moonstruck | Word of the Day

October 24, 2018 moonstruck [moon-struhk] adjective 1. dreamily romantic or bemused. 2. mentally deranged, supposedly by the influence of the moon; crazed. word-trends Locked Up Lingo: 8 Terms That Summarize Prison Slang arts-entertainment How Books Have Influenced Our Favorite Songs WORD OF THE DAY moonstruck continued... QUOTES He wanted to see her ... Otherwise he wouldn't have waited for nearly an hour like some moonstruck schoolboy and worried all the while about the reception he would receive. -- Matt Braun, Indian Territory, 1985 ORIGIN The original sense of moonstruck, "mentally deranged, insane," first appears in Paradise Lost (1667) by John Milton (1608–74). Milton was astonishingly learned: he wrote poetry in Latin, Greek, and Italian; he translated Psalm 114 from Hebrew into Greek verse; he was a polemicist (or propagandist) for the English general, Puritan statesman, and Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. Moonstruck is probably Milton's own creation, a translation from Greek selēnóblētos "moonstruck, epileptic," a compound of selḗnē "moon" and blētós "stricken, stricken with palsy," a past participle of bállein "to throw, hit (with a missile)." The sense of "dreamily romantic" dates from the mid-19th century. MORE FOR YOU 1 How This Horror Movie Term Became A Real Life Metaphor How did the fictional term "sunken place" become an actual term that the black community uses in real life? 2 This Week's Word of the Day Quiz Is A Real Humdinger Are you a limber linguaphile? Find out with this week's Word of the Day Quiz. If the quiz doesn't display, please try opening in the Chrome browser. Interested in Words of the Day from the past? Check out this one that we brought to life …   Tell us your favorite word from this week below (and share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter)! 3 We Asked: The Weirdest Thing You Have Said To Fit In This woman gives us insight into her teenage years by explaining the weirdest thing she's ever said to fit in. We've all been there ... 4 Emasculate, Incel And Other Trending Words This Week A babywearing dad. A former White House photographer. A long-running TV show. What do they all have in common? Spots on the Dictionary.com Trending Words of the Week list! 5 Commonly Confused Idioms and The Correct Way To Say That For all intents and purposes, we want to nip in the bud these incorrect idioms that are not all one and the same. © 2018 Dictionary.com, LLC. ABOUT CONTACT You are subscribed to the Word of the Day as: alowms@gmail.com Subscriber since: April 09, 2015 Unsubscribe