Word of the Day for Wednesday, November 30, 2011

churlish \CHUR-lish\, adjective:

1. Boorish or rude.

2. Of a churl; peasantlike.

3. Stingy; mean.

4. Difficult to work or deal with, as soil.

Churlish behavior has been the hallmark of the B.O.'s reign of socialist scourge; for example, he is holding a fund-raiser on the same night and just two blocks from New York City's lighting of the Christmas Tree, thus causing thousands of people to not be able to get to the ceremony because of his security; nice work, you Scrooge!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

And Ethel, though sometimes sharp and malicious and difficult, wasn't churlish or unpunctual or casual at all.-- Ruth Rendell, One Across, Two Down

I call it churlish that you would complain of a little time spent in schooling me when the rewards I've earned you come in thick and fast.-- Karen Miller, A Blight of Mages

Churlish originates in the Old English ceorlisc meaning “peasant, freeman, man without rank.” It had various meanings in early Middle English, including "man of the common people," "a country man," "husbandman," "free peasant." By 1300, it meant "bondman, villain," also "fellow of low birth or rude manners."

Word of the Day for Tuesday, November 29, 2011

serry \SER-ee\, verb:

To crowd closely together.

"Come, my anarchist friends, come my socialist buddies, come all ye who are discontented with life here in America, let us serry our forces and get together in the public square, where we will call ourselves the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement," perorated the B.O. to all the malcontents of America!

Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

Serry means to crowd and is spelled serry.-- Mildred Colvin, Missouri Brides

To keep unsettled the questions upon which these united with the Liberation Society, —accustom a powerful contingent to work together with “political Dissenters,”—to serry friends and foes into hostile phalanx, —to accept battle on a week ground where it is only possible to rally half the forces...-- S. Wellington, The Spectator, Vol. 6

Serry is from the Middle Frenceh serré which was the past participle of serrer meaning “to press tightly together.”

Word of the Day for Monday, November 28, 2011

panegyrize \PAN-i-juh-rahyz\, verb:

1. To eulogize; to deliver or write a panegyric about.

2. To indulge in panegyric; bestow praises.

I would guess that the B.O. and the rest of his politburo will be the only ones to panegyrize Barney Frank upon his long overdue departure from the House of Representatives!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

I allowed then as how I had been moved to panegyrize Lieutenant Locke.-- Louis Bayard, The Pale Blue Eye

Judge Story was a profound admirer of Chief Justice Marshall, and could rarely hear his name mentioned without digressing to panegyrize his learning and intellectual power.-- William Matthews, Hours with Men and Books

From Greek, panegyrize originally meant “belonging to a public assembly” from pan meaning “all” and egyris, “gathering.”

Word of the Day for Wednesday, November 23, 2011

crepitate \KREP-i-teyt\, verb:

To make a crackling sound; crackle.

The B.O. and his family were curled up by the fireplace, listening to their roaring fire crepitate, and watching their favorite Russian news program when, out of the blue, the news anchor flipped him off; "Well," he retorted to the anchor with as supercilious a look as he could muster, "at least I have a teleprompter that I can read from!"; isn't he quite the pithy one!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

The lampwicks crepitate; their flames are about to go out, long mosquitoes flit in rapid circlings about them.-- Gustave Flaubert, The Temptation of Saint Anthony

This horrible talk, however, evidently possessed a potent magic for my friend; and his imagination, checked for a while by the influence of his kinsman, began to ferment and crepitate.-- Henry James, Stories Revived

Crepitate is from the Latin crepitare which meant “to rustle or chatter.”

Word of the Day for Tuesday, November 22, 2011

poltroon \pol-TROON\, noun:

1. A wretched coward; craven.

adjective:

1. Marked by utter cowardice.

The B.O. is a political poltroon and knave of the worst ilk!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

By heavens, if, under the circumstances of the provocation which you gave him, and his whole family, he would be as mean and cowardly a poltroon as I find you be...”-- William Carleton, Valentine M'Cultchy, the Irish Agent

“Poltroon, my dear, poltroon!” Moloch put in. “He has no sense of decency, no respect—for me, or for anything. He's a vulgar, coarse fool.”-- Henry Miller, Moloch

Poltroon originally came from the Latin pullus meaning “young animal.” It came to mean an idler or coward in Old French.

Word of the Day for Monday, November 21, 2011

salvo \SAL-voh\, noun:

1. Something to save a person's reputation or soothe a person's feelings.

2. An excuse or quibbling evasion.

3. A simultaneous or successive discharge of artillery, bombs, etc.

4. A round of fire given as a salute.

5. A round of cheers or applause.

There will be no salvo for the B.O. in 2012!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

King Edward, however, artfully inserted a salvo, saving the rights of the King of England and of all others which before the date of this treaty belong to him or any of them in the marches or elsewhere.-- G. A. Henty, In Freedom's Cause

Ignoring sons, he scanned the daughters with salvo upon salvo of loving glances...-- William T. Vollmann, The Royal Family

Salvo originates in the Latin word salvus meaning “safe.”

Word of the Day for Friday, November 18, 2011

omnibus \OM-nuh-buhs\, noun:

1. A volume of reprinted works of a single author or of works related in interest or theme.

2. A bus.

adjective:

1. Pertaining to, including, or dealing with numerous objects or items at once.

The B.O.'s dream omnibus bill would include such things as government run industries (General Motors is a good start, but only a start), government run health care (oops, we already have that), unlimited presidential authority (kinda have that with his Executive Orders), no term limits for democrats only (gerrymander, baby), one term limit for non-democrats, president for life authority given only to him, and maybe some good old-fashioned Martial law thrown in to get those pesky conservatives in line (that community organizer experience will come in handy here; get those OWS people riled up and swoop in with Martial law just before the election); socialism - it's only a start!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

He is working on an omnibus volume that will combine old and new material to explain what he's been doing all these years.-- Benjamin Ivry, “Joseph Mitchell's Secret” New York Magazine, Feb. 9, 1987

An omnibus containing extracts from past works, linked with Koestler's 1980 comments, it has a far more coherent shape than the author appears to think.-- Bernard Dixon, “Two Cultures At One” New Scientist, Jan. 8, 1981

Omnibus means “for all” in Latin.

Word of the Day for Thursday, November 17, 2011

bibliophage \BIB-lee-uh-feyj\, noun:

An ardent reader; a bookworm.

The B.O. is a well known bibliophage of anything with a socialist-Marxist bent!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

You may recall, if you are something of a bibliophage, that the late Sylvia Plath had a story with a similar name.-- Corey Mesler, We Are a Billion-Year-Old Carbon

The borrower, heedless, reckless bibliophage cares nothing about all this; into the midst of these learned pleasures he leaps like a fox into a hen-roost; he is smitten all at once with an overmastering hunger for reading...”-- Elliot Stock, The Bookworm

Bibliophage derives from the Latin biblio meaning “books” and phage meaning “a thing that devours.”

Word of the Day for Wednesday, November 16, 2011

opuscule \oh-PUHS-kyool\, noun:

1. A small or minor work.

2. A literary or musical work of small size.

The actual intellectual value and honesty of all of the B.O.'s collective writings would be both minuscule an opuscule!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

Little by little, with patience and luck and the progressive sharpening of my predatory eye, I found one or another opuscule of his in my used book stores in Oxford and London.-- Javier Marías, Dark Back of Time

The guide, a mere opuscule of ten pages, is entitled 'The Great Sepulture of the Cappuccini', and is well worth the hundred lire one pays for it.-- Jocelyn Brooke, The Dog at Clambercrown

Opuscule is from the Latin roots opus meaning “word” and cule which is a suffix that implies a diminutive version, as in molecule and fascicle.

Word of the Day for Tuesday, November 15, 2011

apocrypha \uh-POK-ruh-fuh\, noun:

1. Various religious writings of uncertain origin regarded by some as inspired, but rejected by most authorities.

2. A group of 14 books, not considered canonical, included in the Septuagint and the Vulgate as part of the Old Testament, but usually omitted from Protestant editions of the Bible.

3. Writings, statements, etc., of doubtful authorship or authenticity.

The B.O. has convinced himself in the aforementioned fascicle of his socialist-Marxist writings entitled "Dreams of My Heroes - Marx, Lenin, Cloward & Piven, Wright, Ayers, Mao, and Others" that his writings should actually be part of the apocrypha taught in churches around the world; I attribute this to his terminal case of Brain Cloud!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

The apocrypha, some of which the peasants would hear in church, were popular because of their often grotesque humor, and although there was frequently a didactic element, it was not usually overbearing.-- Jack V. Haney, Russian Wondertales

The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries gave birth to numerous chronicles, hagiographies, legends, and apocrypha, in which the proportion of fictional and nonfictional elements varied.-- Carl Edmund Rollyson, Critical Survey of Long Fiction

Apocrypha comes from the Greek apokryphos meaning “hidden, unknown or spurious.”

Word of the Day for Monday, November 14, 2011

fascicle \FAS-i-kuhl\, noun:

1. A section of a book or set of books published in installments as separate pamphlets or volumes.

2. A small bundle, tight cluster, or the like.

3. Botany. A close cluster, as of flowers or leaves.

4. Anatomy. A small bundle of nerve or muscle fibers.

The B.O. has published a fascicle of his socialist-Marxist writings entitled "Dreams of My Heroes - Marx, Lenin, Cloward & Piven, Wright, Ayers, Mao, and Others"!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

Citations of passages within texts collected in the Buddhist and Daoist cannons are by fascicle and page...-- Robert Fort Company, Strange Writing

In 1981 R. W. Franklin published The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson, a manuscript edition that arranges the poems in fascicle order.-- Elaine Showalter, Modern America Women Writers

Fascicle originates in the Latin word fascus meaning “a bundle or pack” and the suffix “cle” that implies a smaller version, as in particle.

Word of the Day for Friday, November 11, 2011

zeal \zeel\, noun:

Fervor for a person, cause, or object; eager desire or endeavor; enthusiastic diligence; ardor.

The B.O.'s zeal for the "Occupy" movement will surely come back to bite him; oh wait, he started it; well, it will still come back to bite him in his political derriere!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

...serve him with zeal, and love him with fidelity.-- Fanny Burney, Cecilia: Or, Memoirs of an Heiress

This passionate profession, which Newman uttered with the greater zeal that it was the first time he had felt the relief words at once as hard and as careful as hammer-taps could give his spirit, kindled two small sparks in Mrs. Bread's fixed eyes.-- Henry James, The American

Zeal is derived from the Greek word zelos, the same root as the word zealous.

Word of the Day Thursday, November 10, 2011

pansophy, \PAN-suh-fee\ , noun;

Universal wisdom or knowledge.

The B.O. sadly believes that he has achieved pansophy through the readings of his socialist-Marxist idols!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

For just at the moment Baconfield had come to perceive the divine formulae that dictate, in darkness, the world's apparent randomness, just when the thumbmarks on his walls comprised an exhilarating pansophy and he stood poised on the verge of omniscience, an uncircumscribable chaos has swept into his life. -- Rikki Ducornet, The Jade Cabinet

Wade had somehow managed to fuse the lightning-bolt pansophy of our visionary past with a single-minded perspicacity befitting the finest of the experimental methods... -- Konrad Ventana, A Desperado's Daily Bread

From the Greek, pansophy is comprised of the root words pan meaning “all” and sophy meaning “wisdom.”

Word of the Day for Wednesday, November 9, 2011

kef \keyf\, noun:

1. A state of drowsy contentment

2. Also, keef. a substance, especially a smoking preparation of hemp leaves, used to produce this state.

In his kef, the B.O. sleepily dreamed of yet another new tax - "That's it" he shouted to no one nearby, as there were no real people in his dream, only mindless droids hovering about and doing his bidding, "I'll tax all the Christmas trees! Old Scrooge would be proud of me!"

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

I need not add that my kef—my noon rest, did not pass without interruption.-- Karl Friedrich May, Through the Desert

...I tied on my hat and lit it down and held up my umbrella for shade, and fell into kef, being incapable of sustained thought.-- William Cory, Extracts from the Letters and Journals of William Cory

Kef comes from the Arabic word kaif meaning “well-being or pleasure.”

Word of the Day for Tuesday, November 8, 2011

plebiscite \PLEB-uh-sahyt\, noun:

1. A direct vote of the qualified voters of a state in regard to some important public question.

2. The vote by which the people of a political unit determine autonomy or affiliation with another country.

Following the plebiscite in 2010 the B.O. ignored it; they will speak again in 2012 and he will have no alternative but to listen as he will need to vacate his present residence located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

How many of these were there? Not enough to put the verdict of the plebiscite in doubt, anyway.-- Arthur C. Clark, The Last Theorem

It was he who devised the plebiscite and the governmental machinery for making plebiscites yield the desired results — ninety-eight percent of the votes in favor of tyranny, two percent against.-- Aldous Huxley, Complete Essays

Plebiscite is comprised the Latin roots plebi meaning “common people” and scitum meaning “resolution or decree.”

Word of the Day for Monday, November 7, 2011

canny \KAN-ee\, adjective:

1. Careful; cautious; prudent.

2. Astute; shrewd; knowing; sagacious.

3. Skilled; expert.

4. Frugal; thrifty.

5. Scot. A. Safe to deal with, invest in, or work at (usually used with a negative). B. Gentle; careful; steady. C. Snug; cozy; comfortable. D. Pleasing; attractive. E. Archaic. Having supernatural or occult powers.

adverb:

1. In a canny manner.

2. Scot. Carefully; cautiously.

The B.O. is a canny one, he is, being careful not to say anything of substance; "Hope and Change" couldn't be any less specific or confining or necessary to explain than "I Believe in America"; people hear that and they fill in their own blanks and ascribe their own meanings to the phrases!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

But they're not going to catch us that easily. If they're canny, we can be canny too!-- Hans Fallada, Every Man Dies Alone

Some of the little contrivances, which he thought so canny, left her doubtful.-- D.H. Lawrence, The Rainbow

Canny is derived from the Middle English word ken meaning “knowledge or understanding.” It is related to the verb kennen meaning “to see, know, or make known.”

Word of the Day for Friday, November 4, 2011

prehensible \pri-HEN-suh-buhl\, adjective:

Able to be seized or grasped.

The B.O. finds the Occupy Wall Street movement totally prehensible - because he and his operatives in his regime created it!
--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

Do they not give the obvious signified a kind of difficultly prehensible roundness, cause my reading to slip?-- Roland Barthes, Image, Music, Text

And I, having only the name Divers as a visible, prehensible asperity for grasping the invisible, shall contort it so as to make it enter mine, mingling the letters of both.-- Jean Genet, Miracle of the Rose

Prehensible comes from the Latin word prehension meaning “a taking hold.”

Word of the Day for Thursday, November 3, 2011

obscurantism \uhb-SKYOORr-uhn-tiz-uhm\, noun:

1. Opposition to the increase and spread of knowledge.

2. Deliberate obscurity or evasion of clarity.

Back in the heady days of the B.O.'s run at the White House, the Main Stream Media was suffering from a terminal case of obscurantism and obfuscation when it came to his past and what he actually believes and stands for; nothing seems to have changed since then!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

Of course they're not. That's why there were all those confrontations, all that aggression and obscurantism. Because the forces of darkness are dying, and they are thrown back on such things as a last resort.-- Paulo Coelho, The Witch of Portobello

In these he had shown himself a stalwart champion of Christian doctrine at its most precise and purest, equally remote from the modern laxity and obscurantism of the past.-- Albus Camus, The Plague

Obscurantism originally comes from the Latin root obscur meaning “dark” and the suffix -ant which turned a verb into a noun (as in the word servant), so the word literally meant “one that makes dark.”

Word of the Day for Wednesday, November 2, 2011

metempirical \met-em-PIR-i-kuhl\, adjective:

1. Beyond or outside the field of experience.

2. Of or pertaining to metempirics.

There were, and still are, those that said electing a metempirical President fresh out of the trenches of the community activists, agitators, insurgents, insurrectionists, malcontents, mutineers, nihilists, rebels, revolters, revolutionaries, terrorists, and anarchists didn't really matter; after all, they mused, who really has experience as the President of the United States prior to their taking office; well, the B.O. has shown conclusively why it is so important to have had executive experience, held an actual job, run a company or a state or even a city, and to actually believe in and uphold the Constitution of the United States as it was written!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

...but the quality of her innate wit had deepened, strange “metempirical” (as Van called them) undercurrents seemed to double internally, and thus enrich, the simplest expression of her simplest thoughts.-- Vladimir Nabokov, Ada, or Ardor, a Family Chronicle

Still however, instead of aspiring to becoming rigorous and metempirical, poetry lives by the heart, the sense and singing.-- Kahlil Gibran with Andrew Dib Sherfan, The Third Treasury of Kahlil Gibran

Metempircal derives from the Greek words met- meaning “beyond or before” and empirical meaning “experience.”

Word of the Day for Tuesday, November 1, 2011

aioli \ahy-OH-lee\, noun:

A sauce made of oil and eggs, usually flavored with garlic, from the Provence region of France.

Since he likes the French so much, and by extension the total Euro-trash mentality, I wonder if the B.O. will eat crow with a nice topping of aioli following his defeat in 2012!

--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog

He said he was treating. There was roast artichoke topped with a sort of sly aioli. Mutton stuffed with foie gras, double chocolate rum cake. Seven kinds of cheese.-- David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

A beef sirloin is good, too, slightly charred on the outside and reddish pink in the middle, nicely peppered, with mustard aioli.-- Garrison Keillor, Love Me

Aioli comes from the Provençal word for garlic, ai and the Latin word for oil, oli.