Comments by seanmeade

  • a good Tolkien word

    April 30, 2007

  • sounds like logorrhea to me...

    April 22, 2007

  • simply nice, especially when combined with apogee

    April 19, 2007

  • overused compared with diffusion

    April 19, 2007

  • fave word from The Sound and the Fury

    April 12, 2007

  • Iowa, what a beautiful name

    when they say it like we say it back home

    April 6, 2007

  • charity, alms, pity

    and a play by Lee Blessing

    April 6, 2007

  • what a beautiful sounding word! ;-)

    April 6, 2007

  • 'bring forth the royal diadem'

    April 2, 2007

  • is this really a word? cf finagle

    March 30, 2007

  • 'no one sleeps naked in this house, boy!'

    March 30, 2007

  • learned this from reading, never having heard it. thought for the longest time is was a French word pronounced to rhyme with 'weigh'

    March 30, 2007

  • 'i'm especially good at expectorating'

    March 30, 2007

  • is this really a word? halcyon is...

    March 30, 2007

  • great word from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

    March 30, 2007

  • Undulant is from Late Latin undula, "a small wave," diminutive of Latin unda, "wave."

    March 30, 2007

  • hate the sound of this word

    March 26, 2007

  • Word History: OK is a quintessentially American term that has spread from English to many other languages. Its origin was the subject of scholarly debate for many years until Allen Walker Read showed that OK is based on a joke of sorts. OK is first recorded in 1839 but was probably in circulation before that date. During the 1830s there was a humoristic fashion in Boston newspapers to reduce a phrase to initials and supply an explanation in parentheses. Sometimes the abbreviations were misspelled to add to the humor. OK was used in March 1839 as an abbreviation for all correct, the joke being that neither the O nor the K was correct. Originally spelled with periods, this term outlived most similar abbreviations owing to its use in President Martin Van Buren's 1840 campaign for reelection. Because he was born in Kinderhook, New York, Van Buren was nicknamed Old Kinderhook, and the abbreviation proved eminently suitable for political slogans. That same year, an editorial referring to the receipt of a pin with the slogan O.K. had this comment: "frightful letters ... significant of the birth-place of Martin Van Buren, old Kinderhook, as also the rallying word of the Democracy of the late election, 'all correct' .... Those who wear them should bear in mind that it will require their most strenuous exertions ... to make all things O.K."

    March 26, 2007

  • 'honey we're all resplendent'

    -- Bill Mallonee

    March 26, 2007

  • allowing the maximum passage of light, as glass; translucent.

    March 26, 2007

  • derives from Greek boukolikos , "rustic; pastoral," from boukolos, "a cowherd; a herdsman" from bous, "a cow; an ox."

    And also from the Indo-European gwou, the Latin root is bos which we get bovine from.

    March 26, 2007

  • Embarrassing to learn that it doesn't refer to anything or one about the Trojan War, like I thought. (I think I was thinking of both Paris and Priam, vaguely, neither of whom is Pyrrhus ;-)

    March 26, 2007

  • etymology is 'elf kingdom' (the word for kingdom in Old English being 'rice' like in the German 'reich')

    March 26, 2007

  • mental depression or apathy caused by comparison of the actual state of the world with an ideal state

    March 26, 2007

  • Means 'powerful' in French, right? Doesn't look or sound powerful to me. It looks like the least powerful word I can think of, except maybe 'pantuflas' (the Spanish word for 'slippers'). It looks more like 'piss-ant' than anything, and we all know those aren't powerful.

    March 26, 2007

  • we love words, plus, it was the profession of The Professor Tolkien

    March 26, 2007

  • I always assumed it meant something like 'to bow one's head' or 'to submit to someone else's head-ship', but it comes from 'to draw up terms or chapters' and 'chapters' comes from 'head' (like the heads of sections).

    March 26, 2007

  • literally means 'without cure (of souls)' in Latin, like you find in 'curate'. Refers to those positions in the church where someone didn't actually have a parish or didn't go. Remember your history about absentee priests?

    March 26, 2007

  • Sub rosa comes from the Latin, literally "under the rose," from the ancient association of the rose with confidentiality, the origin of which traces to a famous story in which Cupid gave Harpocrates, the god of silence, a rose to bribe him not to betray the confidence of Venus. Hence the ceilings of Roman banquet-rooms were decorated with roses to remind guests that what was spoken 'sub vino' (under the influence of wine) was also sub rosa.

    March 26, 2007

  • Vociferous derives from Latin vociferari, "to shout, to cry out" from vox, "voice" + ferre, "to carry."

    Guess what that makes me sing? 'Hush, hush, keep it down, down. Voices carry.'

    March 26, 2007

  • zephyr is the Greek equivalent of the Roman favonius

    March 26, 2007

  • *awesome* etymology: from Italian incarnatino, which came from the Latin incarnato, something incarnate, made flesh, from in + caro, carn-, "flesh." It is related to carnation, etymologically the flesh-colored flower; incarnate, "in the flesh; made flesh"; and carnal, "pertaining to the body or its appetites."

    March 26, 2007

  • must remember difference between cavalry and Calvary ;-)

    March 26, 2007

  • not enough Hebrew/Semitic-originating words in English

    March 26, 2007

  • learned this from D&D: the monster called a caryatid column

    March 26, 2007

  • eponymous: great REM IRS-years compilation album

    March 26, 2007

  • apogee etymolgy: (far) from earth. cool!

    March 26, 2007

  • schadenfreude is terminally overused, but what a great word! truly captures that common, base feeling.

    March 26, 2007

  • mellifluous is such a great sounding word! ;-)

    March 26, 2007

  • i most associate apotheosis with the painting in the US Capitol Building: The Apotheosis of George Washington. when i first saw it i was like 'what the heck?!' i like George and all, but he never became a god in *my* world ;-)

    March 26, 2007

  • the thing i love about avuncular is its origin in Indo-European pre-history and the probable cultural milieu: the importance of the maternal uncle/grandfather in bringing up a boy in a paternal society.

    March 26, 2007

  • favorite usage: 'welcome to our world, small, amusing doppelganger.'

    -- Teen Titans, Season 2

    March 26, 2007