durvin has adopted no words, looked up 0 words, created 6 lists, listed 161 words, written 31 comments, added 0 tags, and loved 11 words.

Comments by durvin

  • Apparently means "buttocks"; appears in Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God".

    September 16, 2015

  • From Wiktionary: 1. Recently started but not fully formed yet; just begun; only elementary or immature. 2. Chaotic, disordered, confused; also, incoherent, rambling.

    April 26, 2015

  • Anybody have a meaning? I've looked it up everywhere I can think of; Google doesn't even come up with anything besides this page and a few others saying "this website doesn't contain this word".

    April 12, 2015

  • Foot-candle: a measurement of light intensity.

    March 30, 2015

  • From a legendarily bad English-to-Chinese-to-English translation of "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith"; this was the name used for the force better known as, you know, the Force.

    March 14, 2015

  • I've got a list going of all the mystical-forces directed by your charm-crystals and mojo-hands.

    March 14, 2015

  • Beardsecond: the length a beard grows in a second.

    December 12, 2014

  • desquamation: to remove scales, such as from a fish.

    November 20, 2014

  • From "The American Slang Dictionary" by James Maitland, 1891: "Bubbly Jock (Scotch), a turkey, from the noise it makes."

    November 11, 2014

  • Anybody know why so many people are tweeting that "heeem" is not a word? Not to be an elitist bibliophile, but I'm pretty sure nobody was saying it was.

    September 17, 2014

  • A kind of puppet; according to World Wide Words, this is the proper term for "a wooden puppet whose legs and arms were connected only loosely to its body. It was suspended by a single string connected to the head. By jerking the string you could make the puppet flail about in amusing and ridiculous ways." The term is also used as a more colorful way to refer to a politician as a puppet.

    August 10, 2014

  • Comes from "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood"; it was an interjection used by King Friday to mean "what a difference one person can make".

    July 31, 2014

  • French for "distant princess", the term refers mainly to love interests in stories of knights-errant, generally rich, beautiful, and largely perfect; knights in these stories were known to fall in love with a women (almost invariably a princess) they have never met nor seen, but merely have heard described as being very beautiful, and they then embark on quests or vow oaths or enter tournaments in their honor or any number of other plot-driving knightly deeds. In this respect, they may be considered a form of MacGuffin: the story's characters' actions revolve around attaining them, but they have no other affect.

    March 22, 2014

  • My first thought: cat. Not everybody considers them people, I guess.

    December 27, 2013

  • With the spelling "redonkulous", it appears in "The BFG" by Roald Dahl, from 1982.

    October 3, 2013

  • I don't know that this is where the popular usage comes from, but this is used by "The BFG", written back in 1982.

    October 3, 2013

  • A word coined by James Joyce, meaning the apparatus used by a spiritualist.

    January 23, 2013

  • Suggestion: Ubekibekibekistanstan.

    December 28, 2012

  • I think it may have actually been coined by the Simpsons, making it one of several words from the show that have wound up entering the language ("d'oh", "cromulent", "embiggen", "unpossible", and Nelson's laugh). Has anybody heard it in a source earlier than that?

    December 5, 2012

  • Is anybody aware of "tiny" meaning something in gang slang? I was looking at that bizarre list from the FBI of all the known gangs active in the United States, and I kept seeing things like "Tiny Papi Squad" and "Tiny Rascal Gangsters" (and others I didn't write down because they weren't so bizarre)--often enough that it seems like it must mean something.

    October 2, 2012

  • This may have been a term of endearment at some point, but as it is also a brand name of portable toilets, users may want to consider another.

    May 14, 2012

  • This word was coined on the series "Will & Grace" by the character Jack during a game of Scrabble. He claimed it was a synonym for "spritz", saying that when he got up every morning he "spramped" his face with water.

    May 14, 2012

  • An interjection used to indicate a dazed state, often due to viewing an especially attractive person.

    March 23, 2012

  • As we see from the quotes, though, there is another definition; it's some sort of amorphous, arhythmic music played mostly on rock instruments, I think. I've heard some of Captain Beefheart's stuff described with it. Based on the word, you can probably guess what it sounds like.

    March 7, 2012

  • "ur" meaning original, primal, and "pflanze" meaning plant.

    October 6, 2010

  • For most of my life I pronounced it "ta-BUR-na-cull" and "DEB-a-cull" and didn't believe people when they corrected me with "TA-bur-NACK-l" and "duh-BAHK-l".

    October 6, 2010

  • If you want to see a hideous, hideous picture of one, take a look at Wikipedia. The term is a corruption for 'jeune d'Anvers', or 'young girl from Antwerp', but I can't figure out why they would call this that, unless Antwerp girls were TERRIFYINGLY HIDEOUS.

    October 6, 2010

  • Not actual words, but thanks to a company that makes them in the shapes of sports equipment, the store where I work occasionally calls them "snow drives," "skate drives," and "surf drives."

    October 6, 2010

  • I had always heard the 'hooks' were just old slang for 'hands.'

    October 6, 2010

  • I'm just glad to see there's a reason why one of the Final Fantasy games translated an insult as "you spoony bard!"

    August 23, 2010

  • I found this awesome word on World Wide Words, and he says it goes back at least to 1992. No real record of its inception exists, but I'm guessing it's just a sniglet meaning "nitpicky, minute, pointless" such as "I want to add just one nitnoid detail" or "I like Facebook but people keep adding these stupid nitnoid comments like 'LOL' and 'OMG me too!'"

    August 23, 2010

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