Vocabulary, words and phrases encountered since last time

The list is longer than expected because there are a lot of stupid words. And some definitions are longer than they need to be. Some are common but looked up anyway, some are intuitive, some misleading, and other are just ridiculous. Some were used to be funny, others used to show off. Some academic, others specialist jargon. Some are archaic. A few are actually helpful. Apparently three words are repeats.

Here goes.

* Acheulian: An archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by distinctive oval and pear-shaped "hand-axes" associated with early humans. Acheulean tools were produced during the Lower Paleolithic era across Africa and much of West Asia, South Asia, and Europe, and are typically found with Homo erectus remains. It is thought that Acheulean technologies first developed in Africa out of the more primitive Oldowan technology as long ago as 1.76 million years ago, by Homo habilis. Acheulean tools were the dominant technology for the vast majority of human history.

* adduce: To mention or provide as evidence or proof to support an argument.

* Adeste Fideles:

Adeste fideles,
Laeti triumphantes;
Venite, venite in Bethlehem;
Natum videte,
Regem Angelorum

Oh, come all ye faithful.

* Anacreontic: (uh-nak-ree-ON-tik) adjective celebrating love and drinking. noun An Anacreontic poem. [After Anacreon, a Greek poet in the 6th century BCE, noted for his songs in praise of love and wine.] The US national anthem 'The Star-Spangled Banner' is set to the tune of the English song 'To Anacreon in Heaven' which was the 'constitutional song' of the Anacreontic Society, a gentlemen's music club in London. "Some days passed before I could rid my thoughts of Thecla ... who had initiated me into the anacreontic diversions and fruitions of men and women." Gene Wolfe; Shadow & Claw; Orb Books; 1994. "It was the 20th-century extracts which fired the imagination two extracts from Augusta Read Thomas's l2-part Love Songs - one ('The Rub of Love') a pithy, short Anacreontic, the other ('Alas, the love of women!') a wittily contrived parody."

* anaphora: rhetorical repetition of word or phrase at the beginning of two or more sentences.

* anodyne: Stills pain and quietens disturbed feelings. A pain-relieving medicine, milder than analgesic.

* anomie: Clued “social breakdown.” As in the case of uprooted people.

* apodosis: The main clause of a conditional sentence — compare protasis.

The clause expressing the consequence in a conditional sentence, as then I will in If you go, then I will;

The mournful assumption among many of Trump’s supporters is that the frenzy of media hysteria, though almost comically baseless, is nonetheless dangerous because, on the throw-enough-mud-and-some-will-stick principle, it has an abrading, delegitimizing effect, a drip-drip-drip apodosis that is corrosive of trust.

Ha. Sample used it wrongly.

That's it for the A words. B words continue next page.



* Benny: C-note

* bilco: The Bilco Company line of products, including Roof Hatches, Smoke Vents, Floor Access Doors, Safety Products, Intrusion Detection, Bilco Basement Doors, Egress Window Wells and Perm Entry Entrance

The clip shows the 67-year-old woman just before her mishap walking straight toward the bilco doors — open due to gas line repairs in the area, the outlet said — then apparently glancing down at her cellphone before flipping into the opening.

* bollard: Nautical A thick post on a ship or wharf, used for securing ropes and hawsers. One of a series of posts preventing vehicles from entering an area.  A projecting bulge of snow or ice used as an anchor for a rope in mountaineering.

* brisance: the shattering effect of the sudden release of energy in an explosion.

* buckrake: (Agriculture) a large rake for agricultural use, often attached to a tractor.

So they just decided to invent their own political campaign which is not time-limited as ordinary campaigns are, and just buckrake endlessly to get this or that person silenced.

* Chanson de geste: song gesture (heroic deeds), a type of epic poem that appears a the dawn of French literature.

* cheongsam: one-piece Chinese dress

* A colloquium: An academic activity. Typically, a colloquium consists of a single lecture given by a member of the academic community about his or her work to colleagues who work in the same or an allied field.[1] The audience is expected to ask questions and to evaluate the work presented. Colloquia provide scholars with the opportunity to face and respond to criticism in the early stages of the development of new ideas.

In legal parlance, colloquium is the part of a complaint for defamation in which the plaintiff avers that the defamatory remarks related to him or her.

* croft: A fenced or enclosed area of land, usually small and arable with a crofter's dwelling thereon. A crofter is one who has tenure and use of the land, typically as a tenant farmer, especially in rural areas.

* croupier rakes: a small rake used by a croupier to move chips around on the table

But instead of liberating Europe from evil fascists, politicians like Hillary Clinton use their long, worn croupier rakes to move their pawns about with the singular goal of advancing their own personal political careers.

* cynosure:  a person or thing that attracts a lot of attention or interest. something that strongly attracts attention by its brilliance, interest, etc.

"What's the right thing to do in this particular case?" That seems to be his cynosure.

* diglot: (Linguistics) a less common word for bilingual

identified as that of the revision of Tyndale found in an English and Latin diglot New Testament, published by Miles Coverdale in Paris.

* dirigiste: Directed by a central authority; as, a dirigiste economy; with respect to economics, opposed to free-market. See also dirigisme.

* Djellaba: long loose-fitting unisex outer robe with full sleeves worn in Maghreb region of North Africa. Traditionally wool although now cotton is common.

* egest: spew out from the body

* fillip: 1 A snap of the finger forced suddenly from the thumb; a smart blow. 2 Something serving to rouse or excite; a stimulus. 3 A trivial addition; an embellishment.

* ganzfeld: snow-blindness.

I think that the vast number of aHa•n clauses in the text contributes to a sort of linguistic ganzfeld – snow blindness, if you will – which masks the true nature of the word as it appears in this instance. (They’re studying Hoch, Middle Egyptian)

* Ginchy

From dictionary.com

attractive, sexy, and cool

From Urban dictionary

from the more widely accepted, gincheist. meaning cool groovy, hep, happenin', awesome, kick-ass, rockin

the pinnacle of cool

Wonderfully good or attractive

In 1989 used to describe something that was sweet and cool hardly dangerous or rock'n roll

* granfalloons: in the fictional religion of Bokononism (created by Kurt Vonnegut in his 1963 novel Cat's Cradle), is defined as a "false karass". That is, it is a group of people who affect a shared identity or purpose, but whose mutual association is meaningless.

Workers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your granfalloons and artificial divisions.

* heuristic: A method to help solve a problem, commonly an informal method. It is particularly used to rapidly come to a solution that is reasonably close to the best possible answer, or 'optimal solution'. Heuristics are "rules of thumb", educated guesses, intuitive judgments or simply common sense.

In more precise terms, heuristics stand for strategies using readily accessible, though loosely applicable, information to control problem-solving in human beings and machines.

* Hoplophobia: Irrational aversion to weapons, a political neologism coined by retired American military officer Jeff Cooper as a pejorative.

* immanentize the eschaton: Trying to make the eschaton (the transcendent, uncreated, spiritual, or future; the end of days, to trigger the apocalypse, see eschatology) in the immanent (within the limits of possible experience) world. More recently, it has been used by conservatives as pejorative against what they perceive as utopian schemes, such as socialism, communism, etc. It has also been used by Christian libertarians to criticize George W. Bush and the neo-conservative movement.[1] In all these contexts it means "trying to make that which belongs to the afterlife happen here and now (on Earth)" or "trying to create heaven here on Earth."

* inanition: The exhausted state due to prolonged undernutrition; starvation.

America, which is entertaining itself to inanition, has never experienced a scarcity of entertainment.

* instaure: (obsolete, transitive) To renew or renovate; to instaurate.

They can and do go before the courts to receive justice. Instauring a system where rights are respected where barbary existed isn't occupation. The Palestinians don't have a right to a state. Rights only belong to individuals. And individuals who do not respect the rights of others cannot claim any rights. In the words of Hamas, Palestinians love death as much as Israeli love life. Death worshipers have no rightfull claim to anything.

* Interstitial: An interstitial space or interstice is a space between structures or objects.

Physical sciences- interstitial defect, interstitial element, interstitial compound.

Biology and medicined- interstitial cell, interstitial collagenase, interstitial fluid, interstitial infusion, interstitial keratitis, interstitial pregnancy

Diseases- interstitial cell tumor, interstitial cystitis, interstitial granulomatous dermatitis, interstitial lung disease, interstitial hephritis

Arts - interstitial art, interstitial space (architecture)

Communications- interstitial program, interstitial webpage, station identification

Twitter: Similarly, I've "OBTAINED" a free sub to the NYT by clicking on the RSS symbol in my URL window when your paywall interstitial pops up!

* Kantian duty: based on the view that the only intrinsically good thing is a good will; an action can only be good if its maxim – the principle behind it – is duty to the moral law. Central to Kant's construction of the moral law is the categorical imperative, which acts on all people, regardless of their interests or desires. Kant formulated the categorical imperative in various ways. His principle of universalisability requires that, for an action to be permissible, it must be possible to apply it to all people without a contradiction occurring. His formulation of humanity as an end in itself requires that humans are never treated merely as a means to an end, but always also as ends in themselves.

Judged by that standard, Merkel is a secular saint who has done her solemn Kantian duty, treating every refugee as an end and never simply as a means, conforming her actions to the austere demands of an absolute, unconditional moral imperative, refusing to take concrete worldly consequences into account in determining What Must Be Done.

* knout: heavy scourge-like multiple whip, usually made of a bunch of rawhide thongs attached to a long handle, sometimes with metal wire or hooks incorporated. The English word stems from a spelling-pronunciation of a French transliteration of the Russian word кнут (knut), which simply means "whip".

I'm sure being flogged with a cat of nine tails is no bucket of ice cream. It is, however, preferable to being whipped by a knout.

* latitudinarian: Free-thinking: unwilling to accept authority or dogma (especially in religion) A person who is broad-minded and tolerant (especially in standards of religious belief and conduct) Initially a pejorative term applied to a group of 17th-century English theologians who believed in conforming to official Church of England practices but who felt that matters of doctrine, liturgical practice, and ecclesiastical organization were of relatively little ...

* litotes:  Understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary (as in “not a bad singer” or “not unhappy”)

Mary had no giant lamb / its fleece was not unwhite.

* louche: Of questionable morality or repute

* maundy: the ceremony of washing the feet of the poor, especially commemorating Jesus' washing of His disciples' feet on Maundy Thursday.

Also called maundy money. money distributed as alms in conjunction with the ceremony of maundy or on Maundy Thursday.

* mirabile dictu: Wonderful to relate, used to refer to something surprising.

it deliberately reverse-targeted political opponents, on the pretext that normal monitoring of Russian officials had, mirabile dictu, caught up Trump associates.

* MOUT: Military Operation in Urban Terrain.

I have been trained in MOUT, so have a lot of us, eventually genies don’t et put back in bottles.

* Mrs Grundy: A figurative name for an extremely conventional or priggish person, a personification of the tyranny of conventional propriety. A tendency to be overly fearful of what the respectable might think is also referred to as grundyism.

The Republican Party is a collection of stodgy, cowardly, pee- stained old men whose only tactic is to compromise unnecessarily. Nobody ever bothered to tell them that Mrs. Grundy (look her up) walked out on them long ago.

* mulct: Either get this corrupt fascist fired or mulct the goddmaned Ohio treasury for $10 million.

 fine , penalty

A fine is money paid usually to superior authority, usually governmenal authority, and in respect of a crime, but also in some other contexts.

* Mutatis mutandis:  A Medieval Latin phrase meaning "the necessary changes having been made" or "once the necessary changes have been made". It acknowledges that a comparison being made requires certain obvious alterations, which are left unstated. Compared with  ceteris paribus, which excludes any changes other than those explicitly mentioned. It is shorthand for all the initial and derived changes which have been previously discussed.

* Nanofermentation: Using bacteria to facilitate the controlled growth of nanomaterials, can be manipulated by adding chemical control agents to control particle sizes.  This technology will be used to synthesize a variety of candidate materials for quantum dots.  (DOE share: $250,000; recipient share: $0: duration: 12 months)

* ne plus ultra: the highest point, the most intense degree of a quality or state.

* Niankhknum and Khnumhotep: Tomb of the Hairdressers. Tomb of two brothers

* Oldowan: the earliest widespread stone tool archaeological industry in prehistory (it is pre-dated by Lomekwian tools at a single site dated to 3.3 million years ago[1]). Oldowan tools were used during the Lower Paleolithic period, 2.6 million years ago up until 1.7 million years ago, by ancient hominids across much of Africa, South Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Followed by the more sophisticated Acheulean industry.

* ontology:
  •Ontologies resemble faceted taxonomies but use richer semantic relationships among terms and attributes, as well as strict rules about how to ...

  •the study of the nature being

  •An explicit formal specification of how to represent objects, concepts and other entities that are assumed to exist in some area of interest and ...

  •Metaphysics, or a subdiscipline of metaphysics which investigates the fundamental kinds of entities and relations which hold between them. ...

  •A branch of philosophy focusing upon the origins, essence and meaning of being.

* panade: A mixture of starch and liquid that is added to ground meat. Any combination of starch (bread, panko, crackers) and liquids (milk, buttermilk, yogurt, stock, water) can be used. Varying the combination of panade ingredients and incorporating aromatics and spices can add more or less flavor depending on your taste preference.

* paradiddle: an exercise or sequence performed typically on the snare drum, marked by four basic beats with alternation of the right hand and left hand on successive strong beats, and begun and ended slowly with a dramatic increase in tempo in the middle.

This usually ends with said idiot getting shot, or at least having a paradiddle drumbeat played on his fool head by a cop’s nightstick.

* Parshot:   Formally means a section of a biblical book in the Masoretic Text of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). The division of the text into parashot for the biblical books is independent of chapter and verse numbers, which are not part of the masoretic tradition. Parashot are not numbered, but some have special names. Parashot appear in manuscripts as early as the Dead Sea Scrolls, in which the division is generally similar to that found in the masoretic text.[7] The idea of spacing between portions, including the idea of "open" and "closed" portions, is mentioned in early midrashic literature[8] and the Talmud. Early masoretic lists detailing the Babylonian tradition include systematic and detailed discussion of exactly where portions begin and which type they are.

The name of the Parsha (weekly Torah reading) which contains the Ten Commandments isn’t  named after the holy rules. It’d called Yitro, after Moses’ father-in-law who was a Gentile (in fact the Druze consider themselves descended from Yitro). There are only two Parshot in the Torah named after a non-Jew—so this is a big deal.

* parterre: An ornamental flower garden having the beds and paths arranged to form a pattern. Crossword clue was “garden-path locale”

* Poetaster, like rhymester or versifier, is a contemptuous name often applied to bad or inferior poets. Specifically, poetaster has implications of unwarranted pretentions to artistic value. The term was coined by Ben Jonson in his 1601 play The Poetaster; Jonson applied the term to John Marston and Thomas Dekker, his rivals in the Poetomachia or War of the Theatres.

How these authors magnify their office!  One dishonest plmber does more harm than a hundred poetasters.  Birrell

* punnets: A small light basket used as a measure for fruits. A basket for displaying and collecting fruits or flowers. Farmer's markets sometimes sell fruits and berries in plastic punnets. Decorative punnets are often made of felt and seen in flower and craft arrangements.

* rattlesnake master: an odd multi headed thistle that looks like alien orbs on stalks, three or four to a branch also shaped as a stalk. Button snake-root, perennial of the parsley family. Eryngium yuccifolium because it has leaves that look like yucca leaves.

* Romani ite domum: (Romans go home) is the corrected Latin phrase for the graffito "Romanes eunt domus" from a scene in the film Monty Python's Life of Brian.

* rusticated: To go to the country. To stay or sojourn in the country. To make rustic, as persons or manners. To finish a wall surface to produce or suggest rustication. British, to suspend a student from a university as punishment.

* Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum: If you want peace prepare for war.

* sitrep: Situation Report. An itemized list and/or written account, usually issued on a daily basis, detailing the status of various fire-related activities. In the US military, a situation report

* 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.

* sperg: An Asperger’s person throwing a tantrum. To have an infantile shitfit about something completely arbitrary.

The term “Moral Hazard” has become a safe word for innumerate fetishists, who will be tempted to sperg on it.

* standee: a person who stands, as in a public conveyance, usu. because all seats are occupied.

* tinhorn: Someone, especially a gambler, who pretends to be important but actually has little money, influence, or skill. Cheap and insignificant; small-time.

* tref: Not kosher. Unfit to be eatern or used according to religious laws.

* wen: A harmless cyst, especially on the scalp or face, containing the fatty secretion of a sebaceous gland.


"Excuse my brusquerie," he hissed; "but, sir, do you suppose --
That portly man who passed us had a wen upon his nose?"

* wodge: large lump: a large lump or chunk of something (informal)
They caught him stuffing wodges of banknotes into his pockets.

[Mid-19th century. Blend of wad + wedge]

* yegg: A thief, especially a burglar or safecracker.