Wednesday word: ᐅᓗ (ulu)

[trellia-chan.livejournal.com]

ulu (Plural: uluit)

Noun:  An ulu is a half-moon shaped knife traditionally used by the women of the Yup'ik, Inuit, and other native tribes of the far north. It is extremely versatile and is used for a wide variety of tasks such as carving meat, skinning animals, scraping and cleaning hides, cutting blocks of ice, or even trimming human hair.  It has been traced as early as 2500 BC.  Originally, the blade was contructed from slate and the handle from bone, tusk, or antler.  These days, the blade is usually made of steel, though the handle is often still made from the traditional materials.

Thursday word: barbermonger

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

barbermonger (bar-bur-MON-gur) - n. (obs. slang) a fop.


Literally, one who frequents the barbershop for frequent haircuts. This is early Tudor Slang -- the Historical Thesaurus to the OED gives 1605 as the only year of use for this -- and the only reason it appears in unabridged dictionaries at all is that it's used in King Lear. Possibly it's a Shakespeare coinage that never took off? Regardless, his usage makes the best example -- from act II, scene ii, as Kent confronts Oswald:

Draw, you whoreson cullionly barber-monger, draw!

---L.