Posts Tagged ‘lexigenous’
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 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 July 31, 2010
Risible
Laughable, ridiculous
This word once meant “capable of laughter”, like “Man is a risible animal”, but it’s meaning has transferred from active to passive, the same error as using “done” to mean “finished”.
Examples:
The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.
— Samuel Johnson, The Life of Browne (1756)
The adventure of the fulling-mills in Don Quixote, is extremely risible, so is the scene where Sancho, in a dark night, tumbling into a pit, and attaching himself to the side by hand and foot, hangs there in terrible dismay till the morning, when he discovers himself to be within a foot of the bottom.
— Lord Henry Home Kames, Elements of Criticism (1761)
Orwell’s attempt to connect the leader of the Petrograd Soviet to the stalwarts of “Dad’s Army” is nearly, but not quite, risible.
— Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters (2002)
Etymology:
Risus is latin the past tense of ridere, to laugh, so this can be remembered as coming from the same word as “ridicule”, however different it now sounds.
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Posted in humor, rhetoric | Tagged: christopher hitchens, don quixote, etymology, george orwell, high vocabulary, humor, latin, laughable, laughter, lexigenous, orwell, risible, samuel johnson, sancho, the life of browne, trotskyite, vocabulary, word of the day, wotd | Leave a Comment »
Posted by kazvorpal on July 29, 2010
Malamanteau
A neologism for a portmanteau created by incorrectly combining a malapropism with a neologism.
It is itself a portmanteau of “malapropism” and “portmanteau”
Examples:
Malamanteau is a cromulent word
— Randall Munroe, (∞)
Etymology:
Mala is Greek for “bad”, manteau is French for “cloak” (same origin as the word mantle)
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Posted in humor, poetry | Tagged: high vocabulary, highvocab, humor, irony, large vocabulary, lexicon, lexigenous, lexivore, lexovore, logolepsy, malamanteau, malapropism, neologism, parody, portmanteau, randall munroe, satire, vocabulary, word of the day, wotd, xkcd | 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 | 1 Comment »
High-Vocabulary Word of the Day 