Monday, March 8, 2010

Fractious

Word of the Day for Monday, February 22, 2010

fractious \FRAK-shuhs\, adjective:
1. Tending to cause trouble; unruly.
2. Irritable; snappish; cranky.
In Marshall's case, the experience of dealing with a clamorous band of younger siblings, earning their affection and respect while holding them to their tasks, proved remarkably useful in later years when dealing with fractious colleagues jealous of their prerogatives.
-- Jean Edward Smith, John Marshall: Definer of a Nation
Marcus frequently took a rod to Ambrose's back--with the predictable result of making the boy even more fractious and slow to obey.
-- Roy Morris Jr., Ambrose Bierce: Alone in Bad Company
Fractious heirs drink too much and squabble over dock space for their sailboats.
-- Marilyn Stasio, review of Stormy Weather, by Carl Hiaasen, New York Times, September 3, 1995
Fractious is from fraction, which formerly had the sense "discord, dissension, disharmony"; it is derived from Latin frangere, "to break."
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Gastronome

Word of the Day for Friday, February 19, 2010

gastronome \GAS-truh-nohm\, noun:
A connoisseur of good food and drink.
If "poultry is for the cook what canvas is for a painter," to quote the 19th-century French gastronome Brillat-Savarin, why paint the same painting over and over again?
-- John Willoughby and Chris Schlesinger, "From Poussin to Capon a Chicken in Every Size", New York Times, September 22, 1999
Even though Paris was then considered the culinary capital of Europe, the food at the Cercle was so highly revered that many well-known gastronomes regularly made the trip to Lyon to eat there.
-- Daniel Rogov, "Three culinary tales for Hanukka", Jerusalem Post, December 6, 1996
I am no gastronome at the best; moreover, I have, over the years, eaten in so many unpropitious circumstances and from so many truly awful kitchens that I have come to consider myself almost as much a connoisseur of bad food as other men are of good.
-- James Cameron, "Albania: The Last Marxist Paradise", The Atlantic, June 1963
Gastronome is ultimately derived from Greek gaster, "stomach" + nomos, "rule, law."
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Thursday, February 25, 2010

Duplicity

Word of the Day for Thursday, February 18, 2010

duplicity \doo-PLIS-i-tee, dyoo-\, noun:
1. Deliberate deceptiveness in behavior or speech; also, an instance of deliberate deceptiveness; double-dealing.
2. The quality or state of being twofold or double.
Perhaps Phil was a spy, working at Gagosian but secretly in the employ of White Cube. Actually, now that the idea of duplicity had entered Jeff's mind, it occurred to him that his gallery was having a party to which Jeff had been conspicuously uninvited.
-- Geoff Dyer, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi
Here on the beach under a good sun Hiro-matsu forced himself into a polite bow, hating his own duplicity.
-- James Clavell, Shogun
It didn't occur to him that Laura might have had an ulterior motive in seeking him out. Laura had a direct gaze, such blankly open eyes, such a pure, rounded forehead, that few ever suspected her of duplicity.
-- Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
Duplicity comes from Middle English duplicite, from Old French, from Late Latin duplicitās, doubleness, from Latin duplex, duplic-, twofold.
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Hypnagogic

Word of the Day for Wednesday, February 17, 2010

hypnagogic \hip-nuh-GOJ-ik; -GOH-jik\, adjective:
Of, pertaining to, or occurring in the state of drowsiness preceding sleep.
It is of course precisely in such episodes of mental traveling that writers are known to do good work, sometimes even their best, solving formal problems, getting advice from Beyond, having hypnagogic adventures that with luck can be recovered later on.
-- Thomas Pynchon, "Nearer, My Couch, to Thee", New York Times, June 6, 1993
. . .the phenomenon of hypnagogic hallucinations, or what Mr. Alvarez describes as "the flickering images and voices that well up just before sleep takes over."
-- Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, "The Faces of Night, Many of Them Scary", New York Times, January 9, 1995
His uncensored and uncensoring subconscious allows him to absorb the world around him and in him, and to spit it out almost undigested, as if he were walking around in a constant hypnagogic state.
-- Susan Bolotin, "Don't Turn Your Back on This Book", New York Times, June 9, 1985
Hypnagogic (sometimes spelled hypnogogic) ultimately derives from Greek hupnos, "sleep" + agogos, "leading," from agein, "to lead."
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Inexorable

Word of the Day for Tuesday, February 16, 2010

inexorable \in-EK-sur-uh-bul; in-EKS-ruh-bul\, adjective:
Not to be persuaded or moved by entreaty or prayer; firm; determined; unyielding; unchangeable; inflexible; relentless.
But the idea of providence, whether the biblical version or the Enlightenment's or Marx's, is at bottom a tragic notion, for it implies that individual human choices count for nothing against the weight of an inexorable, overwhelming force, whether benign or cruel, whether known as God, History, Destiny, Progress or DNA.
-- James Carrol, "Laughing Our Way to Defeat", New York Times, February 16, 1986
. . .such notions as the 'logic of the facts', or the 'march of history', which, like the laws of nature (with which they are partly identified), are thought of as, in some sense, 'inexorable', likely to take their course whatever human beings may wish or pray for, an inevitable process to which individuals must adjust themselves.
-- Isaiah Berlin, The Sense of Reality
Confronted again with pictures of flag-draped coffins and mutilated bodies, with the sounds of random gunfire and angry chants, the world had to readjust to the fact that not every problem is solvable, that the global tide of peace is not inexorable, and that progress does not inevitably make civilizations more civilized.
-- "Fires Of Hate", Time, October 23, 2000
Inexorable comes from Latin inexorabilis, from in-, "not" + exorabilis, "able to be entreated, placable," from exorare, "to entreat successfully, to prevail upon," from ex-, intensive prefix + orare, "to speak; to argue; to pray."
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Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Vivify

Word of the Day for Monday, February 15, 2010

vivify \VIV-uh-fy\, transitive verb:
1. To endue with life; to make alive; to animate.
2. To make more lively or intense.
Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages our intellects and our hearts?
-- Annie Dillard, "Write Till You Drop", New York Times, May 28, 1989
Stories not only provide context for statistical statements but can illustrate and vivify them as well.
-- John Allen Paulos, Once Upon a Number
They collaborated on, and for our benefit specialized in, like paleontologists, the painstaking reconstruction of vanished jokes from extant tag lines. They could vivify old New Yorker cartoons, source of many tag lines.
-- Annie Dillard, An American Childhood
Vivify comes from French vivifier, from Late Latin vivificare, from Latin vivus, alive.
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Billet-doux

Word of the Day for Sunday, February 14, 2010

billet-doux \bil-ay-DOO\, noun;
plural billets-doux \bil-ay-DOO(Z)\:
A love letter or note.
Perhaps she just looked first into the bouquet, to see whether there was a billet-doux hidden among the flowers; but there was no letter.
-- William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
Young lovers in Victorian England, forbidden to express their affection in public and fearful that strict parents would intercept their billets-doux, sent coded messages through the personal columns in newspapers.
-- Susan Adams, "I've got a secret", Forbes, September 20, 1999
This is very amusing, Paul, writing critics little billet-doux in one's head is always good for a giggle, but you really ought to find yourself a pot and get it boiling, don't you think?
-- Stephen King, Misery
In French, billet-doux means "sweet note;" or "short note" (billet, "note" + doux, "sweet," from Latin dulcis).
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