September 27th- expatiate

Sep. 27th, 2009 06:11 pm
[identity profile] im-a-zoomer-kid.livejournal.com

Sorry about missing last week, school's been crazy!

expatiate

\ek-SPAY-shee-ayt\ , intransitive verb:
1. To speak or write at length or in considerable detail.
2. To move about freely; to wander.

Example:
My writing professor expects me to expatiate my ideas into 6-7 pages, when really, all of my ideas can fit into 3.

Origin:
Expatiate is from Latin expatiari, "to walk or go far and wide," from ex-, "out" + spatiari, "to walk about," from spatium, "space; an open space, a place for walking in."
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July 12th- ameliorate

Jul. 12th, 2009 09:54 am
[identity profile] im-a-zoomer-kid.livejournal.com

ameliorate- \uh-MEEL-yuh-rayt\ ,

transitive verb:
1.To make better; to improve.

intransitive verb:
1.To grow better.
 
Example:
The Professor's speech did nothing to ameliorate the students, who still felt glum about their test results.

Origin:
Ameliorate is derived from Latin ad + meliorare, "to make better," from melior, "better."


Sorry about the long absence, I was visiting my mother in Germany, and the trip lasted longer than I thought it would.

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March 8th- demur

Mar. 9th, 2009 12:48 am
[identity profile] im-a-zoomer-kid.livejournal.com

demur \dih-MUR\, intransitive verb

Definition:
1. To object; to take exception.
2. To delay.

noun:
1. The act of demurring.
2. Objection.
3. Delay.

Example:
The judge's decision was accepted without demur.
 

Origin:
Demur comes from Old French demorer, "to linger, to stay," from Latin demorari, from de- + morari, "to delay, to loiter," from mora, "a delay."
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February 7, 2009 - calenture

Feb. 8th, 2009 04:01 pm
[identity profile] roque.livejournal.com
calenture
[ kal uhn cher, -choor ]
noun, sometimes intransitive verb

Definition, noun:
1) [Dictionary.com] Pathology. a violent fever with delirium, affecting persons in the tropics.
2) [American Heritage Dictionary] A tropical fever once believed to be caused by the heat.
3) [Med.] A name formerly given to various fevers occurring in tropics; esp. to a form of furious delirium accompanied by fever, among sailors, which sometimes led the affected person to imagine the sea to be a green field, and to throw himself into it.

Definition, v.i.:
To see as in the delirium of one affected with calenture. [Poetic]
Hath fed on pageants floating through the air Or calentures in depths of limpid flood. --Wordsworth.

Etymology:
[ Spanish calentura, from calentar, to heat, from Latin calēns, calent-, present participle of calēre, to be warm. ]

Example:
There is no reason why a mind thus wandering in extacy should count the clock, or why an hour should not be a century in that calenture of the brains that can make the stage a field. --Samuel Johnson, "Preface to Shakespeare"
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February 1st-Hugger-mugger

Feb. 1st, 2009 12:36 pm
[identity profile] im-a-zoomer-kid.livejournal.com

Happy February!

hugger-mugger \HUH-guhr-muh-guhr\, noun:
1. A disorderly jumble; muddle; confusion.
2. Secrecy; concealment.

adjective:
1. Confused; muddled; disorderly.
2. Secret.

adverb:
1. In a muddle or confusion.
2. Secretly.

transitive verb:
1. To keep secret.

intransitive verb:
1. To act in a secretive manner.

Example:
While Ventura is speaking out -- his wisdom seems to be a hugger-mugger of twisted cliches from his reading of airport trash picked up as he traveled from bout to bout -- others who do possess minds too often are failing to speak theirs, and usually they do so only as a consequence of perceived electoral pragmatism.
-- Jamie Dettmer, "Campaigning and the Media Circus", Insight on the News, November 1, 1999
 

Origin:
The origin of hugger-mugger is unknown; it is perhaps from Anglo-Irish cuggermugger, "a whispering, a low-voiced gossiping," from Irish cogair!, "whisper!"
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