Word of the Day

gastronome \GAS-truh-nohm\, noun:
A connoisseur of good food and drink.

If "poultry is for the cook what canvas is for a painter," to quote the 19th-century French gastronome Brillat-Savarin, why paint the same painting over and over again?
-- John Willoughby and Chris Schlesinger, "From Poussin to Capon a Chicken in Every Size", New York Times, September 22, 1999

Even though Paris was then considered the culinary capital of Europe, the food at the Cercle was so highly revered that many well-known gastronomes regularly made the trip to Lyon to eat there.
-- Daniel Rogov, "Three culinary tales for Hanukka", Jerusalem Post, December 6, 1996

I am no gastronome at the best; moreover, I have, over the years, eaten in so many unpropitious circumstances and from so many truly awful kitchens that I have come to consider myself almost as much a connoisseur of bad food as other men are of good.
-- James Cameron, "Albania: The Last Marxist Paradise", The Atlantic, June 1963

Gastronome is ultimately derived from Greek gaster, "stomach" + nomos, "rule, law."

Word of the Day

cosset \KOSS-it\, verb:

1. To treat as a pet; to treat with excessive indulgence; to pamper.

noun:
1. A pet, especially a pet lamb.

Sumner's parents, for instance, were routinely attended by butlers, maids, coachmen and grooms while little Sumner and his sister, Emily, were pampered and cosseted from infancy by nurserymaids and governesses.
-- Benjamin Welles, Sumner Welles: FDR's Global Strategist

Assunta played a larger role in the lives of her children, whom she cosseted and cared for as best she could.
-- Patricia Albers, Shadows, Fire, Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti

In these two years, Adolf lived a life of parasitic idleness -- funded, provided for, looked after, and cosseted by a doting mother, with his own room in the comfortable flat in the Humboldtstrasse in Linz, which the family had moved into in June 1905.
-- Ian Kershaw, Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris

Cosset comes from the noun cosset, "a pet lamb."

Word of the Day

philomath \FIL-uh-math\, noun:
A lover of learning; a scholar.

It is precisely for the philomaths that universities ought to cater.
-- Aldous Huxley, Proper Studies

It's nothing to laugh about, he says. "Strange things happen in this country -- things that philosophers and other philomaths had never dreamed of."
-- Tomek Tryzna, Miss Nobody

Philomath is from the Greek philomathes, "loving knowledge," from philos, "loving, fond" + mathein, "to learn, to understand."

Word of the Day

What does it mean “to pink” something, and how did the color become associated with Valentine’s Day?

You are minding your own business in the grocery store when wham! Pink hearts and candies placed at eye level by merchants remind you that once again, Valentine’s Day is here.

Why pink? How did pink become so strongly associated with February 14, roses and romance?

The word pink dates back to the 1570s, when “to pink” was to create a small cut or perforation, such as on a decorated edge (think pinking shears).

The story of pink’s link to color is an incredible story of linguistic conversion. That’s the concise way to say the word started out as a verb, became a noun, and, after that, an adjective.

Let’s not forget that small but crucial part of your hand, the pinkie. Learn what it has to do with the color pink, here.

The Dutch associated pinck oogen, “small eyes,” with the small, delicate flowers of the Dianthus, whose petals look distinctly perforated or crimped. Common names for Dianthus include carnation and pink, which lead to pink’s association with two more ideas: the color of the flower and the idea of the flower as perfection. Perfection is what Shakespeare’s Mercutio is referring to in Romeo and Juliet when he says, “Nay, I am the very pink of curtesie.”

At the point where scholars pinpoint the first attribution of pink as a color, around 1681, people could not stop talking about it. In Elizabethan England, pink hose were all the fashion for men. Fortunately, Sumptuary Laws, which determined the color of clothing people wore by their social status, made pink available to both the upper and lower classes.

In the 1920s pink started to be used for the marketing of products for boys. The color association was considered appropriate for boys, full of energy, not yet mature enough for the full heat of the color red. Conversely, baby blue was associated with girls as a soft, mild color, and one strongly associated with the Virgin Mary. Post-WWII these associations switched, with pink directed at products for girls and blue for boys.

So why did pink become associated with Valentine’s Day? Our speculation concludes that a combination of pink as perfection, a tiny flower, and the term for crimping as on Valentine cards created an unstoppable combo.

What do you think? Is the pendulum of pink’s associations swinging back to masculinity? What other associations does pink inspire for you?

Word of the Day

vulpine \VUHL-pahyn\, adjective:
1. Cunning or crafty.
2. Of or resembling a fox.

His olive complexion surrounded a vulpine smile whenever he looked in the direction of the defendant.
-- Jeffrey R. Ryan, A Volcano Heard Afar

McCone was aware of what was happening, and his leaning posture became more and more vulpine.
-- Stephen King, Richard Bachman, The Running Man

Vulpine derives from the Latin word for "fox," vulpinus.

Word of the Day

dharna \DAHR-nuh\, noun:
In India,the practice of exacting justice or compliance with a just demand by sitting and fasting at the doorstep of an offender until death or until the demand is granted.

Surely thou hast heard that Munda Ram, banker, having failed to procure his moneys from Narain Das, thy kinsman, hath sworn to obtain them by dharna?
-- Maud Diver, Siege perilous: and other stories

You've never reached up, awestruck, to touch these ties and brought the entire rack down on your head so that you sat swathed in a riot of colors, held down by a dharna of textures, trapped in a gherao of ties.
-- Shashi Tharoor, Show business: a novel

Dharna is a Hindi word literally meaning "a placing."

(This might just work.)

Word of the Day

idioglossia \id-ee-uh-GLOS-ee-uh\, noun:

1. A private form of speech invented by one child or by children who are in close contact, as twins.
2. A pathological condition in which a person's speech is so severely distorted that it is unintelligible.

The propinquity between them had even developed into a sort of romantic idioglossia where only they knew the code words of the secret language that sooner or later is incorporated into every love affair.
-- Stuart F. Tower, The Wayfarers

Idioglossia combines the Greek roots idio-, "particular to one," and gloss-, "tongue."

Word of the Day

autoschediastical \aw-toh-SKEE-dee-az-tik-uhl\, adjective:

Something improvised or extemporized.

Come, that's all I have to say, for if people don't take an interest in things, I shall not eliminate sesquipedilianisms in an autoschediastical fashion to amuse them.
-- Mark Lemon, Henry Mayhew, Punch, Volumes 62-63, 1872

Then Marmaduke looked back at the boat, and I gave a fiendish laugh, that floated over the waters of the canal, striking the auricular nerves of the boat driver, who was trying to impress upon the mind of his mule the necessity of being more autoschediastical if they wished to win the race.
-- The Lafayette Weekly, Volumes 8-9, 1882

Autoschediastical enters English from the Greek by way of the German autoschediázein, "to extemporize."

Word of the Day

gormandize \GAWR-muhn-dahyz\, verb:
To eat greedily or ravenously.

I have never in my life seen men gormandize to be compared with those men. And the curious thing was that as course followed course their appetite seemed to increase.
-- Frank Harris, John F. Gallagher, My Life and Loves

Charley swallows a great gulp of tea in token of submission, and so disperses the Druidical ruins that Miss Smallweed charges her not to gormandize, which, "in you girls," she observes, is disgusting.
-- Charles Dickens, Bleak house

Gormandize evolves into a verb from the French verb gourmandise from the familiar gourmand.

Word of the Day

"stole my thunder"

I had always assumed that this expression must have Greek mythological roots and perhaps was a reference to Zeus. The true story is much more prosaic.

John Dennis, an English poet and playwright, wrote a tragedy called Appius and Virginia, which was produced in 1709 to less than rousing commercial success. Only one element of the production stirred the audience: thunder sound effects more realistic than any heard before on the stage, effects that Dennis himself created.

The play failed, but the theater's next production didn't. Dennis went to check out a successful production of Macbeth and was more than a little upset to discover that his sound effects were used in the storm scenes of Shakespeare's tragedy.

Different sources vary slightly in describing what Dennis exclaimed upon hearing "his" thunder help promote the new production, but they are all variations of Stuart Berg Flexner's quote: "See how the rascals use me! They will not let my play run, and yet they steal my thunder!" I'm sure that Dennis would be even more embittered to learn that the only phrase of his that has gained immortality is his expression of sour grapes.

Word of the Day

nitid \NIT-id\, adjective:

Bright; lustrous.

Intolerably, I dreamt of an exiguous and nitid labyrinth: in the center was a water jar; my hands almost touched it, my eyes could see it, but so intricate and perplexed were the curves that I knew I would die before reaching it.
-- Jorge Luis Borges, The Immortal

"What!" exclaimed Sir Norfolk, almost shuddering at the inadvertence he had committed; "a waiting-man in such costly and nitid attire."
-- William Harrison Ainsworth, The Miser's Daughter

Nitid is related to the Latin nitidus, "glistening."

Word of the Day

fladunkasaurus

n.
: a model who lumbers down the runway (e.g., Claudia Schiffer)
coined by J. Alexander or Alexander Jenkins (aka. J or Miss J)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/fashion/12MODELS.html?hpw]

Word of the Day

butte

n. Chiefly Western U.S.
A hill that rises abruptly from the surrounding area and has sloping sides and a flat top.
[French, from Old French butt, mound behind targets; see butt3.]

Word of the Day

Pescatarian

Variant(s): or pes·ce·tar·i·an \ˌpe-skə-ˈter-ē-ən\
Function: noun
Etymology: probably from Italian pesce fish (from Latin piscis) + English vegetarian
Date: 1993

: one whose diet includes fish but no meat

Word of the Day

peccadillo

pec·ca·dil·lo (pk-dl)
n. pl. pec·ca·dil·loes or pec·ca·dil·los
A small sin or fault; a slight offense.

[Spanish pecadillo, diminutive of pecado, sin, and Italian peccadiglio, diminutive of peccato, sin, both from Latin pecctum, from neuter of pecctus, past participle of peccre, to sin; see ped- in Indo-European roots.]