April 14, 2012
Word of the Day

DERRING-DO
audio pronunciation
\dair-ing-DOO\

DEFINITION

noun
: daring action : daring

EXAMPLES

In a spectacular feat of derring-do, the stuntman leaped from the overpass and landed on top of the train as it passed below.

"It's a bit of a letdown when, near its end, the book reverts to more conventional Bond-style derring-do, as our hero struggles to recapture the warheads and save Isabella from the villains…." — From a book review by Patrick Anderson in The Washington Post, January 16, 2012

DID YOU KNOW?

"Derring-do" is a quirky holdover from Middle English that came to occupy its present place in the language by a series of mistakes and misunderstandings. In Middle English, "dorring don" meant simply "daring to do." For example, Geoffrey Chaucer used "dorring don" around 1374 when he described a knight "daring to do" brave deeds. The phrase was misprinted as "derrynge do" in a 16th-century edition of a 15th-century work by poet John Lydgate, and Edmund Spenser took it up from there, assuming it was meant as a substantive or noun phrase. (A glossary to Spenser's work defined it as "manhood and chevalrie.") Sir Walter Scott and others in the 19th century got the phrase from Spenser and brought it into modern use.

April 15, 2012
Word of the Day

FOUR-FLUSH
audio pronunciation
\FOR-FLUSH\

DEFINITION

verb
: to bluff in poker holding a four flush; broadly : to make a false claim : bluff

EXAMPLES

We found an old newspaper article in which a candidate promised he would never "four-flush" or mislead voters.

"Royal is a not quite legal lawyer, four-flushing his way around New York, long separated from his wife and three children…." — From a review by Stanley Kauffman in The New Republic, December 31, 2001

DID YOU KNOW?

The term "four-flush" comes to us from stud poker. In that game, a player is dealt one card face down and four cards face up, with betting taking place each time a face-up card is dealt. A four-card flush — that is, all four cards of the same suit — is worthless in poker; it takes five cards to make a flush. A player who has four cards of the same suit showing is in a good position to bluff. Pretending to hold a flush with four cards showing — ''four-flushing'' — came to be a skill among gamblers, one so common that the term spread to everyday use to describe the actions of one who makes false or dishonest claims.

April 18, 2012
Word of the Day

BEDIZEN
audio pronunciation
\bih-DYE-zun\

DEFINITION

verb
: to dress or adorn gaudily

EXAMPLES

The children entertained themselves for hours with the contents of the old trunk, donning fancy dresses and bedizening themselves with jewelry and scarves.

"Critics love to bedizen her photographs in fancy theories, but [photographer Cindy] Sherman seldom overthinks. The most impressive aspect of her work may be how economically she orchestrates her three-ring circus of effects." — From a review by Richard B. Woodward in the Wall Street Journal, March 7, 2012

DID YOU KNOW?

"Bedizen" doesn’t have the flashy history you might expect — its roots lie in the rather quiet art of spinning thread. In times past, the spinning process began with the placement of fibers (such as flax) on an implement called a "distaff"; the fibers were then drawn out from the distaff and twisted into thread. "Bedizen" descends from the older, now obsolete, verb "disen," which meant "to dress a distaff with flax" and which came to English by way of Middle Dutch. The spelling of "disen" eventually became "dizen," and its meaning expanded to cover the "dressing up" of things other than distaffs. In the mid-17th century, English speakers began using "bedizen" with the same meaning. The figurative use in our second quotation is also well-established. Such uses date to the late 18th century.

April 19, 2012
Word of the Day

THRESHOLD
audio pronunciation
\THRESH-hohld\

DEFINITION

noun
1
: the section of wood or stone that lies under a door
2
a : the means or place of entry : entrance b : the place or point of beginning
3
: the point or level at which a physical or mental effect begins to be produced

EXAMPLES

She fell in love with the old house from the moment she first stepped across the threshold.

"The protracted delegate fight has raised the possibility that none of the three contenders will reach the threshold needed to secure the nomination before the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., in August." — From an article by Michael Finnegan and John Hoeffel in the Chicago Tribune, March 14, 2012

DID YOU KNOW?

The earliest known use of "threshold" in the English language is from Alfred the Great's Old English translation of the Roman philosopher Boethius's De consolatione philosophiae. In this translation, which was written around 888, "threshold" appears as "þeorscwold" (that first letter is called a thorn and it was used in Old English and Middle English to indicate the sounds produced by "th" in "thin" and "this"). The origins of this Old English word are not known, though it is believed to be related to Old English "threscan," from which we get the words "thresh," meaning "to separate seed from (a harvested plant) using a machine or tool" and "thrash," meaning, among other things "to beat soundly with or as if with a stick or whip."

I think the American population is rapidly approaching it's threshold of intolerance for the governments apparent concern for the people it is supposed to serve.

I like and agree with your example sentence Randy! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

April 20, 2012
Word of the Day

GREGARIOUS
audio pronunciation
\grih-GAIR-ee-us\

DEFINITION

adjective
1
a : tending to associate with others of one's kind : social b : marked by or indicating a liking for companionship: sociable c : of or relating to a social group
2
a : growing in a cluster or a colony b : living in contiguous nests but not forming a true colony — used especially of wasps and bees

EXAMPLES

My travel companion is a gregarious soul who makes friends easily, so we never want for company at dinner time.

"Mr. Dean, who is also an ordained minister and a voluntary Chaplain for New York City Transit, is known for his gregarious, welcoming attitude on the job."— From an article by David Sims in The Chief-Leader, March 19, 2012

DID YOU KNOW?

When you're one of the herd, it's tough to avoid being social. The etymology of "gregarious" reflects the social nature of the flock; in fact, the word grew out of the Latin noun "grex," meaning "herd" or "flock." When it first began appearing in English texts in the 17th century, "gregarious" was applied mainly to animals, but by the 18th century it was being used for social human beings as well. By the way, "grex" gave English a whole flock of other words too, including "egregious," "aggregate," "congregate," and "segregate."

At Blade, just about everyone is very gregarious! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

April 21, 2012
Word of the Day

MALEDICTION
audio pronunciation
\mal-uh-DIK-shun\

DEFINITION

noun
: curse, execration

EXAMPLES

The two old women began casting aspersions and heaping maledictions upon one another.

"Culture may have been the principal instrument of our transfiguration, and we could now only curse the few beneficiaries of the founder of civil society with Caliban's malediction addressed to Prospero in The Tempest: 'The red plague ride you / For learning me your language!'" — From Robert Wokler's 2012 book Rousseau, the Age of Enlightenment, and Their Legacies

DID YOU KNOW?

"Malediction," which at one time could also refer to slander or to the condition of being reviled or slandered, derives (via Middle English and Late Latin) from the Latin verb "maledicere," meaning "to speak evil of" or "to curse." "Maledicere," in turn, was formed by combining the Latin words "male," meaning "badly," and "dicere," "to speak" or "to say." You may recognize both of those component parts, as each has made a significant contribution to the English language. "Male" is the ancestor of such words as "malady," "malevolent," and "malign"; "dicere" gives us "contradict," "dictate," "diction," "edict" and "prediction," just to name a few.

I THINK that perhaps this country is suffering a malediction from those who live in a town that uses initials for it's name.

April 22, 2012
Word of the Day

VINDICATE
audio pronunciation
\VIN-duh-kayt\

DEFINITION

verb
1
a : avenge 2 a: to free from allegation or blame b : confirm, substantiate c : to provide justification or defense for : justify d : to protect from attack or encroachment : defend
2
: to maintain a right to

EXAMPLES

Recent discoveries appear to vindicate the scientist's once controversial theory.

"A mixture of overreaction, overconfidence and herding causes investors to see growth where none exists and so pay too much for it. This implies that a low yield is a sign not of future capital appreciation and growth, but rather that the share is overvalued. History seems to vindicate this prediction." — From an article in Investors Chronicle, March 5, 2012

DID YOU KNOW?

It's not surprising that the two earliest senses of "vindicate," which has been used in English since at least the mid-16th century, are "to set free" (a sense that is now obsolete) and "to avenge." "Vindicate" derives from Latin "vindicatus," the past participle of the verb "vindicare," meaning "to set free, avenge, or lay claim to." "Vindicare," in turn, derives from "vindex," a noun meaning "claimant" or "avenger." Other descendants of "vindicare" in English include such vengeful words as "avenge" itself, "revenge," "vengeance," "vendetta," and "vindictive." Closer cousins of "vindicate" are "vindicable" ("capable of being vindicated") and the archaic word "vindicative" ("punitive").

April 25, 2012
Word of the Day

CAHOOT
audio pronunciation
\kuh-HOOT\

DEFINITION

noun
: partnership, league — usually used in plural

EXAMPLES

Police suspect that the burglar was in cahoots with the bartender.

"In a huge anti-mafia bust, 16 judges have been arrested near Naples, Italy, according to the BBC, for allegedly being in cahoots with Italy's notorious Camorra crime syndicate." — From a news article in The Huffington Post, March 19, 2012

DID YOU KNOW?

"Cahoot" is used almost exclusively in the phrase "in cahoots," which means "in an alliance or partnership." In most contexts, it describes the conspiring activity of people up to no good. (There's also the rare idiom "go cahoots," meaning "to enter into a partnership," as in "they went cahoots on a new restaurant.") "Cahoot" may derive from French "cahute," meaning "cabin" or "hut," suggesting the notion of two or more people hidden away working together in secret. "Cahute" is believed to have been formed through the combination of two other words for cabins and huts, "cabane" and "hutte."

It is a shame that so many politicians are in cahoots in fleecing the American public!

I think so too Tom. Thanks for vindicating my long-held conspiracy theory <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />