Posted by kazvorpal on January 14, 2011
This was going to be a caption about the haptic experience depicted above...but this editor is too distracted to remember what he was going to say
Haptic
Having to do with the sense of touch, as in haptic poetry
A search of Google Books will produce hundreds of engineering books using this word, and one may anticipate it becoming common in society, as technology becomes more touch-oriented.
Examples:
Does ontological chaos (whether acoustic, visual, or haptic in origin) actively nourish equivocal magic, or is magic uncertain because it is rarely, barely discernible behind the chaos of the everyday?
— Hugues Azèrad, Peter Collie, Twentieth-Century French Poetry: A Critical Anthology
Haptic displays can be considered to be devices which generate mechanical impedances.
— D. W. Weir and J. E. Colgate, “Stability of Haptic Displays”
The haptic system is the perceptional system by which animals and men are literally in touch with the environment. When we say figuratively that a man is in touch with the environment by looking or listening, the metaphor is something to think about.
— James J Gibson, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems
Etymology:
- From the Greek hap (to grab), the same origin as “have”, and ticos, used to form an adjective from another part of speech
Posted in Knowledge | Tagged: contact, cuddling, dual shock, english, etymology, feel, haptic, haptic poetry, high vocabulary, Knowledge, language, massage, nerves, physical, poetry, sensuality, touch, vibrating controller, vocabulary, vocabulary expansion, vocabulary words, word of the day, wotd | Leave a Comment »
Posted by kazvorpal on January 11, 2011
Cynosure
Something bright that attracts the eyes, (therefore) something that serves as a beacon, guide
Examples:
Yes, we have throned Him in our minds and hearts — the cynosure of our wandering thoughts — the monarch of our warmest affections, hopes, desires.
— Richard Fuller, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)
The age demanded a hero, Lawrence qualified, and the 20th century then got what it deserved: a loner, an ascetic, a man who might have been happier as a medieval monk than as the public cynosure he became
— Paul Gray, in The Hero Our Century Deserved, about T.E. Lawrence (1989)
Meadows trim, with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide;
Towers and balements it sees
Bosomed high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The cynosure of neighboring eyes.
— John Milton, L’Allegro (1631)
Etymology:
- Greek: Cyno means “dog”, oura is “tail”. referring to the tail of the Little Dipper, which contains Polaris, the star used to navigate in the northern hemisphere
Posted in poetry | Tagged: allegro, christianity, cynosure, dog, english, etymology, god, high vocabulary, john milton, Knowledge, lallegro, language, lexicon, light, little dipper, logolepsy, milton, navigation, new words, north star, paul gray, poetry, polaris, religion, richard fuller, statue of liberty, t e lawrence, vocabulary, vocabulary expansion, word of the day, words, words of the day, 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“
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 