Word Of The Day


Dr T
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I am not sure if I totally get that word... so... if I saw my fave book is in a series.. I say My faveorite book is seriatim?

not "series" like a collection, like one after another. one by one....

I think

Josh B)

You managed to confuse me more.. the first definition said series!!!

it said:

In a series; one after another.

Josh B)

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<div class='quotemain'>

<div class='quotemain'>

<div class='quotemain'>

I am not sure if I totally get that word... so... if I saw my fave book is in a series.. I say My faveorite book is seriatim?

not "series" like a collection, like one after another. one by one....

I think

Josh B)

You managed to confuse me more.. the first definition said series!!!

it said:

In a series; one after another.

Josh B)

You see.. that is why I don't get it...

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Good job Josh. This next word is easy to use on this site.

badinage \bad-n-AHZH\, noun:

Light, playful talk; banter.

Ken was determined to put the cares of the world behind him and do what he loved best -- having a few celebrity friends round and enjoying an evening of anecdote and badinage over a bottle or two of vintage bubbly and some tasty cheese straws.

-- Bel Littlejohn, "My moustache man", The Guardian, March 24, 2000

The badinage was inconsequential, reduced to who knew whom and wasn't the weather glorious in St. Tropez, or the Bahamas, Hawaii, or Hong Kong?

-- Robert Ludlum, The Matarese Countdown

Badinage comes from French, from badiner, "to trifle, to joke," badin, "playful, jocular."

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Maureen already posted this, but I thought I would post it here:

ad hominemPronunciation[ahd hoh-mi-nem; Eng. ad hom-uh-nuhm]

Latin. 1. appealing to one's prejudices, emotions, or special interests rather than to one's intellect or reason.

2. attacking an opponent's character rather than answering his argument.

Appealing to personal considerations rather than to logic or reason: Debaters should avoid ad hominem arguments that question their opponents' motives.

[Latin : ad, to + hominem, accusative of hom, man.]

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This word just makes sense.

capacious \kuh-PAY-shuhs\, adjective:

Able to contain much; roomy; spacious.

Litter was picked up non stop during the week (mostly by that nice governor with the capacious pockets).

-- Faysal Mikdadi, "'Why shouldn't it be like this all the time?'", The Guardian, September 2, 2002

Capacious is derived from Latin capax, capac-, "able to hold or contain."

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slugabed \SLUHG-uh-bed\, noun:

One who stays in bed until a late hour; a sluggard.

Nemecek's business is not for slugabeds. He opens for business every weekday at 4 a.m.

-- Drew Fetherston, "He Can Really Make Pigs Fly", Newsday, December 12, 1994

Slugabed is from slug, "sluggard" + abed, "in bed."

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mordant \MOR-d'nt\, adjective:

Biting; caustic; sarcastic.

Mr. Justice Moorcroft's forte, a part which he had played for so many years that it had become instinctive, was a courteous reasonableness occasionally enlivened with shafts of mordant wit.

-- P. D. James, A Certain Justice

He had a mordant wit as well . . . , a bit wicked and waspish even.

-- Janice A. Radway, A Feeling for Books

Mordant comes from the present participle of Old French mordre, "to bite," from Latin mordere. It is related to morsel, "a little bite"; and remorse, from Latin remordere, "to bite back or again; to torment."

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aestival \ES-tuh-vuhl\, adjective:

Of or belonging to the summer; as, aestival diseases. [spelled also estival.]

Far to the north and hemmed in against the Russian Bear, it is easy to overlook this land of lakes, forests, and aestival white nights.

-- [i.e. Finland]

You generally get true summer in August: this year it has been unusually æstival.

-- M. Collins

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I've never heard this outside of the kitchen.

ebullient \ih-BUL-yuhnt\, adjective:

1. Overflowing with enthusiasm or excitement; high-spirited.

2. Boiling up or over.

The glasses he wore for astigmatism gave him a deceptively clerkish appearance, for he had an ebullient, gregarious personality, a hot temper, and an outsized imagination.

-- Jon Lee Anderson, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life

He was no longer an ebullient, energetic adolescent.

-- Linda Simon, Genuine Reality: A Life of William James

Sometimes he would come back from the Drenchery Club holding on to the walls till he got to my office, where he'd be jolly and ebullient. At other times, he'd return morose.

-- Harriet Wasserman, Handsome Is: Adventures with Saul Bellow

Ebullient comes from Latin ebullire, "to bubble up," from e-, "out of, from" + bullire, "to bubble, to boil."

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desultory \DES-uhl-tor-ee\, adjective:

1. Jumping or passing from one thing or subject to another without order or rational connection; disconnected; aimless.

2. By the way; as a digression; not connected with the subject.

3. Coming disconnectedly or occurring haphazardly; random.

4. Disappointing in performance or progress.

The shadows on the perfect lawn were straight and angular; they were the shadows of an old man sitting in a deep wicker-chair near the low table on which the tea had been served, and of two younger men strolling to and fro, in desultory talk, in front of him.

-- Henry James Jr., "The Portrait of a Lady", The Atlantic Monthly, November 1880

One way or the other, his once voluminous exchanges with Mrs. Swanson dwindled to almost nothing. For a year or two, they consisted of the odd, desultory postcard, then the store-bought Christmas greeting, and then, by 1976, they had stopped altogether.

-- Paul Auster, Timbuktu

But talks were desultory, and Gates held little hope the two companies would get together.

-- Paul Andrews, How The Web Was Won

Desultory comes from Latin desultorius, from desultor, "a leaper," from the past participle of desilire, "to leap down," from de-, "down from" + salire, "to leap."

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example:

while praying my mind started to wander about what to do with life how to get things in order...and i thought well if i do this this way and then i could fit this in like this and that in like this...and then i relized i had stoped the focuse of my prayer...so i stareted to go back when i was like...hey wait a minet that is a briliant plan...and vwala...life is now set in that order and it works great!!!!

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