Wednesday word: 鬼佬 (gweilo)

[trellia-chan.livejournal.com]

鬼佬 (gweilo)

Noun:   Historically a derogatory term, gweilo is a Cantonese slang word that refers to foreigners, especially Caucasians. It literally translates into "ghost man" with gwei (鬼) meaning "ghost" or "demon" and lo (佬) meaning "man."

It rose in popularity in the early 1800s, and is still commonly used in Hong Kong, but without any real malice nowadays.

Thursday word: matutinal

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

matutinal (muh-TOOT-n-ul) - adj., pertaining to or occurring in the early morning.


Especially around dawn, or even before. Mostly used these days in the life sciences -- for example, to describe the blooming of the morning glory and the insects that pollinate it -- but sometimes as a literary word for early. Adopted in the 1650s from Late Latin mātūtinālis, belonging to the morning, from Latin mātūtīnus, of or pertaining to early morning, from Mater Mātūta, a Roman goddess of the dawn, later identified as another aspect of Aurora, another Roman goddess of the dawn, as well as Eos, the Greek goddess of the dawn.

As winter approached, my matutinal exercises slid into the darkness of pre-dawn.

---L.