Word of the weekend: Peccant

Posted on 06/23/2013 by gegebearbear

Peccant, ( \PEK-unt\ ), adjective

1 :guilty of a moral offense : sinning
2 :violating a principle or rule : faulty

Examples: Outside the confessional stood a short line of peccant parishioners waiting to seek redemption for their sins.

“His own translation of Heinrich Heine’s ‘A Woman’ features a naughtily misbehaving protagonist and herpeccant boyfriend….” — From a review by Benjamin Ivry in The Forward, April 27, 2012

Sponsored Link “Peccant” comes from the Latin verb “peccare,” which means “to sin,” “to commit a fault,” or “to stumble,” and is related to the better-known English word “peccadillo” (“a slight offense”). Etymologists have suggested that “peccare” might be related to Latin “ped-” or “pes,” meaning “foot,” by way of an unattested adjective, “peccus,” which may have been used to mean “having an injured foot” or “stumbling. “Whether or not a connection truly exists between “peccant” and “peccus,” “peccant” itself involves stumbling of a figurative kind—making errors, for example, or falling stumbling.” Whether or not a connection truly exists between “peccant” and “peccus,” “peccant” itself involves stumbling of a figurative kind—making errors, for example, or falling into immoral, corrupt, or sinful behavior.

Word of the Weekend: Hoise

Posted on 06/16/2013 by gegebearbear

hoise:
verb
: lift, raise; especially
: to raise into position by or as if by means of tackle

Bethany was selected by her Girl Scout troop to hoise the American flag for Monday’s Memorial Day ceremony on the town green. “In order for [New England Patriot’s quarterback Tom] Brady to play a great game, which is a must if the Pats want to hoise the Lombardi Trophy, he needs to stay upright.” — From an article by Nick Curcuru and Michael Muldoon in the Gloucester Daily Times(Massachusetts), January 27, 2013 Sponsored Link

The connection between “hoise” and “hoist” is a bit confusing. The two words are essentially synonymous variants, but “hoist” is far more common. You’ll rarely encounter “hoise” in any of its regular forms: “hoise,” “hoised,” or “hoising.” But a variant of its past participle shows up fairly frequently as part of a set expression.

And now, here’s the confusing part—that variant past participle is “hoist”! The expression is “hoist with (or by) one’s own petard,” which means “victimized or hurt by one’s own scheme.” This oft-heard phrase owes its popularity to Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “For ’tis the sport to have the engineer hoist with his own petar[d].” (A petard is a medieval explosive. The quote implies that the engineer—the person who sets the explosive device—is blown into the air by the explosion of his own device.)

Jill and Barry Baynes

Word of the Weekend: Orotund

Posted on 06/10/2013 by gegebearbear

orotund\OR-uh-tund\ adjective

1 :marked by fullness, strength, and clarity of sound : sonorous
2 :pompous, bombastic Josh cleared his throat dramatically, then did a dead-on impression of the professor’s orotund, patronizing speech.

“Comedian Bob Hope used to tell an anecdote about Franklin D. Roosevelt housetraining his Scottish terrier, Fala, on the Chicago Tribune. It was a reference to Roosevelt’s greatest hater,Tribune publisher Robert R. McCormick, an orotund aristocrat who considered the New Deal indistinguishable from Communism.” — From a post by Edward McClellan on NBC Chicago’s Ward Room blog, April 23, 2013

Did you know?

The Latin roots of “orotund” are related to two more common English words—”oral” and “rotund.” Latin “or-” means “mouth,” and “rotundus” means “round” or “circular.” The Roman poet Horace joined forms of those Latin terms to create the phrase “ore rotundo,” literally meaning “with round mouth,” and figuratively meaning “with well-turned speech.” “Ore rotundo” was modified to “orotund” and adopted into English in the late 18th century. It can indicate either strength of delivery or inflated wording.

Jill and Barry Baynes

Word of the Weekend: Efflorescence

Posted on 06/02/2013 by gegebearbear

efflorescence \ef-luh-RESS-unss\
noun
1a :the action or process of developing and unfolding as if coming into flower b :an instance of such development c :fullness of manifestation : culmination
2 :the period or state of flowering
3 :the process or product of efflorescingchemically

“Besides introducing popular religion, the late eleventh century ushered in an intellectual efflorescence as well.” — From Ronald M. Davidson’s 2005 bookTibetan Renaissance

“Perhaps a collective sense of anxiety about the natural world … has prompted an efflorescence of books about trees from an aesthetic and cultural standpoint in the last decade or so.” — From a review by William Pannapacker in The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 16, 2012 Sponsored Link

When Edgar Allan Poe spoke of an “efflorescence of language” in The Poetic Principle, he was referring to language that was flowery, or overly rich and colorful. This ties in to the garden roots of “efflorescence,” a word, like “flourish,” that comes from the Latin word for “flower.” More commonly, however, “efflorescence” refers to the literal or figurative act of blossoming much like a flower does. You could speak of “the efflorescence of nature in springtime,” for example, or “the efflorescence of culture during the Renaissance.”

“Efflorescence” is also used in chemistry to refer to a process that occurs when something changes to a powder from loss ofwater of crystallization.

Jill and Barry Baynes

Word of the Weekend: Tontine

Posted on 05/26/2013 by gegebearbear

May 26, 2013

tontine • \TAHN-teen\ • noun
: a joint financial arrangement whereby the participants usually contribute equally to a prize that is awarded entirely to the participant who survives all the others
Examples:
In the author’s latest suspense novel, the participants in a secret tontine begin to show up dead—one by one.

“He had become interested in an insurance scheme called a tontine, in which people pool their money and the last survivor gets the whole pot. But tontines were now illegal.” —From Alice Schroeder’s 2008 book The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.

***Definitions provided by Merriam-Webster Dictionary App.