypocrite stressed by the contradictions of being a well-heeled middle-class lefty – Mr Monbiot wants us to believe that “wealth causes misery.”
* ankled the agency: left the agency
...as we all know, in advance of that vote, assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe ankled the agency yesterday
ankled the talent agency, ankled the shop, ankled the company, ankled the standard route to success, ankled the show,
* anschluss: Union, especially the political union of Austria with Germany in 1938.
* apotropaic: designed to avert evil.
Greek, apotrepein "to ward off" from apo, "away and trepein "to turn" is a type of magic intended to turn away harm or evil influences, as in deflecting misfortune or averting the evil eye.
The lion combined all physical forces with which the deceased wanted to get equipped and played an important role as an apotropaic symbol for warding off evil.
* approbation: An expression of warm approval; praise. Official approval.
After all, they're the Respectable Ones who crave leftist approbation, and they're the ones the left likes to quote in reaction to any political development involving Trump
(I thought the word was negative)
* Ariadne's thread: named for the legend of Ariadne, is the solving of a problem with multiple apparent means of proceeding - such as a physical maze, a logic puzzle, or an ethical dilemma - through an exhaustive application of logic to all available routes.
The reason why I tried to find a hypothetical Ariadne's thread is
that it may be used as a tool
in filtering, in context, the various possible translations,
linguistic pathways of meanings,
so that one might see the forest, not just the trees.
* auteur theory: Theory of filmmaking in which the director is viewed as the major creative force in a motion picture.
* Autres temps, autres mœurs: other times, other customs.
Before there was Warren Buffett and his secretary, there was Rockefeller and his. Autres temps, autres mœurs.
That's it for the As.
* backronym: an existing word turned into an acronym by creating an apt phrase whose initial letters match the word, as to help remember it or offer a theory of its origin. For example, rap has been said to be a backronym of “rhythm and poetry.”
* baksheesh: A gratuity, tip, or bribe paid to expedite service, especially in some Near Eastern countries.
If you buy those on Amazon, (a guillotine) probably best NOT to use Glenn's baksheesh link.
* banh mi: Vietnamese word for bread. Individual French baguette, somewhat airier than the Western type.
* bindaetteok: mung bean pancake with vegetables and meat
* broken arrow: US Military code phrase meaning an American unit has been overrun. It calls in every combat aircraft for support.
* Bushmaster: The longest venomous snake in the New World, found in scrublands and forests from the Amazon River basin north to Costa Rica. Three species of bushmaster are known to exist, and they normally measure about 6 feet long but may grow to as long as 10 feet. These large snakes are reddish brown to pinkish gray in color, matching their forest floor habitats, and they may bear x-like or diamond patterns across the back. Although seldom encountered, the bushmaster is dangerous, with a potentially lethal venom.
AR-15 manufacturer
Their transition down the coastal corridor is sort of like leaving a Florida bog of alligators and water moccasins and thereby assuming one is de facto prepared to enter the far deadlier Amazon jungle of caimans, piranhas, and Bushmasters.
* catbird seat: An enviable position, often in terms of having the upper hand or greater advantage in any type of dealing among parties.
* champerty: In modern idiom maintenance is the support of litigation by a stranger without just cause. An aggravated form of maintenance. The distinguishing feature of champerty is the support of litigation by a stranger in return for a share of the proceeds.
* Chesty Puller: The most decorated Marine in American history. One of two U.S. servicemen to be awarded five Navy Crosses and, with the Distinguished Service Cross awarded to him by the U.S. Army, his total of six stands only behind Eddie Rickenbacker's eight times receiving the nation's second-highest military award for valor.Haiti, Nicaragua, WWII, Korean War.
* colophon: A publisher's or printer's distinctive emblem, used as an identifying device on its books and other works.
An inscription at the end of a book or manuscript, used especially in the 15th and 16th centuries, giving the title or subject of the work, its author, the name of the printer or publisher, and the date and place of publication.
Brief titles or colophons are added t some utterances to explain the efficacy or proper performance of a ritual. And the content of certain spells seems to reflect the spoken rhetoric of non-religious texts of the period, including private biographies or even letters to the dead.
* creatio ex nihilo: created from nothing
* deimatic behavor: any pattern of behavior, such as suddenly displaying conspicuous eyespots, to scare off or momentarily distract a predator, thus giving the prey animal an opportunity to escape.
[Aposematism" is warning color with actual poison.]
* dek: The subhead of a news story.
And I love the dek as well: “The principle of common good underpins the constitution. Donald Trump is gleefully shredding that ideal.”
* Dezinformazioniya. Maskarova: disinformation
Maskarova: Russian military deception from camouflage to denial and imitation with decoys and dummies, maneuvers intended to deceive.
* drog: A Nadsat slang term for "friend" in Anthony Burgess's novel A clockwork Orange.
* echolalia: the unsolicited repetition of vocalizations made by another person (by the same person is called palilalia). In its profound form it is automatic and effortless. It is one of the echophenomena, closely related to echopraxia, the automatic repetition of movements made by another person; both are "subsets of imitative behavior" whereby sounds or actions are imitated "without explicit awareness".
* endemism: endemic
* envoi: The usually explanatory or commendatory concluding remarks to a poem, essay, or book; especially : a short final stanza of a ballad serving as a summary or dedication.
fibrillations: The rapid, irregular, and unsynchronized contraction of muscle fibers. An important occurrence is with regard to the heart.
The Canadian fibrillations over Khadr reflect simple anti-Americanism and are a caricature of reality.
* fons et origo: source and origin. Latin.
* fopdoodle: an insignificant fool
* freeboot: to plunder. Pirate. Freebooter.
* frood: A really cool person.
Origin: Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series.
* fyrd: A type of early Anglo-Saxon army that was mobilized from freemen to defend their shires, or from selected representatives to join a royal expedition.
* galbi jjim: beef short ribs.
* gamecock: a rooster of the domestic chicken trained for fighting
At year’s end, his enemies, battered and almost unrecognizable from reruns of their gamecock assurance of a year, let alone two years, ago, are reduced to the shabby jobbery of claiming he is about to fire the special counsel. . . . Donald Trump was a joke until nominated, unelectable until elected, incompetent until he succeeded on most fronts, and about to be impeached until he debunked the collusion nonsense; he has had a very successful year.
* garand: A .30 caliber semi-automatic rifle that was standard U.S. service rifle suring WWII and the Korean War.
Elon Musk Actually Start Selling Flamethrowers? I mean, they’re a little unsafe for home defense in general, but they say “get off of my lawn” better than even a Garand.
* gibblet: a device used for hanging a person until dead: a gallows.An upright post with a crosspiece, forming a T-shaped structure from which executed criminals were formerly hung for public viewing.
Before this is done we may have to bring back the gibbet.
* goniff: : (Yiddish) a thief or dishonest person or scoundrel (often used as a general term of abuse)
[ganiff: a thief, swindler, crook, or rascal.]
Bernie Sanders wife Jane, attempted to kick poor cripples out of a group home she was trying to snatch up with the money she goniffed in that Vermont real estate swindle
* grimoire: A textbook of magic including instructions on how to create magical objects like talismans and amulets, how to perform magical spells, charms, and divination, and how to summon or invoke supernatural entities such as angels, spirits, and demons.
* gwrach: Welsh, sorceress, witch or hag.
* haplography: where a phoneme is omitted to prevent two similar sounds from occurring consecutively: the former is a textual error, while the latter is a phonological process.
commonly used in the field of textual criticism to refer to the phenomenon of a scribe's, copyist's or translator's inadvertently skipping from one word or phrase to a similar word or phrase further on in the text, and omitting everything in between.[1] It is considered to be a form of parablepsis.
[Parablepsis: A circumstance in which a scribe miscopies text due to inadvertently looking to the side while copying, or accidentally skips over some of it.]
* helot: A member of the lowest class in ancient Laconia, constituting a body of serfs who were bound to the land and were owned by the state. A serf or slave; bondman.
They have relied on an army of helot labor brought over on visas or setup up in camps over in Asia.
* hero with a thousand faces:
0 Status Quo
1 Call to adventure
2 Supernatural Aid
3 Crossing the Threshold
4 Road of Trials
5 Mentors
6 Companions
7 Ordeal
8 Reward
9 Magic Flight
10 Resurrection
11 Resolution
12 New Status Quo
* hustings: Any place from which political campaign speeches are made. The political campaign trail. Also called hustings court. a local court in certain parts of Virginia.
* hypergolic: relating to a rocket propellant consisting of fuel and an oxidizer that ignite spontaneously on contact.
* Jack-tar: sailor
* jackdaw: passerine bird in the crow family. Found across Europe, western Asia and North Africa.
[passerine: sometimes known as perching birds, less accurately songbirds, distinguished from other orders of birds by they arrangement of their toes, three pointing forward and one back, which facilitates perching. The largest order of birds.]
* japchae: sweet potato noodles with meat and vegetables.
* ju-ju bones: juju, French: joujou lit. plaything. A spiritual belief system incorporating objects, such as amulets, and spells used in religious practice, as part of witchcraft in West Africa.
This is MAGAnomics baby, and the elites don’t understand it… Like I keep saying, throw dem ju-ju bones out the window, squeeze the kids up tight, enjoy yourselves and hang on !!
* Kinsley gaffe: The term comes from journalist Michael Kinsley, who said, "A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth – some obvious truth he isn't supposed to say."
* kompromat: Russian politics, short for "compromising material" damaging information about a politician or other public figure used to create negative publicity, for blackmail, or for ensuring loyalty.
* lapsus: lapse, slip, error. An involuntary mistake made while writing or speaking, something long studied in philology.
* Lebensunwertes: life unworthy of life
* left acromion: A bony process on the scapula with the coracoid process extends laterally over the shoulder joint like a pen tip.
* Mamet Principle: pretending not to know some things (motives and intents)
Don't be naive not to accept that Major Garrett doesn't know what Schiff is up to, he does. Garrett is simply falling back upon the increasingly overused use of the Mamet Principle.
* Mary Celeste: A merchant sail ship discovered adrift and deserted in the Atlantic in 1872. The story of its abandonment has been recounted and dramatized many times and has become a byword for unexplained desertion.
* matte pomade: matte: flat finish. pomade: French pommade, a greasy, waxy, or water-based substance used to style hair.
Queer Eye, “He’s literally turning me on so much right now. That was just a gorgeous little bit of a matte pomade.”
* Maynard Krebs: Bob Denver character, the beatnik sidekick of the title character in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.
* medial cuneiform: One of three cuneiform bones in the human foot, attaching the three middle toes, the first, medial is the largest, the second is intermediate cuneiform, the third is the lateral cuneiform.
* meeskite: Yiddish slang, an ugly woman.
Sub-Literate, Lowlife Meeskeit Forced to Eat Crow.
* mellifluent: sweetly or smoothly flowing: a mellifluous voice. Sweetened with or as if with honey.
* midden: A mound of deposit containing shells, animal bones and other refuse that indicates the site of a human settlement. Also called kitchen midden.
It was the same throughout the gigantic and odiferous midden of “progressive” commentary.
* nostalgie de la boue: Nostalgia for the mud: longing for depravity.
They’re not interesting, they’re not shocking and they’re not innovative. All they have is a tired nostalgie de la boue and endless spite and malice. Their creativity is as dead ad Caesar’s ghost.
* Oderint dum metuant: Let them hate so long as they fear. (A favorite saying of Caligula.)
* on deck circle: A baseball phrase defined as the area on the field in foul territory, usually not far from the team's dugout, where the next player up to bat prepares for their at-bat.
* opera bouffe: Light, farcical, burlesque opera.
And, almost as opera bouffe, it also emerged Thursday that Senate Intel ranking member Mark Warner was himself colluding with a Russian oligarch in an attempt to get a secret interview with the notorious Christopher Steele.
* oyakodon: Chicken and rice with egg. Japanese comfort food, chicken meat and beaten eggs, simmered in a sweet and savory stock, and eaten over cooked rice in a bowl.
* pannus: an abnormal layer of fibrovascular tissue or granulation tissue.A flap of excess skin and fat a the bottom of the abdoemen often found in obese people. Removal of this surplus tissue is called panniculectomy.
* parterre: A parterre is a formal garden constructed on a level substrate, consisting of plant beds, typically in symmetrical patterns, which are separated and connected by paths.
* pecksniff: From Mr Pecksniff in Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit. A pronounced hypocrite in Dickens's "Martin Chuzzlewit," and who lies and cants whether he is drunk or sober. One who talks large about virtue and benevolence, while at heart a selfish and unprincipled hypocrite.
Allahpundit is quite a Pecksniff.
* pedes: (ambiguous) to fall at some one's feet: ad pedes alicuius accidere (ambiguous) to throw oneself at some one's feet: ad pedes alicuius se proicere
* perimortem: At or near the time of death.
* Philology: is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is a combination of literary criticism, history, and linguistics.[1] It is more commonly defined as the study of literary texts as well as oral and written records, the establishment of their authenticity and their original form, and the determination of their meaning
* PMITA: pound me in the ass.
Yeah, I know, nothing will happen to them although in a just and sane world, they'd be thrown into PMITA prison for the rest of their miserable existences.
* praxis: Praxis is the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, embodied, or realized. May also refer to the act of engaging, applying, exercising, realizing, or practicing ideas. This has been a recurrent topic in the field of philosophy, discussed in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Immanuel Kant, Søren Kierkegaard, Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Paulo Freire, Ludwig von Mises, and many others. It has meaning in the political, educational, spiritual and medical realms.
* primogeniture: The state of being the first born or eldest child of the same parents. Law The right of the eldest child, especially the eldest son, to inherit the entire estate of one or both parents.
* proximal phalanges: The second row of bones in the hand. The rows go, carpals (the palm), metacarpals (largest), proximal, intermediate, and distal. The thumb lacks the intermediate bone. Honestly now, how can you know for certain the thumb isn’t lacking the proximal? If I were taking an anatomy class this is the question I ask just to hear what they say.
* pucker factor: Military slang phrase used to describe the level of stress and/or adrenaline response in a dangerous or crisis situation. The term refers to the tightening of the buttocks caused by extreme fear. If it is inadequate, the person making decisions may make them "like a robot" without considering ethics or the long-term consequences of his actions; conversely, if it is excessive, then the person "puckers"--panics and becomes unable to think clearly and effectively.
(Looked up because I didn’t know how to pronounce it, like to kiss or to vomit.)
* quoit: A flattened ring of iron or circle of rope used in a throwing game. Quoits plural in form but singular in construction: a game in which the quoits are thrown at an upright pin in an attempt to ring the pin or come as near to it as possible.
Dictionaries differ from the online usage.
Archaeologists found 105 engravings on an axe-shaped stone called a “quoit” which lies on Hendraburnick Down
* rebec: Renaissance instrument, teardrop shaped 3-strings played with a bow.
* Renfield: Fictional character in Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula.
... it was Hillary Clinton and her Renfield-esque droog Sidney Blumenthal ...
* schmattas: (Yiddish): Clothing, textiles; pejorative- Rags worn by a person, old tattered clothing.
* scopophilia: obtaining of sexual pleasure by looking at nude bodies, erotic photographs, etc.
Why are Democrat-dominated organizations such cesspits of scopophilia?
* shonda: a shame, a pity
* skald: a medieval Scandinavian poet, especially one writing in the Viking age.
* skiffle: Jazz, folk, or country music played by performers who use unconventional instruments, such as kazoos, washboards, or jugs, sometimes in combination with conventional instruments.
* spandau ballet: Spandau Prison in Europe housed many prisoners including World War II Nazi prisoners. When these prisoners were hanged the swinging of the dead body was called the Spandau Ballet.
* sua sponte: Law, or suo motu, "on its own motion" describes an act of authority taken without formal prompting from another party
* swale: A low tract of land especially one that is moist or marshy.
* taint-paint: to thoroughly tongue the area between a person’s genitalia and their anus.
Guys: Stop giving Jake Tapper taint-paints while he pees on your belly. It may be a kind of love, but it's a bad kind of love.
* Tardive dyskinesia: A disorder that results in involuntary, repetitive body movements.This may include grimacing, sticking out the tongue or smacking of the lips. Additionally there may be rapid jerking movements or slow writhing movements.[1] In about 20% of people, decreased functioning results.
* Tartarus: Greek mythologh, the dee abyss that is used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wiced and the prison for the Titans.
And the day I change my opinion based on q Think Progress piece about the Tea Party, it will be a frosty day in Tartarus. But, thanks for trolling anyway.
* tektite: Gravel-sized bodies composed of black, green, brown or gray natural glass formed from terrestrial debris ejected during meteorite impacts.
* tenebrous: dark and gloomy
One by one, they pouted and preened their way down the red carpet in a selection of tenebrous numbers, not a single person daring to defy the self-appointed moral arbiters of post-Harvey Hollywood.
* thenar atrophy: the muscles under the thumb erode
tref: Judaism, unclean and unfit for consumption according to dietary law; * not kosher
* tsouris: Yiddish phrase, heartburn, the outcome of a stressful situation. Trouble; aggravation.
* two penny upright: cheapest prostitute service offered, sex standing up.
* ultra vires: beyond the legal power or authority of a person or body.
The doctrine in the law of corporations that holds that if a corporation enters into a contract that is beyond the scope of its corporate powers, the contract is illegal.
There has to come a point where a judge is clearly ultra vires, and rather than appeal an order the president notifies the SCOTUS, as a courtesy, that one of the judges under its supervision has exceeded his/her authority by issuing an invalid order and needs to be disciplined.
* verkakte: shitty, crappy
from farkakte “shat upon”
* weregild: a man price, a value paced on every being and piece of property. If property was stolen, or someone was injured or killed, the guilty person would have to pay weregild as restitution to the victim’s family or to the owner of the property.
* witan: the council of the Anglo-Saxon kings in and of England; its essential duty was to advise the king on all matters on which he chose to ask its opinion. Witenagemot.
* Zersetzung: a psychological warfare technique that was first used by Nazi Germany as part of the accusation Wehrkraftzersetzung against political opponents (which typically resulted in death penalties). Decades later, during the Honecker era, the Stasi, the East German secret police used the accusation Zersetzung to silence political opponents by repression.
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