Summary: In the interest of adding to our vocabularies—and simply romping through the fields of wordom—today's entry includes several links and lists of all kinds of words. You be the judge to how they sound to your ears.
Kim the Wonder Assistant sent me the best message this week. Here's the line it ended with—complete with individual links to thesaurus entries:
"Have a great and fruitful ... or put in other words ... advantageous, beneficial, constructive, dynamic, effective, energetic, fecund, fertile, gainful, generative, gratifying, inventive, plentiful,
producing, profitable, prolific, rewarding, rich, teeming, useful, valuable, vigorous, worthwhile day!"
Isn't she just fun? (Or good, happy, amusing, boisterous, convivial, diverting, enjoyable, entertaining, lively, merry, pleasant, witty?) You should know that both of our lists of synonyms come from Dictionary.com's sister site Thesaurus.com. She also sent me a link to a blog post that had piqued her curiosity. It was about certain words being deemed "pretty" and others being deemed "ugly." She thought I could appreciate it, based on some of my recent blog posts. Boy, could I! I have a hunch that you can, too. So, I found a couple of similar posts, myself, and wanted to pass all of them along to you.
100 Beautiful and Ugly Words
Ugly Words, Pretty Words
Pretty Ugly Words
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2010
Showing posts with label new words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new words. Show all posts
Mar 21, 2011
Mar 7, 2011
WORD OF THE WEEK: Agrestic
Summary: What's your ideal car? What's your ideal word to describe your ideal car? Get ready for a fun game you, too, can play with your very own in-laws—or any of your friends who share the same nerdy interests as you (and me and my in-laws) ...
You'd be surprised how often words come up in my casual conversations—as subject matter, that is. A couple of weekends ago, for instance, while hanging out with my sisters-in-law (who, I was thrilled to learn, are new fans of the blog), we started talking about various colloquialisms. A little bit later, my brother-in-law, a mechanic who owns his own shop (and for whom cars come up in casual conversation all the time) started a fun game of assigning ideal car types to all of us sitting around the table. But when it came to assigning a car to our 20-year-old nephew, our nephew balked.
"Why is that my ideal car?" He didn't think it suited him.
But my brother-in-law tried to enlighten him: "No, it's sports-like, but country—er, you know, country-like. But sophisticated. ... What's the word?" He looked at me. "There's got to be a word that means both active and country with sophistication."
I ran through my mental list: "Jaunty?"
"No."
"Rustic?"
"Kind of."
"Sporty."
"No. You were closer with rustic, but that doesn't convey the sports part."
"But it's definitely not sporty?"
"No." I whipped out my cell phone and jumped online, heading straight to one of my favorite sites, OneLook.com. After an introduction to this site to everyone at the table (and a little discussion about whether or not reverse dictionaries are technically cheating at crossword puzzles), I ran through the list—and that's when I spotted a word that caught everyone's attention: today's WOW, agrestic.
Agrestic (uh - GRES - tik) - rural, rustic, unpolished or awkward. While it doesn't mean all of these definitions at once, but rather one (the first two words) or the other (the last two), its origins come from the Latin agrest, or fields. It entered English around 1620.
**NOTE: Be sure to click the little sound symbol next to the word if you follow the link above in an effort to hear the pronunciation.**
We never did quite find the exact right word that my brother-in-law was searching for. I settled in on jaunty and used it with relish for the rest of the night—much to my nephew's chagrin. Funny, I don't even remember the car ...
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2010
You'd be surprised how often words come up in my casual conversations—as subject matter, that is. A couple of weekends ago, for instance, while hanging out with my sisters-in-law (who, I was thrilled to learn, are new fans of the blog), we started talking about various colloquialisms. A little bit later, my brother-in-law, a mechanic who owns his own shop (and for whom cars come up in casual conversation all the time) started a fun game of assigning ideal car types to all of us sitting around the table. But when it came to assigning a car to our 20-year-old nephew, our nephew balked.
"Why is that my ideal car?" He didn't think it suited him.
But my brother-in-law tried to enlighten him: "No, it's sports-like, but country—er, you know, country-like. But sophisticated. ... What's the word?" He looked at me. "There's got to be a word that means both active and country with sophistication."
I ran through my mental list: "Jaunty?"
"No."
"Rustic?"
"Kind of."
"Sporty."
"No. You were closer with rustic, but that doesn't convey the sports part."
"But it's definitely not sporty?"
"No." I whipped out my cell phone and jumped online, heading straight to one of my favorite sites, OneLook.com. After an introduction to this site to everyone at the table (and a little discussion about whether or not reverse dictionaries are technically cheating at crossword puzzles), I ran through the list—and that's when I spotted a word that caught everyone's attention: today's WOW, agrestic.
Agrestic (uh - GRES - tik) - rural, rustic, unpolished or awkward. While it doesn't mean all of these definitions at once, but rather one (the first two words) or the other (the last two), its origins come from the Latin agrest, or fields. It entered English around 1620.
**NOTE: Be sure to click the little sound symbol next to the word if you follow the link above in an effort to hear the pronunciation.**
We never did quite find the exact right word that my brother-in-law was searching for. I settled in on jaunty and used it with relish for the rest of the night—much to my nephew's chagrin. Funny, I don't even remember the car ...
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2010
Dec 6, 2010
WORD OF THE WEEK: Plenum
Summary: Do you know the difference between a plenum and a quorum? You will after you read this post!
To get to the story of this week's WOW Word of the Week, I have to take you back to 1990, my junior year of high school. That year, I was a word-obsessed teenager (as opposed to the word-obsessed adult I am today) who loved learning new words and figuring out how to use them in conversation or in writings. The only problem—one I admittedly still have from time to time—was that I often knew there was a more fitting word to describe what I meant, but I just couldn't get it off the tip of my tongue!
It became a joke with me; so often I was heard to say, "I wish there were a dictionary where you could look up the definition to find the word!"
Christmas of 1990, my sister (then a high school freshman) sat in front of me as I opened my gift from her. Her eyes twinkled as I laughingly caressed the wrapping paper and quite obviously deduced, "It's a book!" But after I opened it, I literally jumped out of my chair. It was my very own reverse dictionary!
"I saw it in the bookstore, and I bought it in advance," my sister told me. "They finally invented your dictionary!"
It turns out there had been such a book in existence since the mid-1970s, but it was lesser known. I still own my copy of the Oxford Reverse Dictionary, and not only use it, but treasure it.
But of course, the reverse dictionary has since gone digital.
OneLook.com has a reverse dictionary, a regular dictionary, a list of links to other dictionaries, and translations of foreign words via foreign dictionaries all conveniently located at one website. It's an excellent resource! And it's the resource I used over the weekend while working my usual Sunday crossword puzzle from the newspaper. I was head-over-heels thrilled—just like in 1990—when merely plugging in the clue for "28 Down" granted me a long list of synonyms. And one of the words fit perfectly!
Plenum (PLIH - nem) or (PLEE - nem) - (n.) a space that is completely full of matter, especially an air-filled space or structure like a ventilator; a general assembly of all members, such as that of a legislative body; the quality or state of being full. Similar to plenary, this word derives from the Latin plenus for full.
My crossword clue was along the lines of the middle definition: "a full assembly." The first use of the word plenum in this context was in 1772. So, what's the difference between a plenum and a quorum? You know my answer to that: Look it up!
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2010
To get to the story of this week's WOW Word of the Week, I have to take you back to 1990, my junior year of high school. That year, I was a word-obsessed teenager (as opposed to the word-obsessed adult I am today) who loved learning new words and figuring out how to use them in conversation or in writings. The only problem—one I admittedly still have from time to time—was that I often knew there was a more fitting word to describe what I meant, but I just couldn't get it off the tip of my tongue!
It became a joke with me; so often I was heard to say, "I wish there were a dictionary where you could look up the definition to find the word!"
Christmas of 1990, my sister (then a high school freshman) sat in front of me as I opened my gift from her. Her eyes twinkled as I laughingly caressed the wrapping paper and quite obviously deduced, "It's a book!" But after I opened it, I literally jumped out of my chair. It was my very own reverse dictionary!
"I saw it in the bookstore, and I bought it in advance," my sister told me. "They finally invented your dictionary!"
It turns out there had been such a book in existence since the mid-1970s, but it was lesser known. I still own my copy of the Oxford Reverse Dictionary, and not only use it, but treasure it.
But of course, the reverse dictionary has since gone digital.
OneLook.com has a reverse dictionary, a regular dictionary, a list of links to other dictionaries, and translations of foreign words via foreign dictionaries all conveniently located at one website. It's an excellent resource! And it's the resource I used over the weekend while working my usual Sunday crossword puzzle from the newspaper. I was head-over-heels thrilled—just like in 1990—when merely plugging in the clue for "28 Down" granted me a long list of synonyms. And one of the words fit perfectly!
Plenum (PLIH - nem) or (PLEE - nem) - (n.) a space that is completely full of matter, especially an air-filled space or structure like a ventilator; a general assembly of all members, such as that of a legislative body; the quality or state of being full. Similar to plenary, this word derives from the Latin plenus for full.
My crossword clue was along the lines of the middle definition: "a full assembly." The first use of the word plenum in this context was in 1772. So, what's the difference between a plenum and a quorum? You know my answer to that: Look it up!
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2010
Sep 7, 2010
WORD OF THE WEEK: Travail
Summary: In honor of this week's three-day weekend, we take a look at the history of Labor Day with the WOW Word of the Week, travail.
How was your Labor Day? If you live in the U.S., you probably enjoyed a three-day weekend, taking Monday off of work—with full pay and benefits—to most likely spend some quality time with friends, family and the outdoors. I took a day off from blogging, myself.
What is Labor Day? North Americans (particularly Americans) are known for being hard-working almost to the point of addiction. (See the definition for workaholic.) Part of that tradition came from honoring the dedicated laborers of what's commonly known as the working class. These include blue collar workers, or traditionally, men who wore blue work shirts, such as those in the industrial fields of maintenance and construction. Beginning in the 1880s in New York City, Labor Day became a U.S. federal holiday in 1894. Today, it is more commonly known as a day that honors all workers and also serves as the symbolic end of summer.
With so many Americans unemployed this year, it was the end-of-summer/beginning-of-fall symbolism that was emphasized in most local events across the country: pools closed, parades marched, bonfires warmed the willing. But the unemployed didn't necessarily get a day off—nor did the working.
Another often unspoken tradition for Labor Day in America is yard work. Three-day weekends provide steady workers the opportunity to "catch up" on household projects. And in the fall, that often means cleaning the gutters, washing the windows, clearing out the garage and putting away the barbecue. It's part of the steady rhythm of American life, no matter what your job status. ... And, yes, it's what I did, too.
Whatever you did over the holiday weekend, today meant back to work for you—at your office, shop or home computer, as well as at school and on the job hunt. This week's word is for you:
Travail (TRA - vayl or tra - VAYL) - (v.) to work or to toil, often in hardship. Merriam-Webster.com uses this example sentence, fittingly: "Labor Day is the day on which we recognize those men and women who daily travail with little appreciation or compensation." From the French travailler, this word once meant to trouble or torture, but has since toned down a bit. It entered the English language in the 1300s.
Don't work too hard this week ....
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2010
How was your Labor Day? If you live in the U.S., you probably enjoyed a three-day weekend, taking Monday off of work—with full pay and benefits—to most likely spend some quality time with friends, family and the outdoors. I took a day off from blogging, myself.
What is Labor Day? North Americans (particularly Americans) are known for being hard-working almost to the point of addiction. (See the definition for workaholic.) Part of that tradition came from honoring the dedicated laborers of what's commonly known as the working class. These include blue collar workers, or traditionally, men who wore blue work shirts, such as those in the industrial fields of maintenance and construction. Beginning in the 1880s in New York City, Labor Day became a U.S. federal holiday in 1894. Today, it is more commonly known as a day that honors all workers and also serves as the symbolic end of summer.
With so many Americans unemployed this year, it was the end-of-summer/beginning-of-fall symbolism that was emphasized in most local events across the country: pools closed, parades marched, bonfires warmed the willing. But the unemployed didn't necessarily get a day off—nor did the working.
Another often unspoken tradition for Labor Day in America is yard work. Three-day weekends provide steady workers the opportunity to "catch up" on household projects. And in the fall, that often means cleaning the gutters, washing the windows, clearing out the garage and putting away the barbecue. It's part of the steady rhythm of American life, no matter what your job status. ... And, yes, it's what I did, too.
Whatever you did over the holiday weekend, today meant back to work for you—at your office, shop or home computer, as well as at school and on the job hunt. This week's word is for you:
Travail (TRA - vayl or tra - VAYL) - (v.) to work or to toil, often in hardship. Merriam-Webster.com uses this example sentence, fittingly: "Labor Day is the day on which we recognize those men and women who daily travail with little appreciation or compensation." From the French travailler, this word once meant to trouble or torture, but has since toned down a bit. It entered the English language in the 1300s.
Don't work too hard this week ....
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2010
Apr 12, 2010
WORD OF THE WEEK: Phobia
Summary: Every Monday, Beyond Talk explores one word—including pronunciation, definition and etymology—to help you improve your vocabulary. Today, we look at a word that goes with our current blog post series on fear: phobia.
Fear is a human response. We may not like it much, but the fact is, it's adaptive: Fear protects us from harm by sending signals to our brains that make us fight for survival or flee for safety. Sometimes, however, fear makes us freeze up and sends us into an unnecessary panic that prevents our ability to assess the situation clearly. This is when the natural reaction of fear changes from friend to enemy.
A phobia (FO - BEE - ya) is a fear-based belief system that petrifies, or freezes, someone with fright. From the original Greek phobos for fear, this word entered into common English usage in 1786. According to Merriam-Webster.com, it is "an exaggerated, usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects or situation."
Common phobias include:
Acrophobia - fear of heights
Agorophobia - an extreme fear of open spaces (highly extreme sufferers sometimes refuse to leave their home for years on end)
Arachnaphobia - fear of spiders
Cynophobia - an excessive fear of dogs
Hydrophobia - fear of water (also a symptom of rabies)
Mysophobia - the compulsive fear of dirt and germs
Pteromerhanophobia - fear of flying
Trypanophobia - the fear of shots, needles, injections
For more phobia categories, check out this online Top 10 List, also from Merriam-Webster. (Number 10 is, darkly, my favorite.) We all have some aversions. What makes you phobic?
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2010
Fear is a human response. We may not like it much, but the fact is, it's adaptive: Fear protects us from harm by sending signals to our brains that make us fight for survival or flee for safety. Sometimes, however, fear makes us freeze up and sends us into an unnecessary panic that prevents our ability to assess the situation clearly. This is when the natural reaction of fear changes from friend to enemy.
A phobia (FO - BEE - ya) is a fear-based belief system that petrifies, or freezes, someone with fright. From the original Greek phobos for fear, this word entered into common English usage in 1786. According to Merriam-Webster.com, it is "an exaggerated, usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects or situation."
Common phobias include:
Acrophobia - fear of heights
Agorophobia - an extreme fear of open spaces (highly extreme sufferers sometimes refuse to leave their home for years on end)
Arachnaphobia - fear of spiders
Cynophobia - an excessive fear of dogs
Hydrophobia - fear of water (also a symptom of rabies)
Mysophobia - the compulsive fear of dirt and germs
Pteromerhanophobia - fear of flying
Trypanophobia - the fear of shots, needles, injections
For more phobia categories, check out this online Top 10 List, also from Merriam-Webster. (Number 10 is, darkly, my favorite.) We all have some aversions. What makes you phobic?
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2010
Feb 22, 2010
WORD OF THE WEEK: A Sesquipedalian Night
Summary: Tonight's post comes late, but is worth the wait. Add sesquipedalian to your lengthy vocabulary this week!
Good evening! Or should I say good night? Yes, it is LATE. And, no, I did not forget about tonight's blog post. I've had a very busy day—much of it spent away from my computer. (How odd!) And it's so nice to sit down in my pajamas and finally plunk out to you the word and definition I've been eager to share all day long.
It's a word that describes you (if you, in fact, use these Monday posts the way they're meant: to boost your vocabulary).
Sesquipedalian (SES - kwi - pih - DAY - lee - en) - (adj.) one who uses big words, or possesses a large vocabulary; also a word or words with many syllables.
From the original Latin, this word literally means "a foot-and-a-half long." Is your vocabulary over a foot long yet? What big words do you like to show off when you communicate?
P.S. - Special thanks to Rose who recently e-mailed me to point out a glitch in my blog poll. I will be working to correct this shortly.
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2010
Good evening! Or should I say good night? Yes, it is LATE. And, no, I did not forget about tonight's blog post. I've had a very busy day—much of it spent away from my computer. (How odd!) And it's so nice to sit down in my pajamas and finally plunk out to you the word and definition I've been eager to share all day long.
It's a word that describes you (if you, in fact, use these Monday posts the way they're meant: to boost your vocabulary).
Sesquipedalian (SES - kwi - pih - DAY - lee - en) - (adj.) one who uses big words, or possesses a large vocabulary; also a word or words with many syllables.
From the original Latin, this word literally means "a foot-and-a-half long." Is your vocabulary over a foot long yet? What big words do you like to show off when you communicate?
P.S. - Special thanks to Rose who recently e-mailed me to point out a glitch in my blog poll. I will be working to correct this shortly.
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2010
Sep 7, 2009
WORD OF THE WEEK: Sign (Language) of the Times
Happy Labor Day! After a feast with my in-laws today (following yesterday's requisite yard work), I casually perused the internet, looking for a Word of the Week that would allow me to re-address that newbie 'net word pwn from a couple of weeks ago. What I found—a list of New Words for 2009 on Merriam-Webster.com—really jumped out at me: From acai to zip line, the newest dictionary additions speak volumes about what's important or timely in American culture.
But it was some of the words in between that really made me think. Environmentally related words and phrases like carbon footprint, green collar, and locavore (LO-ka-VORE—one who eats locally grown food as often as possible) show a shift in the devil-may-care attitude about the planet that was so prevalent in the Twentieth Century. There are health-related words, like cardioprotective, naproxen, neuroprotective, pharmacogenetics, and phyisatry, that show how proactive we've become about our health care. Our fascination with electronic entertainment, as well as with celebrity, are reflected in such hot new terms as fan fiction, flash mob, frenemy, vlog and webisode. Our global connections are reinforced with the induction of foreign words: goji, haram, reggaeton. Even the economic recession is addressed in something as simple as staycation (stay-KA-SHUN—a vacation spent at home or nearby; possibly popular, I'm assuming, with locavores).
I could go on even more about these newly-added words, but I'll let you look and decide for yourself. What jumps out at you when you read the list?
One more note: Thanks to my friend Chad, who happens to work as a beta-tester for gaming companies (and thanks, too, to a little help from television), I've learned that there are a couple of ways to pronounce pwn: PONE or POON. And there's also a secondary definition, that of a newcomer to a multi-player online game. Whether in its verb form ("I pwned you that round!") or its noun form ("You don't know what you're doing, you pwn"), it's still always an insult. And that's yet another reason for keeping up with the latest language of the times!
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2009
But it was some of the words in between that really made me think. Environmentally related words and phrases like carbon footprint, green collar, and locavore (LO-ka-VORE—one who eats locally grown food as often as possible) show a shift in the devil-may-care attitude about the planet that was so prevalent in the Twentieth Century. There are health-related words, like cardioprotective, naproxen, neuroprotective, pharmacogenetics, and phyisatry, that show how proactive we've become about our health care. Our fascination with electronic entertainment, as well as with celebrity, are reflected in such hot new terms as fan fiction, flash mob, frenemy, vlog and webisode. Our global connections are reinforced with the induction of foreign words: goji, haram, reggaeton. Even the economic recession is addressed in something as simple as staycation (stay-KA-SHUN—a vacation spent at home or nearby; possibly popular, I'm assuming, with locavores).
I could go on even more about these newly-added words, but I'll let you look and decide for yourself. What jumps out at you when you read the list?
One more note: Thanks to my friend Chad, who happens to work as a beta-tester for gaming companies (and thanks, too, to a little help from television), I've learned that there are a couple of ways to pronounce pwn: PONE or POON. And there's also a secondary definition, that of a newcomer to a multi-player online game. Whether in its verb form ("I pwned you that round!") or its noun form ("You don't know what you're doing, you pwn"), it's still always an insult. And that's yet another reason for keeping up with the latest language of the times!
© KiKi Productions, Inc. 2009
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