sallymn: (words 6)
[personal profile] sallymn

braggadocio [brag-uh-doh-shee-oh]

noun:
1 empty boasting; bragging
2 a boasting person; braggart

Examples:

Cruz spins these operations into digital content ranging from tips for aspiring investors to plain old-fashioned yacht-flaunting braggadocio. (Michael Friedrich, The Landlords of Social Media Seem Happy to Play the Villain, The New York Times Magazine, October 2023)

And yet among the endless braggadocio and machismo there is something quite touching, even charming, about his intense relationship with himself. Unlike, say, Cristiano Ronaldo, the vanity comes with an appreciation of the absurd. (Andrew Anthony, Adrenaline by Zlatan Ibrahimović review - he doesn't just talk a good game, The Guardian, August 2022)

There was bluster, bombast and beer for his horses and for those who hoisted a red Solo cup. And there were tender, deeply romantic ballads as well as braggadocio, seasoned with a taste of humor. (Jon Bream, Remembering Toby Keith: Bluster, beer and horse sense, Star Tribune, Febriary 2024)

The braggadocio aspect is important: a successful but modest man is ordinarily not called a k'nocker. A k'nocker is someone who works crossword puzzles - with a pen (especially if someone is watching). (Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated)

Origin:

1590, coined by Spenser as the name of his personification of vainglory ('Faerie Queene', ii.3), from brag, with augmentative ending from Italian words then in vogue in English. In general use by 1594 for 'an empty swaggerer'; of the talk of such persons, from 1734. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

Though Braggadocio is not as well-known as other fictional characters like Pollyanna, the Grinch, or Scrooge, in lexicography he holds a special place next to them as one of the many characters whose name has become an established word in English. The English poet Edmund Spenser originally created Braggadocio as a personification of boasting in his epic poem The Faerie Queene. As early as 1594, about four years after the poem was published, English speakers began using the name as a general term for any blustering blowhard. The now more common use of braggadocio, referring to the talk or behavior of such 'windy cockalorums', developed in the early 18th century. (Merriam-Webster)

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[personal profile] med_cat
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: Uncommonly Lovely Invented Words for What We Feel but Cannot Name, from The Marginalian

Here's an example:

SUERZA
n. a feeling of quiet amazement that you exist at all; a sense of gratitude that you were even born in the first place, that you somehow emerged alive and breathing despite all odds, having won an unbroken streak of reproductive lotteries that stretches all the way back to the beginning of life itself.

Spanish suerte, luck + fuerza, force. Pronounced “soo-wair-zuh.”



sallymn: (words 6)
[personal profile] sallymn

librocubicularist [leeb-ruh-kyoo -bic-kyoo-lah-rist]

noun:
someone who reads in bed

Examples:

I encourage you to become a librocubicularist. Whether you read physical or digital books, I recommend winding down your day in bed with a good book. It will allow your mind to forget the troubles of today as well as the challenges you'll face tomorrow. (Curtis Honeycutt, In praise of librocubicularists, The Berkshire Eagle, May 2023)

If you travel less than me and your tsundoku pile is on your bedside table, chances are that you are a librocubicularist - someone who likes to read in bed. There's something particularly relaxing about being horizontal with a book propped up in your hands, whether or not your health confines you to bed. (Shashi Tharoor, Librocubicularist, dog-earing and bibliclasm: Which type of book reader are you?, Khaleej Times, March 2022)

While my husband loves books, he is not a librocubicularist. Bedtime is lights out. I had tried small book lights and various flashlights, though never holiday candles from SEARS. Even the smallest light seems to bother him, he loves that we live in the country without even a streetlight in the entire village. (Kitty Lapin Agile, How I became a librocubicularist, Two Different Girls, December 2013)

"Are you a librocubicularist?" Miss Chapman is taken aback by the word, but another character, Helen, chimes in: "He only means you are fond of reading in bed. I've been waiting to hear him work that word in the conversation. He made it up, and he's immensely proud of it." (Christopher Morley, The Haunted Bookshop)

Here's something I didn't know about my wife, Julie, before I married her, she's a librocubicularist. There is no known cure, but that's OK because a librocubicularist is someone who reads in bed. (Arvid Huisman, The Des Moines (Iowa) Register, 25 July 2018)

Origin:

The sesquipedalian librocubicularist is the name for a person who reads books in bed. The first syllable of the word is based on Latin liber, which originally denoted the inner bark of a tree, and later came to be used for a sheet of papyrus used for writing before acquiring the additional senses of 'book, volume, long document' and 'a division of a long literary work' (and, yes, it is the source of library and librarian). Another etymological element of librocubicularist is Latin cubiculum, meaning 'bedroom', which itself is from cubare, 'to lie' or 'to recline' and from which English cubicle is derived. Print evidence suggests librocubicularist was checked into the English language in the early 20th century, and it has yet to check out. (Merriam-Webster)

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[personal profile] med_cat

A few readers have e-mailed to ask what "hathos" is. Here's my definition:

Hathos is the attraction to something you really can't stand; it's the compulsion of revulsion.

Alex Heard coined it:

Hathos (hay'thos) n., pl. double hathos A pleasurable sense of loathing, or a loathing sense of pleasure, aroused by certain schlocky, schmaltzy or just- plain-bad show-business personalities: "Hearing the audience applaud when Dr. Joyce Brothers told Merv Griffin that, aside from being a brilliant comedienne, Charo is a 'genius on the classical guitar' filled me with hathos." [American: hate/happy pathos lachrymose (?)] ha-thot-ic adj.

"Beyond Hate: The Giddy Thrill of Hathos," The Washington Post, May 17, 1987

Source: www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2008/02/hathos/207342/
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[personal profile] med_cat
Today's word is kindly brought to you by [livejournal.com profile] prettygoodword :)
~~~
metagrobolize (meh-tuh-GROB-uh-laiz) - v., to puzzle, mystify, baffle.


Not common, but definitely available for humorous use. Coined 1534 in French by Rabelais, and imported into English in an 1693 translation of same, by attaching Greek root mátaios, vain/frivolous + grabeler, to sift (which arrived via Italian, via Arabic, from Latin cribulum, a sieve). Metagrobology is sometimes used for the study (and construction) of puzzles.

---L.

Crossposts: https://prettygoodword.dreamwidth.org/748080.html
You can comment here or there.
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[personal profile] med_cat

In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, the tarrasque (/tɒˈræsk/ tah-RASK)[1][2] is a magical beast.

The tarrasque is a gigantic lizard-like creature which exists only to eat, kill, and destroy. In most campaign settings, only one tarrasque is said to exist on each world. The tarrasque has a low intelligence and cannot speak. It is neutrally aligned, for despite its violent and savage nature, it lacks the mental capacity to choose between good and evil.

The tarrasque was introduced to the D&D game in the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. It is based upon the French legend of the tarasque.

(from Wikipedia, more here)

Image under the cut: )
[identity profile] trellia-chan.livejournal.com
nomophobia:

Noun: The fear of being without one's cellphone.

Origin: Shortened from "no-mobile-phone phobia." The term was coined in 2008 during a study by the UK Post Office who commissioned research looking at anxieties suffered by cellphone users. Anxiety levels experienced by people who suffer from nomophobia when they are triggered by deprivation of access to their phone are said to be on par with that of wedding day jitters or a dentist visit.


New words pop up every day, it seems, and news sources are always happy to share them with their audiences.
[identity profile] trellia-chan.livejournal.com
Sorry I'm late!  Completely forgot to do this last night!


killfie: [KILL-fee]

Noun: A selfie taken while performing a risky, life-threatening feat. While the people who take killfies are often killed by their stunts, that doesn't necessarily have to be the case for the term to apply. The word "killfie" was created by the media to identify this alarming trend that is often practiced by young thrill-seekers who combine the adrenaline rush of the feats themselves with that of the attention they receive by posting the dangerous selfies online.

A study conducted at Cornell University has shown that 127 people have died while taking killfies from January of 2014 to September of 2016.

[identity profile] trellia-chan.livejournal.com
cusper:

noun: A person who was born during the cusp years between any two of the named generational divisions of the 20th and 21st centuries.

The categorization of generations is highly generalized, arbitrary, and unscientific with a pretty wide span of years encompassing each generation. In spite of this, generations and their corresponding characteristics are discussed quite frequently in the news and media. This is probably because we as humans enjoy categorizing and looking for patterns in just about everything including our supposed shared experience, behavior, and nostalgia with people somewhat near to us in age.

At any rate, the years of transition between each generation are vague, and people born in that little window might find that they embody characteristics of both generations they walk the line between. Cuspers don't fit so neatly into the facts and figures of the generations that the news is so fond of citing.

Examples of cuspers include:

Silent Generation/Baby Boomers: People born in the early to mid 1940s
Baby Boomers/Generation X: People born in the early to mid 1960s
Generation X/Millennials: People born in the late 1970s to early 1980s (also dubbed "The Oregon Trail Generation.")
Millennials/iGeneration: People born in the late 1990s to early 2000s

I was born in 1981, making me a Generation X/Millennial cusper. I have significent memory of an analog world and came of age with AOL and early internet. I have a sister born in 1973, putting her squarely in Generation X, and a brother born in 1992, making him such a Millennial. :-)

As silly as all of this is, I admit I get a little pleasure out of generational categorization. And popular culture and media make it nearly impossible to ignore.

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[personal profile] med_cat
Best wishes to everyone reading, this holiday season and in the coming year :)
~~
Two words, to make up for missing last Friday:

felicity, n. fe·lic·i·ty \fi-ˈli-sə-tē\, pl. felicities

1a : the quality or state of being happy; especially : great happiness ("marital felicity")
b : an instance of happiness

2: something that causes happiness

3: a pleasing manner or quality especially in art or language ("a felicity with words")

4: an apt expression


Example:
I've always admired his felicity with words.

He told his friends that his marriage had brought him a felicity that he had never known before.

Etymology
Middle English felicite, from Anglo-French felicité, from Latin felicitat-, felicitas, from felic-, felix fruitful, happy.

First Known Use: 14th century

Festivus:

There are those who eschew the more traditional December holidays as too religious, too commercial, too too. They have found solace and fellowship in the modern made-up replacement: Festivus.

Festivus first made its public appearance in a 1997 episode of the hit TV show “Seinfeld”.


Read more in this article from Merriam-Webster Online.
[identity profile] trellia-chan.livejournal.com
sharenting:

noun:   Another modern buzz word, but one I'm hearing frequently enough in my line of work. Sharenting is the not-so-healthy practice of a parent regularly using social media to share way too much information about their children.  
[identity profile] trellia-chan.livejournal.com
phubbing: (also spelled pphubbing or p-phubbing)

Noun and/or verb:
Phubbing is the horribly rude act of ignoring or snubbing the person in front of you to focus on your cell phone instead; In particular, when you pull out your phone while the person in front of you is mid-sentence.

Origin:  Presumably a combination of the words "phone" and "snubbing." Coined by the Australian Macquarie Dictionary in 2012.
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[personal profile] med_cat
Milquetoast (n.)

Definition:

: a timid, meek, or apologetic person

About the Word:

Comic strips may not seem like the most likely source to have provided English with new words, but they have actually been quite fertile in this regard.

Milquetoast is one such word: it comes from the name of Caspar Milquetoast, a character invented by cartoonist H. T. Webster in 1924 for his strip Timid Soul (it was based on milk toast, a dish of toast softened in milk). Comic strips have also given us the word dagwood (a comically large sandwich, named after Dagwood Bumstead, from the comic Blondie), and it is likely that goon (a thuggish man) was largely taken from the character Alice the Goon in the comic strip Thimble Theatre in the early 20th century.

Example:

"My employees tell me I am less crabby. I'm not sure this is a good thing. Will I become a milquetoast from meditation?" - Yogani, Advanced Yoga Practices, 2004

(Source: Merriam-Webster's A Who's Who of literary allusions: words that come from characters in books)

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[personal profile] med_cat

Definition:

: an uncouth or rowdy person

About the Word:

Yahoo comes to the English language from the fertile imagination of Jonathan Swift, author of the famed Gulliver's Travels (as well as the somewhat less-remembered Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue).

In Gulliver's Travels the Yahoos were an imaginary humanoid race, brutish and uncouth. This book was also responsible for introducing the words Lilliputian and brobdingnagian.

Example:

"We are not your ordinary bunch of yahoos." - PC Magazine (advertisement). 24 Dec. 1985

(Source: Merriam-Webster's A Who's Who of literary allusions: words that come from characters in books)

[identity profile] trellia-chan.livejournal.com
hooptedoodle  (hoop-tuh-doodle)

Noun:  Simply put, hooptedoodle is a literary term that refers to the type of overly wordy prose that gets in the way of propelling a story forward. It's filler, and could be edited out without taking anything important or relevant from the writing.

Origin: As far as I can tell, the term was coined and used several times by John Steinbeck in his 1954 novel Sweet Tuesday. If anyone knows anything different, please say so!

Writer Elmore Leonard was fond of the word as well, and often cited John Steinbeck's use of it when refering to it.

Quoting Elmore Leonard from his New York Times article from July 16, 2001:

"Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he's writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character's head, and the reader either knows what the guy's thinking or doesn't care. I'll bet you don't skip dialogue."

"What Steinbeck did in Sweet Thursday was title his chapters as an indication, though obscure, of what they cover. 'Whom the Gods Love They Drive Nuts' is one, 'Lousy Wednesday' is another. The third chapter is titled "Hooptedoodle 1" and the 38th chapter 'Hooptedoodle 2' as warnings to the reader, as if Steinbeck is saying: 'Here's where you'll see me taking flights of fancy with my writing, and it won't get in the way of the story. Skip them if you want.'"
[identity profile] theidolhands.livejournal.com
cat·kin [ˈkatkən]:
origin: [1570s] Dutch; katteken= "kitten"

noun
Botanical. Have you ever seen a pussy willow branch? Those fluffy, fur-like blossoms are referred to as "catkins"; oblong & cylindric growths occur in many plant families, usually have no visible petals, and contain only one sex on their branch, although not all of them are downy.

Other examples: hazel, oak, birch, mulberry.





won·der·wall [ˈwəndərˈwôl]:
origin: [1968] British; slang, invented, likely from a film directed by Richard Balducci (not a 1995 Oasis song).

adjective
1. Infatuation; someone who preoccupies all your thoughts or is your everything -- based off the song "Wonderwall", by the British band Oasis. However, Noel Matthews, guitarist & songwriter, states that to him the meaning was: "It’s a song about an imaginary friend who’s gonna come and save you from yourself.”

2. According to Urban Dictionary: A barrier that divides reality & the fantastical, ideally with at least one peep hole that allows the viewer to see through to the other side (to your dreams or obsession).

3. There is also a film & soundtrack with the same name, circa: 1968; alas, strangely, this did not spring up initially during research, although it clearly influenced the second definition -- as the plot revolves around a hermit-like scientist (Oscar Collins) obsessed with peeping on a couple next door, as he's become infatuated with & endlessly daydreams about the female who models.

That actually adds a rather creepy notion to the word!


[identity profile] theidolhands.livejournal.com
Both of these words are from Douglas Adams' book, The Meaning of Liff.

shoe·bu·ry·ness [SHo͞oˈberē-nəs]:
origin: British; a town in southeast Essex, corrupted from the German Sceobirig= "the cape of the sea fortress".

noun
That thing what your cat craves more than anything in the world...your warm spot, or rather the sensation of knowing your posterior has just sat upon one. Mr. Adams defines this as "unpleasant", but YMMV.


zee·rust [zē-rəst]:
origin: an African town originally meaning "dusty place"; shortened from "Coetzee's Rust" (land owned by Casper Coetzee)

adjective
You know how in the future we're all going to re-embrace beehives & go go boots upon star ships that bravely explore strange new worlds? Yeah, that's zeerust, or something that was supposed to look futuristic and instead ends up looking dated. Personally though, I love me some good zeerust!


[identity profile] trellia-chan.livejournal.com
Bombogenesis

Noun: In meteorology, bombogenesis is a word coined by the weather folk that is derived from the term cyclogenesis. Cyclogenesis is the formation of cyclonic conditions, marked by a drop in atmospheric pressure, responsible for everything from hurricanes to tornadoes to blizzards.

Bombogenesis is simply cyclogenesis that forms very rapidly and abruptly. To use the meteorological jargon,  bombogenesis occurs when there is "a central pressure drop of at least 24 millibars in 24 hours."  The result is a particularly sudden, powerful, and "explosive" storm, hence the "bomb" in the word. A specific example of a tropical cyclone that underwent bombogenesis was Hurricane Charley in 2004. Typhoon Nuri in 2014 was another. Nuri, though it was thousands of miles away, is also the reason why those of us in the United States experienced some crazy weather in early November of 2014, with temperatures getting freakishly low throughout!

Other phrases used to describe this phenomenon are Explosive cyclogenesis, weather bomb, meterorological bomb, or explosive development, but I can see why they would prefer to use such a sensational, eye-catching word as bombogenesis.  ^_^

Origin: Couldn't find the exact time it was first used, but I have my suspicions that it's modern. ;-)
[identity profile] prettygoodword.livejournal.com
paravane (PAR-uh-vayn) - n., a minesweeping device towed from the bow of a ship to snag and sever the anchoring cables of mines.


Has two vanes used to keep it away from the side of the ship, so that the cable runs laterally, making the sweep for mines. The towing cable would either snap the mine's anchor, making it rise to the surface where it could be destroyed, or snap on the anchor, making the paravane collide with the mine and so set it off harmlessly. Developed by the British navy during WWI. Coined from Greek root para- in the sense of alongside (as in parallel), + the vanes that keep it there, from Old English fana, originally meaning flag (migration of sense began with the vanes of windmills).

Some large warships were routinely equipped with paravane sweeps near the bows in case they inadvertently sailed into minefields.

---L.
[identity profile] trellia-chan.livejournal.com
Another wonderful percussion instrument! :-D

Vibraslap

Noun: A percussion instrument consisting of a piece of stiff wire bent into a U-shape connecting a wood ball to a hollow box of wood with metal “teeth” inside. The player holds the instrument by the bend piece of wire and strikes the wood ball, which hits the wooden box of teeth, creating a sound not unlike that of a rattlesnake's tail. It was invented by Martin Cohen and is a modern development from the African rattling jawbone instrument.

You can hear the vibraslap in lots of 70s music, particularly in film score.
See and hear the vibraslap in here! )

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