(no subject)

[nerdfury.livejournal.com]

Howdy all! Things I have learned this week: Five day weekends are awesome, the looming 27th birthday is fine until someone reminds you that it's officially "late twenties," and there are some really disturbing words out there. Namely..


Tricoteuse [trikotœz // tri-ko-tyoos]
noun

A woman who knits; specifically to women who, during the French Revolution, sat and knitted at meetings of the Convention or at guillotinings.


From the French tricot, knitting, tricoter, to knit.


1830 Hazlitt Life of Napoleon Buonaparte I. vi. 284
It was this [popular fury] that inspired the Furies of the Guillotine, and sat and smiled in the galleries of the Convention with the tricoteuses of Robespierre!

1973 Listener 22 Nov. 727
The wife of the production manager sits sourly knitting on set like a tricoteuse at the guillotine.


I was doing so well until I realised that I really had no idea what to write as a usage example for tricoteuse. Unfortunately I've misplaced my copy of The Scarlet Pimpernel, because I recall that the Pimpernel disguises himself as a wine-selling tricoteuse in order to smuggle aristocrats out of Paris in casks!

Filipendulous and Vespine

[brbplayingchess.livejournal.com]

Happy Monday! Two words because I missed last week.

Filipendulous
adjective


Pronunciation:
[fil-i-pen-du-los]

Definition:
Being suspended by a single thread.

Etymology:
From the Latin filum meaning a thread and the French pendere meaning to hang.

 

Vespine
adjective


Pronunciation:
[ves-pin]

Definition:
Resembling a wasp.

Etymology:
From the Latin vespa meaning wasp.

 

 Usage:
"Dr Scott had been lost in the jungle for two weeks or more. A large, buzzing, vespine insect had taken his assistant whom he found later wrapped in a cacoon, his entire weight held filipendulous and swinging slowly from a tree branch."

Love Tahlia, Who's assigning you homework: have you managed to work any 1word1day words into daily conversation lately?