Word of the Day!

bedizen [bih-dahy-zuhn, -diz-uhn]

verb:
dress up or decorate gaudily

Examples:

Similarly, the indigenous flowers she wore in her hair and the native jewelry she used to bedizen herself with were also reflections of her love for Mexico and her nationalist stance. Kahlo "would take her inspiration from the different cultures within Mexico," Hayek says. (Joobin Bekhrad, London museum exhibition focuses on Frida Kahlo as a style icon, The Washington Post, July 2018)

It's the kind of setting where the high-flying, swanlike necks of glass wine decanters fit right in. Not to mention the absurd flecks of gold leaf that bedizen a carpaccio here, a cocktail there. (Alsion Cook, Review: Potente, Jim Crane's Italian fine-dining restaurant downtown, defies expectations, The Houston Chronicle, December 2017)

The comic touches that bedizen Wodehouse’s prose are one of its chief delights. (Joseph Epstein, Frivolous, Empty, and Perfectly Delightful, Claremont Review of Books, Spring 2018)

Mirrors being very rare, the women bedizen themselves with tinsel, the bizarre effect of which they have no means of appreciating. (W H Davenport Adams, Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century)

Man's Reason is in such deep insolvency to sense, that tho' she guide his highest flight heav'nward, and teach him dignity morals manners and human comfort, she can delicatly and dangerously bedizen the rioting joys that fringe the sad pathways of Hell. (Robert Bridges, he Testament of Beauty )

Origin:

1660s, from be- + dizen 'to dress' (1610s), especially, from late 18c, 'to dress finely, adorn,' originally 'to dress (a distaff) for spinning' (1520s), and evidently the verbal form of the first element in distaff. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

Bedizen doesn't have the flashy history you might expect - its roots lie in the rather quiet art of spinning thread. In times past, the spinning process began with the placement of fibers (such as flax) on an implement called a distaff; the fibers were then drawn out from the distaff and twisted into thread. Bedizen descends from the older, now obsolete, verb disen, which means 'to dress a distaff with flax' and which came to English by way of Middle Dutch. The spelling of disen eventually became dizen, and its meaning expanded to cover the 'dressing up' of things other than distaffs. In the mid-17th century, English speakers began using bedizen with the same meaning. (Merriam-Webster)

prognosticate [prog-nos-ti-keyt]

verb:
1 to foretell from signs or symptoms; predict
2 to give an indication of in advance; foreshadow

Examples:

"This is premature until we have some communication from the state to even prognosticate what dollar amounts are going to be," he said (Kellen M Quigley, Local officials react to Senecas paying casino funds , Oleon Times Herald, May 2022)

I'm not afraid of predicting the outcome of sporting events. They pay me to prognosticate. It's what I do. (Eddie Brown, 10 fearless predictions for the 2021 fantasy football season, The San Diego Union-Tribune, September 2021)

Yet, adopting the same lines of argument, I see no reason why cats should not prognosticate good as well as evil. (Elliott O'Donnell, Animal Ghosts)

I prognosticate for myself an obstinate cold, at least. (Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights)

Origin:

"foretell by means of present signs,' early 15c, prenosticaten, a back-formation from prognostication and also from Medieval Latin prognosticatus, past participle of prognosticare 'foretell,' from Latin prognostica 'sign to forecast weather,' from neuter plural of Greek prognōstikos 'foreknowing,' from progignōskein. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

Prognosticate, which comes from the Greek prognōstikos ('foretelling'), first appears in English during the 15th century. Since that time, prognosticate has been connected with things that give omens or warnings of events to come and with people who can prophesy or predict the future by such signs. William Shakespeare used the 'prophesy' sense of prognosticate in the sonnet that begins 'Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck.' 'Of thee this I prognosticate,' the Bard penned, 'Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.' (Merriam-Webster)

Predict, prophesy or foretell are more pithy and serviceable choices in these plainer-speaking days when long words have rather fallen out of fashion. On the infrequent occasions that journalists today select it as the right word in the right place, they often imply by it pretentiousness or gentle humour:

'As British financial commentators assume expressions of pious concern to prognosticate on the euro crisis, wickedly self-serving thoughts run through their minds. (Financial Times, 21 May 2010).

It derives from medieval Latin prognosticare, to make a prediction and can be traced back to the classical Greek gnosis, knowledge, plus the prefix pro-, earlier in time. The related medical term prognosis existed in classic Greek and survived passage via Latin to reach English unchanged.

To prognosticate in classical times was to predict the future from signs or portents, to augur. This was the first meaning in English. Later, it shifted slightly to refer to a person who predicts on the basis of such signs:

'As whiteness of flesh is considered a great advantage in veal, butchers, in the selection of their calves, are in the habit of examining the inside of its mouth, and noting the colour of the calf’s eyes; alleging that, from the signs they there see, they can prognosticate whether the veal will be white or florid.' (The Book of Household Management, by Mrs Isabella Beeton, 1861)

As prediction is so difficult (as the wag said, especially about the future), some writers have mordantly suggested prognosticate really means 'guess'. (World Wide Words)