Current favourite word?

aerostat

"Mendicant" has been in my head lately. It means relying on charity, either as a beggar or member of a religious order.

wordsmythe wrote:

"Mendicant".

IMAGE(http://cardjones.com/images/GROO.jpg)

Tanglebones wrote:
El-Taco-the-Rogue wrote:
booty wrote:

My son thinks it's hilarious to call Waffle House Offal House.

He's right.

They do make a damn good patty melt..

I like mine with the cheese melted on the bread.

Thigmotropic

No fair, I used thigmotactic a few pages back. At least I think I did. If you touch me I'll look it up.

Cavalier

I used to think, foolishly it now seems, that the word cavalier originated from the English Cavaliers who had a reputation for being a bit casual and fool hardy and so, to call someone cavalier, was to compare them to the Cavaliers (are you with me so far :P) Now it turns out (thank you BBC radio 4) that the word cavalier and it's meaning came first and that Cavaliers were so called because, when compared to the roundheads, they had a much more casual attitude to life, warfare, etc.

Cavalier:
IMAGE(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Anthonis_van_Dyck_058.jpg)

Roundhead:
IMAGE(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/John_Pettie_Puritan_Roundhead.jpg)

Oh woah, I always had it the other way too!

wordsmythe wrote:

"Mendicant" has been in my head lately. It means relying on charity, either as a beggar or member of a religious order.

I tannhausered wordsmythe on a word! Do I get a cookie?

Yup, cavalier is a direct anglification of the French word for knight, chevalier (i.e., Maurice Chevalier).

If you're a linguist, you probably know this one already, but I ran across it in a book review:

monophthong - A vowel (in the sense of a sound rather than a letter of the alphabet) that has the same sound throughout its pronunciation.

(Contrast dipthong).

My favorite word for today: Skullduggery. I think most around here are probably familiar with it's meaning.

I'm a big fan of triphthongs, myself.

Tripendicular, man!

Terpsichore.

Palimpsest.

Not that I'll ever get an opportunity to use it.

Concave wrote:

Palimpsest.

Not that I'll ever get an opportunity to use it.

Try library school, with a focus on rare books - between that and classical music, I've had ample opportunities

crepuscular - those beams of sunlight in the sky that look like God turned on his track lighting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crepusc...

Harsh, awkward word for something so beautiful.

LightBender wrote:

My favorite word for today: Skullduggery. I think most around here are probably familiar with it's meaning. :)

It's on my "Words Wizardry 7 taught me" list. Right up there with legerdemain

Also, cavalier is literally someone who rides on a horse. Once you learn Latin, you understand most Western European languages, it's pretty useful for a dead language.

wanderingtaoist wrote:
LightBender wrote:

My favorite word for today: Skullduggery. I think most around here are probably familiar with it's meaning. :)

It's on my "Words Wizardry 7 taught me" list. Right up there with legerdemain

Also, cavalier is literally someone who rides on a horse. Once you learn Latin, you understand most Western European languages, it's pretty useful for a dead language.

I got prestidigitation from Might and Magic, IIRC.

Disambiguate. In my line of work I actually use this one a lot in conversation.

Paracosm. There is a word for this concept, how did I not know this before?

Sphinges: the pluralised form of 'sphinx'. I would never have guessed!

El-Taco-the-Rogue wrote:

Sphinges: the pluralised form of 'sphinx'. I would never have guessed!

That's Greek for you.

Learned a new word today. Adumbrate: to produce a faint image or resemblance of; to outline or sketch. 2.to foreshadow; prefigure. 3. to darken or conceal partially; overshadow.

By the sound of the word though... I'm thinking it SHOULD mean "to make someone feel really stupid" or "to cut someone's vocal cords out"

Lasherthecat wrote:

Learned a new word today. Adumbrate: to produce a faint image or resemblance of; to outline or sketch. 2.to foreshadow; prefigure. 3. to darken or conceal partially; overshadow.

By the sound of the word though... I'm thinking it SHOULD mean "to make someone feel really stupid" or "to cut someone's vocal cords out"

I think it's derived from the Latin for "shadow."

Favourite word of the day? "Schmozzle" as in “Geology and science has suffered as a result, when fantasy is offered as fact, finally resulting in the present global warming schmozzle.”
Wordnik.com: Naurzbaev « Climate Audit

Most looked-up words on NYTimes.com:

This year, we arranged the list by how many times a word was looked up per use, rather than by total number of look-ups. That highlights the most baffling words of all. We eliminated a few proper names and some commonplace words that were apparently clicked inadvertently. And because of quirks in the search process, there may be a small number of duplicate stories counted.

IMAGE(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/07/26/timestopics/26ahead/26ahead-jumbo.jpg)
(article)

c*cksucker /deadwoodmarathon

For some reason, I really enjoy the word "petulant" lately.