Archive for the ‘history’ Category
Posted by kazvorpal on January 13, 2011
Nabob
Wealthy, powerful or influential individual, usually of exaggerated self-importance
Examples:
In the United States today, we have more than our share of nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own 4-H club — the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.
— William Safire, written for a Spiro Agnew speech (1970)
We must kill them. We must incinerate them. Pig after pig. Cow after cow. Village after village. Army after army. And they call me an assassin. What do you call it when the assassins accuse the assassin? They lie. They lie, and we have to be merciful, for those who lie. Those nabobs. I hate them. I do hate them.
— Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, Apocalypse Now (1979)
How can republican institutions, free schools, free churches, free social intercourse exist in a mingled community of nabobs and serfs; of the owners of twenty thousand acre manors with lordly palaces, and the occupants of narrow huts inhabited by “low white trash?”
— Rep. Thaddeus Stevens, to a meeting of the Pennsylvania delegation in Congress (1865)
Etymology:
- Used in India and Pakistan, originally for governors imposed by the Mongol empire, this is related to the Arabic honorific, na’ib
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Posted in Culture, history, humor | Tagged: agnew, apocalypse now, conservatism, english, high vocabulary, india, influence, islam, language, lexicon, lexigenous, logolepsy, mongol, mongol empire, nabob, naib, nattering nabobs of negativism, pakistan, power, safire, self-importance, spiro agnew, thaddeus stevens, vocabulary, vocabulary expansion, vocabulary words, walter e kurtz, war movies, wealth, white trash, william safire, word of the day, words, words of the day, wotd | Leave a Comment »
Posted by kazvorpal on January 7, 2011
Chthulu, on the Nefandous Southpark
Nefandous
Unspeakable.
A most severe pejorative
Examples:
Then the earth
In birth nefandous Coeus life produced
And Iapetus and Typhoeus dire
And that bad brotherhood which joined in league
To abolish heaven
— Dante Alighieri, Inferno (1308)
Only the bricks of the chimney, the stones of the cellar, some mineral and metallic litter here and there, and the rim of that nefandous well.
— H.P. Lovecraft, The Colour out of Space (1927)
No Topsman to your Tarpeia! This thing, Mister Abby, is nefand.
— James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (1939)
Etymology:
- In Latin, ne = not, fandus = to speak
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Posted in Grammar / Syntax, history, poetry | Tagged: chthulu, dante, dante alighieri, divine comedy, english, etymology, finnegans wake, h p lovecraft, high vocabulary, iapetus, inferno, james joyce, joyce, latin, lexicon, lovecraft, nefand, nefandous, religion, south park, southpark, the colour out of space, vocabulary, vocabulary expansion, vocabulary words, word of the day, words, words of the day, wotd | Leave a Comment »
Posted by kazvorpal on January 4, 2011
Barry Goldwater, delivering a hortatory speech
Hortatory
adj. Giving exhortation or advice; encouraging; exhortatory; inciting; as, a hortatory speech.
Companion to the word “minatory”, which means to threaten instead of simply urging
Examples:
Considering the avowed purpose of his work, which is rather hortatory than historical, we are fortunate indeed to be given so much first-hand information by this embittered preacher.
— Nowell Myres, in Roman Britain and the English Settlements (1937) p. 329
The hortatory narrative was a peculiar species of literature which was frequently cultivated during our period. Stories of a purely fictitious character were composed which the author no doubt intended to be regarded as founded on fact, though at the same time the object in view was not so much to impart historical information, as to use these stories as a vehicle for conveying oral and religious lessons and exhortations.
— Emil Schürer, A History of the Jewish People in the time of Jesus Christ
As I begin this hortatory address to you, ye men of Greece, I pray God that I may know what I ought to say to you, and that you, shaking off your habitual love of disputing, and being delivered from the error of your fathers, may now choose what is profitable
— Justin Martyr, Justin’s Hortatory Address to the Greeks
Etymology:
15th century, neoclassical Latin, Hortati means “to exhort”, an intensified version of Horiri, “to urge”. Same origin as “exhortation”.
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Posted in history, rhetoric | Tagged: barry goldwater, britain, christianity, emil schurer, english, etymology, high vocabulary, hortatory, justin martyr, lexicon, lexigenous, logolepsy, minatory, nowell myres, religion, rome, speeches, vocabulary, vocabulary expansion, word of the day, words, words of the day, wotd | Leave a Comment »
Posted by kazvorpal on August 12, 2010
Sockdolager
A decisive blow or (by metaphor) remark, or something similarly powerful
Possibly a tent revival word, but reached popularity as a boxing term.
Examples:
Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, you sockdologising old man-trap
— Tom Taylor, Our American Cousin (the laugh line Boothe used as cover, to shoot Lincoln)
Every second or two there’d come a glare that lit up the white-caps for a half a mile around, and you’d see the islands, looking dusty through the rain, and the trees thrashing around in the wind; then comes a H-WHACK!-bum! bum! bumble-umble-um-bum=bum-bum-bum- and the thunder would go rumbling and grumbling away, and quit – and then RIP comes another flash and another sockdolager.
—Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
That’s a sockdolager of a skill set, ain’t it? Back then, the buldge on everybody.
— Brian D’Amato, Courts of the Sun (2009)
Jim restrained himself.
“Look, carrot-face, get the murerk, else I’ll fetch you a sockdolager what’ll lay you out till Christmas,” he said.
— Phillip Pullman, The Shadow of the North (1986)
Etymology:
Invented in the 19th century, “sock”, as to hit, plus perhaps a variation on “doxology”, which of course is a Christian term for praising God.
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Posted in history, humor | Tagged: big words, boxing, dictionary, fighting, high vocabulary, hyperbole, lexicon, lexovore, obscure words, sockdolager, vocab, vocabulary, word of the day, words, wotd | 1 Comment »
Posted by kazvorpal on August 11, 2010
Obsequious
Fawning, submissively eager to please and agree
Examples:
Those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home.
— Washington Irving, Rip van Winkle
She what was honour knew,
And with obsequious majesty approv’d
My pleaded reason. To the nuptial bower
I led her blushing like the morn; all heaven
And happy constellations on that hour
— John Milton, Paradise Lost
Prison taught him the false smile, the rubbed hand of hypocrisy, the fawning, greased obsequious leer.
— Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
But it is hard to know them from friends, they are so obsequious, and full of protestations; for as a wolf resembles a dog, so doth a flatterer a friend.
— Sir Walter Raleigh, writing about flatterers, in The Voyage of the Destiny.
Etymology:
Latin: Ob = after and sequi = follow. Think “follower”, with sequi as “sequence”
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Posted in history, rhetoric | Tagged: a clockwork orange, anthony burgess, big words, fawning, flatterers, high vocabulary, lackey, lexicon, milton, obsequious, paradise lost, rip van winkle, sesquipedalia verba, sesquipedalian, sir walter raleigh, submissive, vocabulary, voyage of the destiny, washington irving, word of the day, wotd | 1 Comment »
Posted by kazvorpal on August 5, 2010
Polymath
One with many skills or fields of knowledge; a renaissance man
Examples:
A Catholic sense of sin and a social sense of disaster, a fascination with the polymathic and polyglot artist and the strange and often gross and unbidden sources of art. Nor had Burgess taught languages or studied Joyce for nothing…
— Malcolm Bradbury, The Modern British Novel (1993)
You could give Aristotle a tutorial. And you could thrill him to the core of his being. Aristotle was an encyclopedic polymath, an all time intellect. Yet not only can you know more than him about the world.
— Richard Dawkins, The Richard Dimbleby Lecture (1996)
Etymology:
A classical greek word, its parts are poly, many, and mathes, learned. The word “mathematics” does come from the same root word, as understanding numbers was once a sign of being educated.
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Posted in history, Knowledge | Tagged: ancient greek, anthony burgess, aristotle, dawkins, greek, high vocabulary, joyce, lexicon, malcolm bradbury, mathematics, polymath, renaissance men, richard dawkins, vocabulary, wotd | Leave a Comment »
Posted by kazvorpal on July 26, 2010
Ablution
Cleansing with water, literally or metaphorically
This word was often used when the purification achieved had a religious backing, as in Islam and Christianity, but when Christian purification spread to the 19th century Victorian obsession with cleanliness, this word went with it.
Examples:
Bright star! would I were stedfast as thou art-
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores.
— John Keats, Bright Star (1819)
If his ankles be weak, let them every morning be bathed, after the completion of his morning’s ablution, for five minutes each time, with bay salt and water…
— Pye Henry Chavasse, “Advice to a mother on the management of her children” (1868)
In the center of the court is a large fountain, and a small stream surrounds the piazzas, where the Moors perform the ceremony of ablution.
— John Pinkerton, Voyages and Travels (1814)
Etymology:
From the Latin Ab (off) and luere (wash), related to another less-used English word for washing, “lave“
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Posted in history, poetry | Tagged: ablution, bright star, christianity, clean, cleanliness, cooties, high vocabulary, islam, john keats, keats, lexicon, lexigenous, obsessive-compulsive disorder, ocd, poetry, purification, quotation, quotes, vocabulary, washing, word of the day, words of the day, wotd | Leave a Comment »
Posted by kazvorpal on July 21, 2010
Malversation
n. Corruption, as of a public official
Yes, we are aware that “corruption of a public official” may be redundant. See “criminal lawyer”.
Examples:
He charged him with several grievous acts of malversation in office, with abuses of a public trust of a great and heinous nature.
— Edmund Burke, speech “On the Nabob of Arcot’s debts.” (1785)
They protest against the malversation of the whole of the moneys raised by additional taxes as a Famine Insurance fund to other purposes.
— Rudyard Kipling, The Enlightenments of Agett, M. P.
Destitute of the lawful means of supporting his rank, his dignity presents a motive for malversation, and his power furnishes the means.
— Jeremy Bentham, The Rationale of Reward
The odium lies in the malversation of the real, the faking of the event and the malversation of the war.
— Jean Baudrillard, The Gulf War did not take place
Etymology: Mal is, of course, Latin for “bad” (think malicious), and versari is Latin for “to behave” (think “versatile”)
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Posted in history, rhetoric | Tagged: bentham, burke, bush, clinton, corruption, edmund burke, gulf war, jeremy bentham, kipling, Knowledge, lexicon, malversation, nixon, obama, pitt the elder, rhetoric, rudyard kipling, scandal, vocabulary, watergate, word of the day, words, wotd | Leave a Comment »
Posted by kazvorpal on July 16, 2010
Heliolatry
n. Worship of the sun, whether real or metaphorical
Sun-worship was ancient in Peru, but it was the Incas who made it the great state religion, and their heliolatry was organized for political ends.
— Rushton M. Dorman, “The Origin of Primitive Superstitions”
I remember hearing stories in college about Ibiza, where big-breasted women laid out naked practicing heliolatry on the beaches, and E pills were as abundant as hard candy in an old folks’ home.
— Chris Baker
I am certain that if our preparations for greeting the returning sun were seen by other people, either civilised or savage, we would be thought disciples of heliolatry.
— Frederick Albert Cook, Through the first Antarctic night
Etymology: Helios was the Greek god of the sun (Apollo the god of light, not the sun, although his worship became so popular that it eventually adopted many of the stories that originated with Helios, including that of the sun being a chariot he drove)
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Posted in history, poetry | Tagged: antarctica, apollo, aztecs, chris baker, cook, definitions, helios, high vocabulary, incas, Knowledge, lexicon, sol, sun, sun worship, sunbathing, sunlight, tanning, tanning beds, vocabulary, vocabulary expansion, word of the day, words of the day, wotd | 5 Comments »
Posted by kazvorpal on July 15, 2010
Defenestrate
v. To throw out of a window, or by simile for throwing out, or a lack of windows
A term made famous by the Defenestrations of Prague, the start of a growing tradition of throwing bad politicians out of windows when ousting them from power.
Now, I don’t want to go on a rant here, but America’s foreign policy makes about as much sense as Beowulf having sex with Robert Fulton at the first Battle of Antietam. I mean, when a neo-conservative defenestrates, it’s like Raskolnikov filibuster deoxymonohydroxinate.
— Dennis Miller, our honorary solecistic sesquipedalian, on The Family Guy
Apple lost its opportunity to defenestrate Windows
— Nick Farrell (2007)
All of this gets defenestrated (right out the window) if we find we cannot trust the Bible regular, day-to-day, earthly information.
— Cliff Walker, March 31, 2008
Etymology: This is a back-construction from the word “fenestrated”, meaning “to have windows”, originating with the original, 17th century Defenestration of the Prague.
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Posted in history | Tagged: apple, battle of antietam, big words, defenestrate, denniss miller, family guy, high vocabulary, history, literature, neo-conservatives, nick farrell, prague, robert fulton, sesquipedalian, the family guy, vocabulary, windows, word of the day, wotd | Leave a Comment »
