Love: the Verb. as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary

verbatim (not including phrases or usage, though that is arguably the best part):

love, v.1 DRAFT REVISION June 2010

Etm. /lv/, U.S. /lv/  Forms: . OE hlufian (rare), OE lufian, OE luuian (rare), lOE lofodest (2nd singular past indicative, perh. transmission error), lOE louian, eME louie, eME lufie, eME luuige, eME luuie, ME lofuie, ME loueie, ME louie, ME louy, ME louye, ME lovy, ME lovye, ME lowie, ME lufie, ME luuie, ME luuye.. ME lof, ME lofe, ME loffe, ME lofue, ME looue, ME louf, ME lovue, ME low, ME lowe, ME lowfe, ME luf, ME lufe, ME luff, ME luffe, ME luud (past tense), ME luue, ME-16 loue, ME- love, 15 lub, 15 lubbe, 15 luve, 15-16 loove, 18- luv

Definitions after the jump

An Article that fully satisfied my logofascination!

Today while reading my daily web comics I came across a blog that pointed me in the direction of a great article on 20 words that have fallen into desuetude. Among my favorite are:

Chaetophorous: extremely hairy
Agowilt: a sudden and inexplicable feeling of fear
Hebdomadal: something that happens to you every seven days
Loganamnosis: when you forget words and you cannot rest until they have reappeared inside your memory
Antistatis: when an act is defended by saying that, had it not taken place, then something much worse could have happened
Nikhedonia: a word for the anticipation of success

Jing-Bang

I made an effort this week to work the phrase "jing-bang" into one of my master's exam essay. This is a Scottish term: the hail jing-bang means the whole lot or everything. I was able to use in the opening sentence for my International Commerce exam:

In the hail jing-bang of global economics, regional trade agreements (RTAs) have become the most common form of agreement.

Every Rose has its Thorn

Aculeate [ê-'kyu-lee-yêt]

Definition: Having a stinger, like a bee or wasp, or sharp prickles, like a rose or thistle.

If you know someone with a prickly personality, you will find today's word handy, "Otto Mattick has aculeate tongue capable of inflicting considerable mental pain if roiled." You could also call Otto's barbed words 'aculeate.'

From YourDictionary.com

Murder Board

Sounds scarier than it is. The murder board is a group of people questioning a person who is in preparation for an oral examination or a Senate confirmation hearing. The murder board should be as tough if not quite a bit tougher than the committee he is preparing to face.

Larry Tracy explains it pretty well in this article, which also happens to be an excert from his book The Shortcut to Persuasive Presentations.

Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/

Swash!

My biggest regret in packing for school was leaving behind my vampire teeth. My second was neglecting to bring my Compact OED so I could give more detailed descriptions of lovely words like "swash."

After I do well on my Diplomacy midterm tomorrow, I'm going to go swashing down the street.

It is so fun to say:

Swash.      Truly onomatopoetic.

n.  1.
1. A splash of water or other liquid hitting a solid surface.
2. The sound of such a splash.
3. A narrow channel through which tides flow.
4. A bar over which waves wash freely.
5. Swagger or bluster.
6. A swaggering or blustering person.

v.   swashed, swash·ing, swash·es
intr.
1. To strike, move, or wash with a splashing sound.
2. To swagger.

tr.
1. To splash (a liquid).
2. To splash a liquid against.

"swash." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 10 Nov. 2008. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/swash>.

Iniquitous

Now when I first saw this word, I thought for sure it was related to ubiquitous, which is a fun Weighty Word. However, I was wrong in this assumption. Where ubiquitous comes from the Latin word ubīqu(e) meaning everywhere, iniquitous come to us from the Latin word inīqu(us) meaning uneven or unfair. So we see they will have vasty different meanings.

iniquitous: adj.   Characterized by iniquity; wicked.
ubiquitous: adj.   Being or seeming to be everywhere at the same time; omnipresent.

I came across this word researching sugar-based biofuels. "[Farmers] have not been paid what they were promised. Payments have been erratic and iniquitous, with some farmers getting full payment at old rates, while others not paid at all." 


"iniquitous." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 20 Oct. 2008. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/iniquitous>.

"ubiquitous." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 20 Oct. 2008. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ubiquitous>.

Primogeniture

Primogeniture: Being born first, or in my family's case, this guy:

Term also refers to the law where the first-born son would inherit land.

I have yet to find a word to describe "guy-in-family-best-at-putting-sisters-into-a-headlock," but I'll keep looking.

Rabbit Killer

Rabbit killer: A slayer of the weak who can look fragile against the strong.

BBC sports used this term to describe Robinho: "His truly great performances came in the two meetings with Chile, a 3-0 win in a group game and a 6-1 rout in the quarter final. Both times Robinho was dazzling. But Chile were not only very poor defensively, they were also falling apart after internal discipline problems."

He's a pretty sweet player, but probably not good enough to warrant all his sulking.

It's like Baader-Meinhoff all over again!

The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon occurs when a person, after having learned some (usually obscure) fact, 

word, phrase, or other item for the first time, encounters that item again, perhaps several times, shortly after having learned it.

 

My friend Adam from the "Zeugma" entry recently experienced an example of Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon reading this page. "I had just learned "mondegreen" the previous week. And I had also just learned about the phenonenon, so I'm happy to share it with you. Here's a link. You'll love this if you weren't aware."

 

He was right.  I do love it. Many thanks. 

Zeugma

I keep forgetting this wonderful word exists. I first saw it through Word Of the Day on Yourdictionary.com, but I found it again in Edward Gorey's Amphigorey Again.

Zeugma is a figure of speech describing the joining of two or more parts of a sentence with a single common verb or noun. For example, when my friend Adam said, "I want to crack a beer open or over Pony's head," he was using a zeugma to express himself. And knowing Pony, he probably deserved it.

More examples:

you held your breath and the door for me.

Alanis Morissette, Head over Feet

"... and covered themselves with dust and glory." - Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

"You can leave in a taxi. If you can't get a taxi, you can leave in a huff. If that's too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff." - Groucho Marx, from Duck Soup

New words to dictionary

This tidbit I forwarded on to my brother-in-law who is attempting to mainstream a word or two of his own:

"The ants are my friends/They're blowin' in the wind." New Yorker magazine's blog The Book Bench celebrated the fact that "Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary has finally found space for the word 'mondegreen,' which it defines as 'a word or phrase that results from a mishearing of something said or sung.'"

A Date NOT to go on

If someone says they want to lapidate you, do not think they want to date you on their lap. In fact, you should probably run away as they are thinking about stoning you to death.

Lapidate (verb)
Pronunciation: ['læp-ê-deyt]
Definition: To stone, to throw stones at, to stone to death.

Etymology: Today's word comes from Latin lapidare "to throw stones," derived from lapis, lapidis "stone," a relative of Greek lepas "crag, rock." The word "lapis" itself occurs in the name of the translucent, blue, semiprecious stone, "lapis lazuli." A dilapidated house might have originally been run down from loss of stones, for the word comes from Latin dilapidare "to throw away, squander" from dis- "away" + lapidare "throw stones." It is interesting that with metathesis of the [l] and [a], we get alpis "high mountain" in Latin, which many believe was borrowed from Celtic. No certain evidence for a link between these two words, however, has been found.
-Yourdictionary.com

Umbriphilous

Umbriphilous (adj.) Fond of the shade.
 "Although this is a botanical word, used to describe things arboreal, I choose to use it to describe myself."

Shea, Ammon. Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages

I found a book that may lead to many many new words.

Hierophant

I was discussing my desire to have more intellectual conversations at work with a friend today and he offered me this word:

Hierophant:

1. An ancient Greek priest who interpreted sacred mysteries, especially the priest of the Eleusinian mysteries.
2. An interpreter of sacred mysteries or arcane knowledge.
3. One who explains or makes a commentary.

hierophant. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hierophant (accessed: May 18, 2008)

Thank you for not talking about the weather.