Word of the Day!

verisimilitude [ ver-uh-si-mil-i-tood, -tyood]

noun:
1 the appearance or semblance of truth
2 something, as an assertion, having merely the appearance of truth

Examples:

He opens the novel with a preface about its source material and adds little details of verisimilitude — footnotes, sketches - throughout. (Loren M Hansen, William Boyd: 40 years on from my first novel, my imagination is cranking up better than ever, The Irish Times, October 2022)

In the past, Pelevin’s diagnoses have read as farcical send-ups of this cultural stance: as a diagnostician, he was never as dedicated to verisimilitude as he was to puns. (Maya Vinokour, Conspiratorial Realism: On Vladimir Sorokin, Victor Pelevin, and Russia's Post-Postmodern Turn, Los Angeles Review of Books, August 2017)

The author uses regional language to lend verisimilitude to the narrative, but readers not fluent in French or Hindi find it hard to follow certain conversations as there are no translations. (Deepti, Passing through cruel theatre of life, Tribune India, October 2012)

Is realism, 'lifeness' or verisimilitude a necessary quality of good literature? (Nigel Beale, The ancient art of keeping it real, The Guardian, October 2008)

This was verisimilitude - the holding of the true mirror to actual society. (George Saintsbury, The English Novel)

'appearance of truth or reality, likelihood,' c. 1600, from French verisimilitude (1540s), from Latin verisimilitudo 'likeness to truth,' from veri, genitive of verum, neuter of verus 'true' (from PIE root were-o- 'true, trustworthy') + similis 'like, resembling, of the same kind,' (Online Etymology Dictionary)

From its roots, verisimilitude means basically 'similarity to the truth'. Most fiction writers and filmmakers aim at some kind of verisimilitude to give their stories an air of reality. They need not show something actually true, or even very common, but simply something believable. A mass of good details in a play, novel, painting, or film may add verisimilitude. A spy novel without some verisimilitude won't interest many readers, but a fantastical novel may not even attempt to seem true to life. (Merriam-Webster)

vilipend [vil-uh-pend]

verb:
(Archaic)
1 to regard or treat as of little value or account.
2 to vilify; depreciate.

Examples:

The fact that to the eighteenth century belong the subjects of more than half of these thirty volumes, is a proof of the fascination of the period for an author who has never ceased to vilipend it. (John Morley, Critical Miscellanies, Volume 1)

What discontent thus change in the doth move?
What wrong, (alas !), or what offence in me,
Thus maks the loath and vilipend my love ? (Sir William Mure, Dido and Aeneas)

He became a gay visitor, and such a reveller, that in process of time he was observed to vilipend the modest fare which had at first been esteemed a banquet by his hungry appetite, and thereby highly displeased my wife. (Sir Walter Scott, Waverley)

I would not willingly vilipend any Christian, if, peradventure, he deserveth that epithet. (Tobias Smollett, Humphry Clinker)

Origin:

Etymologically speaking, to define vilipend using vilify is to commit a tautology, since both derive from Latin vilis, vile or worthless, which is also obviously enough the source of English vile. Vilipend also includes the verb pendere, to weigh or estimate. To vilipend is to weigh somebody in the balance and find them not worth considering. It appeared in English in the fifteenth century and was a popular term right down into the nineteenth, though it has since dropped out of sight. (World Wide Words)

virga [vir-guh]

noun:
wisps or streaks of water or ice particles falling out of a cloud but vaporizing before reaching the earth's surface as precipitation. Also called Fallstreifen, fallstreaks, precipitation trails.

    
(click to enlarge)

The Seattle area has so many different kinds of precipitation - drizzle, mist, showers, virga - that residents have taken to making up their names for it. (Christine Clarridge, Seattle-specific seasons and the different types of rain, The Seattle TimesFebruary 2022)

San Diego needs rain. And there’s plenty of moisture in the air, as you can tell by the clouds drifting by. But little, if any of it, will reach the ground on Saturday due to a phenomenon known as virga. (Gary Robbins, San Diego can expect rain that doesn’t reach the ground Saturday, The San Diego Union-Tribune, September 2009)

From 'virga', meaning 'observable streak or shaft of precipitation that falls from a cloud but evaporates before reaching the ground', to a 'beum-sléibhe', or 'sudden torrent caused by the bursting of a thundercloud', every drop is accounted for. (Fiona Macdonald, The vanishing words we need to save, BBC CultureNovember 2015)

Not infrequently in the wide skies over Yuma and other parts of the arid Southwest, residents watch sheets of rain begin to unfurl from auspicious purple storm clouds, backlit by the sun. But the rain stops halfway, hanging mid-horizon like a magician's trick. Known as rain streamers or by their scientific name virga, the half-sheets evaporate into the dry air before the rain can reach the ground. (Cynthia Barnett, Rain: A Natural and Cultural History)

Origin:

Virga is from the Latin word virga, which means primarily 'branch' or 'rod,' but can also refer to a streak in the sky suggesting rain. Our featured word, which dates to the mid-20th century, is only the latest in a series of words from this root. 'Verge' (which originally referred to a rod or staff carried as an emblem of authority or a symbol of office) dates to the 15th century. The rare noun 'virgate,' which refers to an old English unit of land area, came from virga by way of the Medieval Latin virgata (also a unit of land area) in the late 17th century. The more common adjective virgate, meaning 'shaped like a rod or wand' arrived in the early 19th by way of Latin virgatus, meaning 'made of twigs.' (Merriam-Webster)