WORD of the day

haptic \HAP-tik\, adjective:

1. Relating to the sense of touch; tactile.

noun:
1. The science that deals with the sense of touch.
Why do people want haptic augmented reality? So a mother-to-be can touch her unborn child in the womb.
-- Bruce Sterling, "Beyond the beyond: Augmented Reality: Haptic Augmented Reality", Wired, May 2010
Loats would hear her get up at night, making her haptic way through the dark rooms, peering through the windows into the night for the telltale lanterns of the Americans.
-- Annie Proulx, Accordion Crimes

Haptic derives from the Greek haptikos, "to grasp."

WORD of the day

rococo \roh-kuh-KOH\, adjective:

1. Ornate or florid in speech, writing, or general style.
2. Pertaining to a style of painting developed simultaneously with the rococo in architecture and decoration, characterized chiefly by smallness of scale, delicacy of color, freedom of brushwork, and the selection of playful subjects as thematic material.

noun:
1. A style of architecture and decoration, originating in France about 1720, evolved from Baroque types and distinguished by its elegant refinement in using different materials for a delicate overall effect and by its ornament of shellwork, foliage, etc.

adjective:
1. In the manner of, or suggested by rococo architecture, decoration, or music or the general atmosphere and spirit of the rococo.
Whereas the author's early works, like "Dead Babies" and "The Rachel Papers," were animated by a satiric gift for social observation and a deliciously black wit, this novel tackles the same themes - sex and identity and coming of age - with weary determination, and lacquers them all with pompous, inanely rococo meditations about the nature of art and truth.
-- Michiko Kakutani, "The Sexual Revolution Dissected", New York Times, May 2010
"Is this some sort of grandiose and rococo midlife crisis? Are you that afraid of getting old? Aging is the most natural thing in the world." He snorted.
-- Tom Robbins, Jitterbug perfume

Rococo originates as a humorous alteration of the French rocaille, "shellwork, pebble-work", refering to the excessive use of shell designs in the style of various French monarchs.

WORD of the day

proliferate \pruh-LIF-uh-reyt\, verb:

1. To increase or spread at a rapid rate.
2. Biology. To grow or produce by multiplication of parts, as in budding or cell division, or by procreation.
Look at the smokestacks, how they proliferate, fanning the wastes of original waste over greater and greater masses of city.
-- Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow
During the 1990s, armed escort vehicles began to proliferate in Lima and cars ceased stopping at red traffic lights. Professional companies fitted more and more electric fences round high- and middle income settlements.
-- Alan Gilbert, The mega-city in Latin America

Proliferate is a back-formation from the biology term proliferation, circa 1873.

WORD of the day

heliolatry \hee-lee-OL-uh-tree\, noun:

Worship of the sun.
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
Tourists were known for their heliolatry, excessive drinking, and promiscuity; their prearranged cultural excursions were notoriously shallow and contrived.
-- Sasha D. Pack, Tourism and dictatorship: Europe's peaceful invasion of Franco's Spain

Heliolatry stems from the Greek helio-, "sun," and -latry, "worship."

WORD of the day

couvade \koo-VAHD\, noun:

A practice in certain cultures in which the husband of a woman in labor takes to his bed as though he were bearing the child.
Whether men experience couvades or not, there are plenty of other birth rituals for them to partake in: sitting through prenatal classes, going to ultrasound appointments, strapping on thirty pound lead empathy bellies, attending coed baby showers, making smalltalk during epidural sessions, photographing the birth, cutting the umbilical cord. . .
-- Tina Cassidy, Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born
Although husband involvement in the birth process is not uncommon in preindustrial societies, as we showed in Chapter 5, the emerging American practice of having the husband present at the delivery itself is almost unique in world societies. The increasing popularity of this new form of "couvade" in the United States is particularly intriguing theoretically and represents an unexplored issue in social-psychological research.
-- Karen Paige, Jeffery M. Paige, The politics of reproductive ritual

Couvade comes from the French couver, "to incubate or hatch."

WORD of the day

amok \uh-MUHK\, adjective:

1. In or into a jumbled or confused state.
2. In or into an uncontrolled state or a state of extreme activity.
3. In a frenzy to do violence or kill.

noun:
1. A psychic disturbance characterized by depression followed by a manic urge to murder.
There's a legend that when the Lumiere brothers - pioneers of motion pictures - showed their film of an approaching train in 1896, the audience ran amok in terror.
-- Claire O'Neill, "Autochromes: The First Flash Of Color", NPR
With fiscal affairs amok, North Dakota higher education is experiencing its third major scandal since statehood.
-- Lloyd Omdahl, "Omdahl: Restraint the best recipe", Inforum

Amok enters English from the Malay amuk, "attacking furiously." The word was adopted into Portugese as amouco.

WORD of the day

hegira \he-JAY-ruh\, noun:

1. A journey to a more desirable or congenial place.
2. The flight of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina to escape persecution a.d. 622: regarded as the beginning of the Muslim Era.
I do not mean to suggest a back-to-the-future hegira to a mythical golden age of wise and benevolent institutions, canonical disciplines, and noble professions but rather a reinvigoration of our disciplines, institutions, and professions around what we do not know about how we should think.
-- Michael Joyce, "Interspace: Our Commonly Valued Unknowing", Academic Commons
With a sublime indifference to popular superstition, or rather because they did not think of it till all their arrangements were completed, the Misses Leaf had accomplished their grand hegira on a Friday. Consequently, their first day at No. 15 was Sunday.
-- Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, Mistress and maid, Volume 1

Hegira, whether referring to the event in the history of Islam or a general sense of the word, comes from the Arabic hajara, "to depart."

WORD of the day

oscitant \OS-i-tuhnt\, adjective:

1. Yawning, as with drowsiness; gaping.
2. Drowsy or inattentive.
3. Dull, lazy, or negligent.
The sauntering, supine, and oscitant gentleman, by his birth and great possessions, exempt from labor and exercise, therefore is entitled to diseases.
-- Anonymous, Gentleman's magazine and monthly American review, Volume 5
In the suite, I asked Miss Stone what was the worst question that reporters would ask her. She gave me an oscitant gaze and said, "They ask me how I got my break."
-- Chris Curtis, The Turning Point

Oscitant derives from the Latin oscitare, "to gape or yawn."

WORD of the day

indemnity \in-DEM-ni-tee\, noun:

1. Protection or security against damage or loss.
2. Compensation for damage or loss sustained.
3. Something paid by way of such compensation.
4. Legal exemption from penalties attaching to unconstitutional or illegal actions, granted to public officers and other persons.
But he suddenly got up, and after a mad burst of laughter, he cried: "An indemnity! Holy Virgin, an indemnity! Don't you realize that I want to give her everything, the spring, the carnations, the house, and all the Soubeyran inheritance, the lands, the house, the treasure, my name, and my life?"
-- Marcel Pagnol, Jean de Florette
"Reconciliation is not simply a question of indemnity or amnesty and letting bygones be bygones," Omar said. "If the wounds of the past are to be healed... disclosure of the truth and its acknowledgment are essential."
-- "Mandela Will Grant Amnesty For Some Political Crimes", Jet, 1994.

One of the roots of indemnity, the Middle English damnum, "loss", relates to the modern verb damn.

WORD of the day

festoon \fe-STOON\, verb:

1. To adorn with hanging chains or strands of any material.
2. Dentistry. To reproduce natural gum patterns around the teeth or a denture.

noun:
1. A string or chain of flowers, foliage, ribbon, etc., suspended in a curve between two points.
2. A decorative representation of this, as in architectural work or on pottery.
3. A fabric suspended, draped, and bound at intervals to form graceful loops or scalloped folds.
4. Dentistry. The garlandlike area of the gums surrounding the necks of the teeth.
Its medium green leaves are perfect backdrops for the large orb-shaped white flowers blushed with pink that festoon the tree in May and June.
-- Leslie Cox, "Leaf beetles don't give snowball a chance in ...", Comox Valley Record
For nearly half a mile along both sides of a secondary road near Prattville, Alabama, you can see thousands of signs, crosses, wrecked cars, and mailboxes festooned with barbed wire.
-- Mark Sceurman, Mark Moran, Matt Lake, "Rice's Miracle Cross Garden", Weird U.S. The ODDyssey Continues: Your Travel Guide to America's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets

A festoon is "a string or chain of flowers, foliage, ribbon, etc., suspended in a curve between two points." Modern usage has expanded the definition of the verb form to mean "to fill or cover", but dictionaries tend to maintain the narrower scope. Festoon derives from the Italian feston, "decoration for a feast."

WORD of the day

quintessential \kwin-te-SEN-shel\, adjective:

Being the most typical manifestation of a quality or a thing.
Carrie, the quintessential single girl, finally ends up married to her true love but doesn't know what to do with him.
-- Ian Caddell, "Morocco brought Sex and the City 2's Sarah Jessica Parker and castmates together", Straight.com
In such a moonlight Gloria's face was of a pervading, reminiscent white, and with a modicum of effort they would slip off the blinders of custom and each would find in the other almost the quintessential romance of the vanished June.
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The beautiful and the damned

Quintessential translates from Latin as the "fifth element", quint "fifth" and essentia "essence." The idea of the fifth element stems from Greek and medieval alchemical beliefs in the purest essence of a substance.

WORD of the day

vernacular \ver-NAK-yuh-ler\, noun:

1. The plain variety of language in everyday use.
2. The language or vocabulary peculiar to a class or profession.
3. The native speech or language of a place.
4. Any medium or mode of expression that reflects popular taste or indigenous styles.

adjective:
1. (of language) Native or indigenous.
2. Using the native language of a place.
3. Using plain, everyday language.
The BOP, as it is known in industry vernacular, sits atop the wellhead on the seafloor and contains a series of plates, known as rams, stacked on top of each other. The plates close and seal the well if a problem occurs.
-- Lauren Steffy, "Oil rig's blowout preventer might not be the main culprit", Herald Tribune, May 2010
The Dow dropped nearly 1,000 points on May 6, before it recovered around 600 points to close down over 300 points. In mountain climbing vernacular, that's an "elevation change" of 1,600, or almost 15 percent, in one day's hike through the jagged peaks of Wall Street.
-- Stan Sewitch, "Fastest lemmings in the West", San Diego Daily Transcript, May 2010

The origin of vernacular is the Latin vernaculus, "domestic or native."

WORD of the day

juggernaut \JUHG-er-nawt\, noun:

1. Any large, overpowering, destructive force.
2. Something, such as a belief or institution, that elicits blind and destructive devotion.
3. An idol of Krishna, at Puri in Orissa, India, annually drawn on an enormous cart under whose wheels devotees are said to have thrown themselves to be crushed.
It is a pity that every time this economic juggernaut encounters successful international competition in manufacturing, it resorts to bullying against its own consumers' welfare and that of the working poor worldwide.
-- Zhang Xiang, "Going toe to toe with the bully", Xinhua
It sounds like a kamikaze mission: an upstart with a meager number of users and no capital squaring off against Facebook, a social networking juggernaut with more than 400 million members and a $15 billion valuation.
-- Jenna Wortham, "Rivals Seize on Troubles of Facebook", New York Times, May 2010

Juggernaut is a borrowing from Hindi with dramatic roots. The Hindu source Jagannath, is a name of the divinity Krishna, literally "lord of the world." Reputably, Jagannath also refers to an idol of Krishna, at Puri in Orissa, India, annually drawn on an enormous cart under whose wheels devotees are said to have thrown themselves to be crushed.

WORD of the day

kowtow \KOU-TOU\, verb:

1. To act in a subservient manner.
2. To kneel and touch the forehead to the ground in expression of deep respect, worship, or submission, as formerly done in China.

noun:
1. An act of servile deference.
The administration would kowtow to student activists by agreeing to meet with them and behave as if their demands merited serious consideration.
-- Debra J. Saunders, "Starving for attention at UC Berkeley", SFGate, May 2010
She didn't kowtow to color, she didn't kowtow to power, she didn't kowtow to men. She was very, very strong.
-- Naila Francis, "Raw & Revealing", The Intelligencer, May 2010

Kowtow is from the Mandarin k'o-t'ou, the custom of touching the ground with the forehead to show respect or submission, literally "knock the head."

WORD of the day

ruth \ROOTH\, noun:

1. Compassion or pity for another.
2. Sorrow or misery about one's own misdeeds or flaws.
3. In the Bible, a Moabite woman who married Boaz and became an ancestor of David: the daughter-in-law of Naomi.
4. Book of the Bible bearing her name.
5. A female given name.
Even when she had been loudest in denouncing Ayala's mutiny, her heart had melted in ruth because Ayala had been so unhappy.
-- Anthony Trollope, Ayala's Angel
And speak me no soft words in ruth or pity, but tell me plainly how thou didst get sight of him.
-- Homer, The Odyssey

Distinct from the Biblical figure, ruth is a descendent of the Middle English ruthe, from Old Norse hrygdh.

WORD of the day

noctivagant \noc-tiv-A-gant\, adjective:

Pertaining to going about in the night; night-wandering.
My mother whelped me in a mess of blankets while my noctivagant father towed in the big ships. His was the night vessel, the vessel on oily waters, his was the light shining in the darkness, come home, come home.
-- Jeanette Winterson, Gut Symmetries
The bat that can resist all these inducements must be little better than a brickbat, and yet who ever knew one of those wayward, noctivagant creatures to condescend even to such terms?
-- James Russell Lowell, Charles Eliot Norton, The Complete Writings of James Russell Lowell: Letters

Noctivagant is formed from two Latin roots, noctis, "night", and vagans, "to wander about."

WORD of the day

Occidental \ok-si-DEN-tl\, adjective:

1. Western.
2. (Usually initial capital letter) of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the Occident or its natives and inhabitants.

noun:
1. A native or inhabitant of the Occident.
The Asian way of diversity management has also set up an interesting approach in formulating or not formulating at all a forum of cooperation within the region, which is conspicuously different from the Occidental approach.
-- Akira Iida, Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency: the standard-setter
Gradually, Romanian institutions became Occidental and the 1848 Revolutions brought out the Romanians' appetite for modernity.
-- Magdalena Dumitrana, Romanian cultural identity and education for civil society

Occidental derives from the Latin occidentem, "western sky, part of the sky in which the sun sets." The word has been used in relation to Oriental.

WORD of the day

bathos \BEY-thos\ , noun;
1. Triteness or triviality in style.
2. A ludicrous descent from the exalted or lofty to the commonplace; anticlimax.
3. Insincere pathos; sentimentality; mawkishness.

WORD of the day

fathom\FATH-uhm\ , verb;

1. To penetrate to the truth of; comprehend; understand.
2. To measure the depth of water by means of a sounding line; sound.

noun:
1. A unit of length equal to six feet (1.8 meters): used chiefly in nautical measurements.

WORD of the day

emulate/EM-yuh-layt/verb

1 a : to strive to equal or excel b : imitate
2 : to equal or approach equality with

Example sentence: Agents will often try to emulate their team managers, in the hope of becoming managers themselves one day.

Did you know?

If imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery, then past speakers of English clearly had a great admiration for the Latin language. The verb "emulate" joined the ranks of Latin-derived English terms in 1582. Two related adjectives -- "emulate" and "emulous" -- appeared around the same time as the verb "emulate." Both mean "striving to emulate" or sometimes "jealous," but "emulous" is rare these days, and the adjective "emulate" is obsolete.