Word of the Day for Wednesday, August 31, 2011

metaphrastic \met-uh-FRAST-ik\, adjective:

Having the quality of a literary work that has been translated or changed from one form to another, as prose into verse.

The B.O.'s speeches are a metaphrastic transformation of reality to delusion!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

In a word, the whole place was involved in the maze of a metaphrastic mystery; it enchanted our wanderers, and tempted them into fields of speculation.-- Arthur Edward Waite, Belle and the Dragon

By this maneuver, the mind is protected from clutter - mind and body, separated out, are actually coerced into a negatively metaphrastic liaison.-- Lesley Stern, The Smoking Book

Metaphrastic comes into English from the medieval Greek metaphrastes, "one who translates."

Word of the Day for Friday, August 19, 2011

runic \ROO-nik\, adjective:

1. Having some secret or mysterious meaning.

2. Consisting of or set down in runes.

3. Referring to an interlaced form seen on ancient monuments, metalwork, etc., of the northern European peoples.

So the B.O. goes into a magic shop on Martha's Vineyard and asks the clerk for a Runic Cube. "Don't you mean a Rubik's Cube, Mr. B.O.?" the clerk asked. "No, I want a Runic Cube. I lost my other one and I can't run the country without it. The thing looks like a big black 8-ball and it gives me the answers I need!"

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

And he dances, and he yells; keeping time, time, time, in a sort of runic rhyme.-- Edgar Allan Poe, The Bells

To that end, he hid the secret in this runic code.-- James Rollins, Black Order: A Sigma Force Novel

Runic comes from the Old English rūn, "secret."

Word of the Day for Thursday, August 18, 2011

purloin \per-LOIN\, verb:

To take dishonestly; steal.

In a death defying act, the B.O. will now attempt to purloin all American liberties!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

Annatoo concluded that Samoa was not wholly to be enslaved; and Samoa thought best to wink at Annatoo's foibles, and let her purloin when she pleased.-- Herman Melville, Mardi, and a Voyage Thither

To climb a wall, to break a branch, to purloin apples, is a mischievous trick in a child; for a man it is a misdemeanor; for a convict it is a crime.-- Victor Hugo, Les misérables: Volume 1

Purloin has an ancestor in the Old French porloigner, "to put off, delay," but the sense of "to steal" is an English addition.

Word of the Day for Friday, August 12, 2011

mundify \MUHN-duh-fahy\, verb:

To purge or purify.

We need to mundify the B.O. of his scurrilous socialist mindset!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

The cleric, fatigued and mumpish, scolded her, saying that a woman of her burdensome years should return home and mundify her morphewed sins.-- Edward Dahlberg, The Olive of Minerva: Or, The Comedy of a Cuckold

Vigorous efforts to mundify old nasty habits should find priority as a substruction on which the edifice of the efforts of humanising the police should be built.-- Praveen Kumar, Indian Police

Mundify is built from two Latin roots, mundi-, "to clean," and ficare, "to do."

Word of the Day for Wednesday, August 10, 2011

willowwacks \WIL-oh-waks\, noun:

A wooded, uninhabited area.

What does the word willowwacks and the B.O. have in common? They are both of uncertain origin!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

There aren't many airports in Eastern Canada; you look at one like Upper Blackville, out there in the spruce-and-fir willowwacks, and wonder what it's doing there.-- The AOPA pilot: Voice of General Aviation, Volume 37

Sure there were difficult moments, like an awkward fall below Texas Pass that twisted my previously broken ankle the wrong way, or 30 minutes lost on a wrong turn due to trail that disappeared in a stream, or a willowwacks that just wouldn't end; but overall today was a great day.-- Mike DiLorenzo, "Yellowstone, 2005." D-Low.com

Willowwacks is of uncertain origin.

Word of the Day for Monday, August 8, 2011

chaptalize \SHAP-tuh-lahyz\, verb:

To increase the alcohol in a wine by adding sugar.

Maybe I'll chaptalize my wine a bit more so I can get past the stench of the B.O. and his policies!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

A proprietor who chaptalizes juice or ameliorates juice or wine, or both, shall maintain a record of the operation and the transaction date.-- U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, Title 27, Alcohol, Tobacco Products

They chaptalize, they blend, fudge their appellations, water down with lesser stuff.-- Peter Lewis, Dead in the Dregs: A Babe Stern Mystery

Chaptalize comes from the French chaptaliser, which is in turn named for the French chemist J. A. Chaptal.

Word of the Day for Thursday, August 4, 2011

Aesopian \ee-SOH-pee-uhn\, adjective:

1. Conveying meaning by hint, euphemism, innuendo, or the like.

2. Pertaining to, or characteristic of Aesop or his fables.

The B.O. is about to embark on his Aesopian bus tour of middle America; that should be a real treat for all his little minions!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

It is often argued that Aesopian language has been used to communicate sensitive policy issues in the USSR.-- William Thomas Lee, Richard Felix Staar, Soviet Military Policy Since World War II

Aesopian gets this general sense from its original meaning as a reference to the inferential nature of Aesop's fables.

Word of the Day for Wednesday, August 3, 2011

hacienda \hah-see-EN-duh\, noun:

A large estate, especially one used for farming or ranching.

The B.O. has turned the once respectable (pre-B.O.) White House into a sleazy Mustang Ranch style hacienda wherein he is throwing big birthday shindigs and whoring for campaign donations!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

He gritted his teeth and turned his stallion's head toward the hacienda.-- Linda Ladd, Midnight Fire

As swiftly as it had come, the tornado turned and headed away, leaving the village beyond the hacienda untouched.-- Joan Johnston, Texas Woman

Hacienda enters English from the Spanish word of the same meaning, which derives from the Latin facienda, "things to be done or made."

Word of the Day for Tuesday, August 2, 2011

entelechy \en-TEL-uh-kee\, noun:

1. A realization or actuality as opposed to a potentiality.

2. In vitalist philosophy, a vital agent or force directing growth and life.

The entelechy of the B.O.'s debt limit deal will have repercussions on all taxpayers for decades to come!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

It must gratify a man to evolve so perfectly concomitantly with his years, to write patriarchally when he is old, to be so complete an entelechy .-- Kenneth Burke, Here & Elsewhere: The Collected Fiction of Kenneth Burke

The vast realm of natural entelechy is virtually unknowable, but we already have on the books more information than any poet can use.-- Herbert A. Leibowitz, Parnassus: Twenty Years of Poetry In Review

Entelechy is built from the Greek roots telos "goal" andech "to have."