Category: Word of the Day

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Word of the Day – Phratry

  • Noun: Phratry

    1. a kinship group forming a subdivision of a Greek phyle
    2. a tribal subdivision specifically : an exogamous group typically comprising several totemic clans
  • Synonyms:
    1.  sept
    2. lineage
    3. kinfolk
    4. pedigree
    5. blood line
  • Usage:
    1. “You people call yourselves a ‘family’ but the grouping is a phratry.“
  • Encountered:
    1. While reading Robert A. Heinlein’s Citizen of the Galaxy.

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Word of the Day – Epexegesis

  • Noun: Epexegesis — Adverb: Epexegetically
    1. additional explanation or explanatory matter
  • Synonyms:
    1. annotation
    2. comment
    3. commentary
    4. gloss
  • Usage:

“’For example, there’s a trick that nearly every writer uses, of inserting at least one long, obscure word into each story. This makes the reader think that the man is very wise and clever. So I have the machine do the same thing. There’ll be a whole stack of long words stored just this purpose.

‘Where?’

‘In the word-memory section,’ he said, epexegetically.

  • Encountered:
    1. While reading the short story, The Great Automatic Grammatizator by Ronald Dahl.

To see more Words of the Day, visit this link: Words of the Day

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Word of the Day – Dingle

  • Noun: Dingle
    1. a small wooded valley
  • Synonyms:
    1. dale
    2. dell
    3. vale
    4. valley
    5. glen
  • Usage:
    1. “The hobbits saw that they were descending into a great dingle, almost as round as a bowl, very wide and deep crowned at the rim with the high dark evergreen hedge. “
  • Encountered:
    1. While rereading J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers for the umpteenth time

To see more Words of the Day, visit this link: Words of the Day

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Word of the Day -Temerity

  • Noun: Temerity

    1. unreasonable or foolhardy contempt of danger or opposition : rashness, recklessness
    2. a rash or reckless act
  • Synonyms:
    1. audaciousness
    2. audacity
    3. brashness
    4. brazenness
    5. cheek
    6. chutzpah (also chutzpa or hutzpah or hutzpa)
    7. effrontery
    8. gall
    9. nerve
    10. presumptuousness
    11. sauciness
  • Usage:
    1. “You certainly have a high degree of temerity snoring like that. I was surprised a bear did not think it was a mating call.”
  • Encountered:
    1. While backpacking in the Ozark National Forest with my brother, Dictionary Dude,  I remarked on our rising that he was putting us both in danger with his snoring… tee hee hee.  Then being brothers we begin to argue over the definition of the word.  His snoring probably worked the other way, scaring off all wildlife for a mile radius and a mile and half downwind.

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Word of the Day – Exegesis

  • Noun: Exegesis
    1.  exposition, explanation– especially : an explanation or critical interpretation of a text
  • Synonyms:
    1. clarification
    2. construction
    3. elucidation
    4. explanation
    5. explication
    6. exposition
    7. illumination
    8. illustration
    9. interpretation
  • Usage:
    1. “Kripal’s book Secret Body: Erotic and Esoteric Currents in the History of Religions weaves together these various strands of his work. Part memoir, part exegesis, it’s a wide-ranging and subversive reinterpretation of religion. And, I might add, it’s like no other book I’ve read.”
  • Encountered:
    1. Reading a review of Kripal’s book Secret Body: Erotic and Esoteric Currents in the History of Religions in Los Angles Review of Books.

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Word of the Day – Plinth

  • Noun: Plinth

    1. a : the lowest member of a base : subbase
      b : a block upon which the moldings of an architrave or trim are stopped at the bottom
    2.  a usually square block serving as a base broadly : any of various bases or lower parts
    3. : a course of stones forming a continuous foundation or base course
  • Synonyms:
    1. podium
    2. base
    3. bed
    4. bottom
    5. foot
    6. foundation
    7. stand
    8. substructure
    9. support
  • Usage:
    1. “Well… perhaps we can put a statue of you on one of those empty plinths.“
  • Encountered:
    1. Listening to a podcast of Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell me! Chatting with a contestant from Richmond, Virginia before the contest Peter Sagal asked about the confederate statues being removed in Richmond.  He went on to tell the contestant that if he won they might put a statue of him on one of the empty plinths.

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Word of the Day – Amphigory

  • Noun: Amphigory

    1. a nonsense verse or composition : a rigmarole with apparent meaning which proves to be meaningless
  • Synonyms:
    1. balderdash
    2. baloney
    3. bosh
    4. bull
    5. bunk
    6. cant
    7. drivel
    8. gibberish
    9. hooey
    10. rigmarole
    11. rubbish
    12. Allow me to add, before someone comments, what the polite Thesaurus did not include… bullshit
  • Usage:
    1. “Well?” she repeated more firmly

      This time I openly stared.”Is that cantilevering natural? Or is there an invisible bra, you being in fact the sole support of two dependents?”

      She glanced down, looked up and grinned. “They do stick out, don’t they? Your comment is rude, crude, unrefined, and designed to change the subject.””What subject?  I made a polite inquiry;  you parried it with amphigory.”

      “`Amphigory’ my tired feet!  I answered precisely.”

      “`Amphigory,'” I repeated. “The operative symbols were `mad, ‘`scientist,’ `beautiful,’ and `daughter.’ The first has several meanings –the others denote opinions. Semantic content: zero.”

  • Encountered:
    1. While reading The Number Of The Beast by Robert A. Heinlein

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Word of the Day – Latitudinarian

  • Noun: Latitudinarian

    1. not insisting on strict conformity to a particular doctrine or standard : tolerant specifically
    2. tolerant of variations in religious opinion or doctrine
  • Synonyms:
    1. enlightened
    2. flexible
    3. humanistic
    4. lenient
    5. permissive
    6. radical
    7. reformist
    8. tolerant
  • Usage:
    1. “For example, Kevin Roose, a reporter with the New York Times, often posts (on Twitter) a list of the top 10 posts shared on Facebook in the past 24 hours, which almost always come predominantly from conservative voices, including Fox News, Ben Shapiro, ForAmerica, and the right-wing conspiracy theorist Dinesh D’Souza. On the other hand, Twitter has largely become the voice of the left, where the most shared stories, content, videos, and opinions are often much more latitudinarian in nature.”
  • Encountered:
    1. While reading Vanity Fair article How Facebook Became the Social Media Home of the Right

To see more Words of the Day, visit this link: Words of the Day

 

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Word of the Day –Vociferate

  • Verb: Vociferate
    1. to speak or cry out loudly or noisily; shout; bawl
  • Synonyms:
    1.  bellow
    2. call
    3. clamor
    4. cry
    5. howl
    6. protest
    7. shriek
    8. utter
    9. yell
  • Usage:
    1. “This become clearly apparent in the past week, when Jack Dorsey finally decided to start labeling Trump’s most dangerous posts as “glorifying violence” and even fact-checking other posts where Trump lied about mail-in ballots contributing to voter fraud (they don’t). At the same time Mark Zuckerberg chose to go in the completely opposite direction, ceding that he is not the arbiter of free speech, and even going as far as to have a call with Trump himself to vociferate Facebook’s stance. Conversely, Evan Spiegel, the CEO of Snap, announced that he will no longer promote any of Trump’s posts on the platform. “We simply cannot promote accounts in America that are linked to people who incite racial violence, whether they do so on or off our platform,” Spiegel said in a memo to employees.”
  • Encountered:
    1. While reading Vanity Fair article How Facebook Became the Social Media Home of the Right

To see more Words of the Day, visit this link: Words of the Day