effloresce

effloresce \EF-luh-res\, verb:

1. To burst into bloom; blossom.
2. In chemistry, to change either throughout or on the surface to a mealy or powdery substance upon exposure to air, as a to change either throughout or on the surface to a mealy or powdery substance upon exposure to air, as a crystalline substance through loss of water of crystallization.

Do I, from scholar, effloresce into literary man, author by profession?
-- Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, The Caxtons; A Family Picture

Her leaves do not expand, or her flower-buds effloresce, unless sure of a quantum suff of sunshine.
-- Mrs. Gore (Catherine Grace Frances), Cecil: Or, The Adventures of Coxcom: A Novel

Effloresce combines the Latin roots ex-, "out of", and florescere, "to blossom."

turncoat

turncoat

PRONUNCIATION:

(TUHRN-koht) 

MEANING:

noun: Someone who changes allegiance and joins the opposite side. 

ETYMOLOGY:

The color, and especially the color of clothing, has long symbolized association with a particular cause. For example, soldiers in an army or players in a sports team don a designated color. The idea behind the word turncoat is someone switching allegiances and turning his coat inside out to hide his earlier colors. Earliest documented use: 1567. 

USAGE:

"You could almost imagine the little turncoats from the last poster creeping off and taking up residence in another series of photographs downstairs."
Julius Purcell; Faces That Cannot be Argued Away; Financial Times (London, UK); Jul 18, 2006. 

Explore "turncoat" in the Visual Thesaurus. 

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. -George Washington, 1st US president, general (1732-1799)

Ensconce

ensconce\in-SKAHNSS\

 

 

verb

 

1 :	to place or hide securely : conceal
2 :	to establish or settle firmly, comfortably, or snugly

 

 

Rather than ensconce the discouraging news in falsely hopeful language, the doctor imparted the diagnosis in a clear, straightforward manner.   "From Wednesday morning through Sunday night, nine men and one woman along with assorted helpers and facilitators will be sequestered on the 15th floor of The Westin hotel in Indianapolis. Ensconced in a luxury bunker, they won't come out for good until they've decided the 68 NCAA men's tournament teams, seeded them and placed them in the brackets." — From an article by Rusty Miller for the Associated Press, March 7, 2011

 

 

You might think of "sconce" as a type of candleholder or lamp, but the word can also refer to a defensive fortification, usually one made of earth. Originally, then, a person who was "ensconced" was enclosed in or concealed by such a structure, out of harm's way. The earliest writer to apply the verb "ensconce" with the general sense of "hide" was William Shakespeare. In The Merry Wives of Windsor, the character Falstaff, hoping to avoid detection when he is surprised during an amorous moment with Mrs. Ford, says "She shall not see me; I will ensconce me behind the arras." (An arras is a tapestry or wall hanging.)

anneal

anneal \uh-NEEL\, verb:

1. To toughen or temper. 
2. To heat (glass, earthenware, metals, etc.) to remove or prevent internal stress.
3. To free from internal stress by heating and gradually cooling.
4. To fuse colors onto (a vitreous or metallic surface) by heating.

Bracelets and spiral-headed pins of copper, and also of gold, which is even easier toanneal, appear almost at once.
-- Leon E. Stover, Bruce Kraig, Stonehenge: the Indo-European Heritage

The sinister imputations that could be drawn from that damning conversation on the tape, and her acceptance of their treachery, had only served to anneal her mind. 
-- Barbara Taylor Bradford, A Woman of Substance

Anneal has ancient roots in the Old English root anǣlan, "to kindle."

jamboree

jamboree \JAM-buh-ree\, noun:

1. A carousal; any noisy merrymaking.
2. A large gathering, as of a political party or the teams of a sporting league, often including a program of speeches and entertainment.
3. A large gathering of members of the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, usually nationwide or international in scope

Several thoughtful riflemen had foregone the shooting jamboree to place themselves as cover guards for the MG.
-- James Jones , The thin red line

Well, the great jamboree was over at last, not only the jamboree of the two Armistice Days (and really, we could have celebrated a dozen), but of the past several years. 
-- Charles Jackson , The sunnier side: Arcadian tales

Jamboree is an American invention, an apparent blend of jabber and shivaree.

avoir les chocottes

avoir les chocottes (ahv whar lay sho showts)

    : to have the jitters

Tip: Read beyond the word of the day. Discover stories from a French life, just below. You will learn many more French words in context as well as everyday expressions not found in a textbook.

shirty

shirty

PRONUNCIATION:

(SHUHR-tee) 

MEANING:

adjective: Bad-tempered, irritable. 

ETYMOLOGY:

From the expression "to get someone's shirt out" to annoy or to lose one's temper. Earliest documented use: 1846. 

USAGE:

"We can appreciate why Lukie Muhlemann is a little agitated and shirty, but he should remember that CSFB is essentially a law unto itself."
Ian Kerr; A Week in the Markets; Euroweek (London); Jan 26, 2001. 

Axiomatic

axiomatic\ak-see-uh-MAT-ik\

 

 

adjective

 

1 : taken for granted : self-evident

2 : based on or involving an axiom or system of axioms

 

 

The axiomatic concept of supply and demand dictates that if there is a decrease in the amount of a commodity available and an increase in the public need for it, then the price of that commodity will go up.   "It has long been unspoken but axiomatic among those who live in the stratospheric world of the membership rolls of Augusta National Golf Club: people desperate to join never will, regardless of how hard they may try." — From an article by Larry Dorman in the New York Times, April 9, 2011

 

 

An axiom is a principle widely accepted on the basis of its intrinsic merit or one regarded as self-evidently true. A statement that is axiomatic therefore, is one against which few people would argue. "Axiomatic" entered English from Middle Greek "axiōmatikos," and "axiom" derived via Latin from Greek "axiōma" ("something worthy") and "axios" ("worthy"). The word "axiom" can also refer to a statement accepted as true as the basis for argument or inference. Such axioms are often employed in discussions of philosophy, as well as in mathematics and geometry (where they are sometimes called postulates).

se livrer

se livrer (seuh lee vray)

    1. to give oneself up

    2. to open up to, to confide

    3. to devote oneself to

 

Audio File: listen to the following expressions  (Download MP3 or Wav file)

se livrer à un vice = to surrender to a vice
se livrer à la boisson = to take to drink
se livrer au désespoir = to give up in despair 

peregrinate

peregrinate \PER-i-gruh-neyt\, verb:

1. To travel or journey, especially to walk on foot.
2. To travel or walk over; traverse.

The old show man and his literary coadjutor were already tackling their horses to the wagon, with a design to peregrinate southwest along the sea coast.
-- Nathaniel Hawthorne, Tales and sketches

It was likewise part of her duty to peregrinate the Square and its planted enclosure with little Roland (whose baptism had been a grand affair) for a daily airing, and then there was no mistress to watch her footsteps, or to know what associates she formed beyond the limited range of the drawing room windows.
-- Mrs. George Linnaeus Banks, The watchmaker's daughter and other tales

Peregrinate derives from the Latin peregrinatus, "in the act of transit."

Meme

meme\MEEM\

 

 

noun

 

:	an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture

 

 

It is easy to fall prey to a meme that has been perpetuated by the mass media even without any evidence to support the original idea.   "The Internet-to-print projects usually happen swiftly, Boog noted, so the books are released before the Internet 'meme' - a concept that spreads online - loses the interest of fickle fans." — From an article by Joseph Lord in The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky), April 3, 2011

 

 

In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, British scientist Richard Dawkins defended his newly coined word "meme," which he defined as "a unit of cultural transmission." Having first considered, then rejected, "mimeme," he wrote: "'Mimeme' comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like 'gene.' I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate 'mimeme' to 'meme.'" (The suitable Greek root was "mim-," meaning "mime" or "mimic." The English suffix "-eme" indicates a distinctive unit of language structure, as in "grapheme," "lexeme," and "phoneme.") "Meme" itself, like any good meme, caught on fairly quickly, spreading from person to person as it established itself in the language.

yin

yin \YIN\, noun:

A principle in Chinese philosophy associated with negative, dark, and feminine attributes.

Han adds that the principles of yin and yang plus the five elements explain how all things in nature grow on the basis of mutual interactions.
-- Reggie Aspiras, "'Kalbi,' 'bulgogi,' 'bibimbap'-the yin and yang of Korean food," Inquirer.net, 2011

The department's ragingly-successful Facebook page needed a communication avenue that would complement its change-a-minute, do-whatever-I-want attitude - a partner in crime, a yin to it's yang, a Starsky to it's Hutch.
-- Jake Poole, "Makeover adds tools to Medina Police website," Sun Star Courier, Medina Sun, 2011

Yin, almost always in association with yang, means "bright" in Chinese.

Aspersion

aspersion

spersion\uh-SPER-zhun\

 

 

noun

 

1 :	a sprinkling with water especially in religious ceremonies
2	a :	a false or misleading charge meant to harm someone's reputation
	b :	the act of making such a charge : defamation

 

 

Melissa believed that Roger had unjustly cast aspersionson the quality of her research.   "There's always, for whoever is president, the opponents, the people on the other side who cast aspersions that they may not even believe themselves…." — Laura Bush in an interview on Fox News Network, May 16, 2010

 

 

"No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall / To make this contract grow." In this line from Shakespeare's The Tempest, "aspersion" literally refers to a sprinkling of rain, but figuratively means "blessing." Shakespeare's use is true to the heritage of the term. "Aspersion" comes from the Latin word "aspersus," itself a derivative of the verb "aspergere," which means "to sprinkle" or "to scatter." When "aspersion" first appeared in English in the 16th century, it referred to the type of sprinklings (for instance, of holy water) that occur in religious ceremonies. But English speakers noted that splatterings can soil and stain, and by the end of the century "aspersion" was also being used for reports that stain or tarnish a reputation.

marginalia

marginalia \mahr-juh-NEY-lee-uh\, noun:

Notes in the margin of a book, manuscript, or letter.

On the huge mahogany table there lay face downward a badly worn copy of Borellus, bearing many cryptical marginalia and interlineations in Curwen's hand.
-- Howard Phillips Lovecraft, S. T. Joshi, The thing on the doorstep and other weird stories

But the scribbled marginalia in Myhre's notebook tells a different tale.
-- "Sweat without the Wet?," Popular Science, Vol. 261, No. 3

Marginalia derives from the Latin marginalis, "the space or edge of something, or something of little importance."

faire passer le temps

faire passer le temps (fer passay leuh tahmp)

    : to while away the time

Vitrine

vitrine\vuh-TREEN\

 

 

noun

 

:	a glass showcase or cabinet especially for displaying fine wares or specimens

 

 

The tiny antiquarian bookshop has some books that are available for browsing, but the rarer and more valuable volumes are housed in the tall vitrines that line the walls.   "A weathered wooden child's chair is stacked atop its twin, with two bright pink plastic bowls stacked on the top seat. In an adjacent vitrine sits a miniature version of this assemblage, the tiny pieces placed in the center of a bright orange square of velvet." — From an art exhibit review by Jessica Baran in the Riverfront Times (St. Louis, MO), February 24, 2011

 

 

The history of "vitrine" is clear as glass. It comes to English by way of the Old French word "vitre," meaning "pane of glass," from Latin "vitrum," meaning "glass." "Vitrum" has contributed a number of words to the English language besides "vitrine." "Vitreous" ("resembling glass" or "relating to, derived from, or consisting of glass") is the most common of these. "Vitrify" ("to convert or become converted into glass or into a glassy substance by heat and fusion") is another. A much rarer "vitrum" word — and one that also entered English by way of "vitre" — is "vitrailed," meaning "fitted with stained glass."

scurrilous

scurrilous \SKUR-uh-luhs\, adjective:

1. Grossly or obscenely abusive.
2. Characterized by or using low buffoonery.

As always with scurrilous rumors, 'tis best to do nothing.
-- Julia Justiss, Rogue's Lady

But, promised the Prime Minister as he began, the speech would take only seven hours, at the most, providing the Opposition did not interrupt too often with scurrilousirrelevancies.
-- Anthony C. Winkler, The Painted Canoe

Scurrilous likely traces its origin to the Etruscan language, coming into Latin as scurrilis, "fashionable city idler," and, later, "buffoon."

Lavation - and a "test your memory" quiz

lavation\lay-VAY-shun\       noun   : the act or an instance of washing or cleansing         "Instead of careful lavations with a few minims of the miraculous water, she bathed daily in one or another of the springs, and imbibed gallons of the fabulous flow of the streams." — From Jack Vance's 2004 novel Lurulu "In Maycomb County, it was easy to tell when someone bathed regularly, as opposed to yearly lavations: Mr. Ewell had a scalded look; as if an overnight soaking had deprived him of protective layers of dirt, his skin appeared to be sensitive to the elements." — From Harper Lee's 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird         It sounds logical that you would perform a "lavation" in a "lavatory," doesn't it? And it is logical: both words come from Latin "lavare," meaning, appropriately, "to wash." English picked up a few other words from this root as well. In medicine, the therapeutic washing out of an organ is "lavage." There is also "lavabo" (in Latin, literally, "I shall wash"), which in English can refer to a ceremony at Mass in which the celebrant washes his hands, to the basin used in this religious ceremony, or to other kinds of basins. Even the word "lavish," via a Middle French word for a downpour of rain, comes to us from "lavare."

Volte-face

PRONUNCIATION:

(volt-FAHS) 

MEANING:

noun: A reversal in policy or opinion; about-face. 

ETYMOLOGY:

From French, from Italian voltafaccia, from voltare (to turn), from Vulgar Latin volvitare, frequentative of Latin volvere (to turn) + faccia (face). Earliest documented use: 1819. 

USAGE:

"The possibility of a flotation was a remarkable volte-face for Standard Life."
Carmel Crimmins; Standard Life Pays Its Former Chief More Than £1m; Irish Examiner (Cork, Ireland); Mar 1, 2004.

"Not too long after the panels indicted the former Senate President, the Senate made a volte-face on its action, dumped the documents, and cleared those indicted of any wrongdoing!"
Senate and Unending Bribery Scandals; Daily Times (Lagos, Nigeria); Feb 19, 2004. 

Explore "volte-face" in the Visual Thesaurus. 

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

An individual human existence should be like a river: small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. -Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970) 

Canorous

canorous \kuh-NOR-us; KAN-or-uhs\, adjective:

Richly melodious; pleasant sounding; musical.

I felt a deep contentment listening to the meadowlark's complex melody as he sat on his bragging post calling for a mate, and the soft canorous whistle of the bobwhite as he whistled his name with intermittent lulls.
-- Donna R. La Plante, "Remember When: The prairie after a spring rain", Kansas City Star, March 16, 2003

But birds that are canorous and whose notes we most commend, are of little throats, and short necks, as Nightingales, Finches, Linnets, Canary birds and Larks.
-- Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica

Canorous comes from the Latin canor, "melody," from canere, "to sing." It is related tochant, from French chanter, "to sing," ultimately from Latin canere.

metier

métier \met-YAY; MET-yay\, noun: 1. An occupation; a profession. 2. An area in which one excels; an occupation for which one is especially well suited. The pairing of Maynard and Salinger -- the writer whose métier is autobiography and the writer who's so private he won't even publish -- was an unlikely one. -- Larissa MacFarquhar, "The Cult of Joyce Maynard", New York Times Magazine, September 6, 1998 In Congress, I really found my métier. . . . I love to legislate. -- Charles Schumer, quoted in "Upbeat Schumer Battles Poor Polls and Turnouts and His Own Image", New York Times, May 16, 1998 He is in the position of a good production engineer suddenly shunted into salesmanship. It is not his métier. -- James R. Mursell, "The Reform of the Schools", The Atlantic, December 1939 Métier is from the French, ultimately from Latin ministerium, "service, ministry, employment," from minister, "a servant, a subordinate."

Biophilia - and a "test your memory" quiz

biophilia\bye-oh-FILL-ee-uh\       noun   : a hypothetical human tendency to interact or be closely associated with other forms of life in nature         "We live in an age in which it is easy to email Buenos Aires, and browse the internet from the Grand Canyon. We could just dial in from whatever sylvan spot appeals to our biophilia." — From an article by Edward L Glaeser in The Independent [UK], March 23, 2011   "For some, biophilia manifests itself in such ordinary ways as, say, owning four or five house cats. For myself and others … it means flying to the other side of the globe to see a fruit bat, a duck-billed platypus, or a parrotfish." — From an article by Lisa Gosselin in Audubon magazine, September - October 1998         The term "biophilia" was popularized by psychoanalyst Erich Fromm in the 1960s. In his work, he used the word (from "bio-," meaning "life," and "-philia," meaning "friendly feeling toward") to describe the biological drive toward self-preservation. In the late 1970s, American biologist Edward O. Wilson extended the word's meaning, seeing it as the perfect word for "the rich, natural pleasure that comes from being surrounded by living organisms." Recently, "biophilia" has been in the news as the title of Icelandic singer Bjōrk's latest project, a multimedia production that (according to the website for the Manchester International Festival) "celebrates how sound works in nature, exploring the infinite expanse of the universe, from planetary systems to atomic structure."