Word Of The Day

Connoisseur
A connoisseur (French connaisseur, from Middle-French connoistre, then connaître meaning "to be acquainted with" or "to know somebody/something.") is a person who has a great deal of knowledge about the fine arts, cuisines, or an expert judge in matters of taste.

Are you connoisseurs when it comes to words???

Counterpoint

coun·ter·point noun \ˈkau̇n-tər-ˌpȯint\

Definition of COUNTERPOINT

1
a : one or more independent melodies added above or below a given melody
b : the combination of two or more independent melodies into a single harmonic texture in which each retains its linear character : polyphony
2
a : a complementing or contrasting item : opposite
b : use of contrast or interplay of elements in a work of art (as a drama)

The guitar and bass are played in counterpoint.
The dressing is a refreshing counterpoint to the spicy chicken.
The painting is a pleasant counterpoint to his earlier works.
The music works in counterpoint to the images on the screen.
Origin of COUNTERPOINT

Middle English, from Middle French contrepoint, from Medieval Latin contrapunctus, from Latin contra- counter- + Medieval Latin punctus musical note, melody, from Latin, act of pricking, from pungere to prick —

First Known Use: 15th century

chockablock (CHOK-uh-BLOK), adjective:
1. Extremely full; crowded; jammed.
2. Nautical. Having the blocks drawn close together, as when the tackle is hauled to the utmost.

adverb:
1. In a crowded manner: books piled chockablock on the narrow shelf.

This town is chockablock with restaurants that are just clones of the same old themes.
-- Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club

lf opossum and skunk and raccoon can hide there, survive there, year after year, decade after decade, almost in the middle of a teeming metropolitan chockablock, think how an enterprising monkey might fare.
-- Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas

Chockablock is of uncertain origin. It is likely related to the word chock-full which means "crammed". The word chock refers to a wooden block that holds something in place.

Syncopation [sing-kuh-pey-shuhn, sin-]  
Example Sentences Origin

syn·co·pa·tion   [sing-kuh-pey-shuhn, sin-]
noun
1.Music . a shifting of the normal accent, usually by stressing the normally unaccented beats.
2.something, as a rhythm or a passage of music, that is syncopated.
3.Also called counterpoint, counterpoint rhythm. Prosody . the use of rhetorical stress at variance with the metrical stress of a line of verse, as the stress on and and of in Come praise Colonus' horses and come praise/The wine-dark of the wood's intricacies.
4.Grammar . syncope.

Origin:
1525–35; < Medieval Latin syncopātiōn- (stem of syncopātiō ), equivalent to Late Latin syncopāt ( us ) ( see syncopate) + -iōn- -ion

Related forms
non·syn·co·pa·tion, noun

instauration (in-staw-REY-shuhn), noun:
1. Renewal; restoration; renovation; repair.
2. Obsolete. An act of instituting something; establishment.

Warm friendship, indeed, he felt for her; but whatever that might have done towards the instauration of a former dream was now hopelessly barred by the rivalry of the thing itself in the guise of a lineal successor.
-- Thomas Hardy, The Well-Beloved

For the first time since the instauration of the Republic of Cuba, the military caste was going to have to manage on its own.
-- Norberto Fuentes and Anna Kushner, The Autobiography of Fidel Castro
Instauration is derived from the Latin word instaurātiōn- which meant "a renewing" or "repeating".

Somnifugous

Part of Speech Definition
Adjective
1. Driving away sleep.
2. Virtually never used base adjective of the rarely used adverb

somnifugously.
Adverb Form
(somnifugously) 1. Virtually never used adverbial inflection of the rarely used adjective somnifugous.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), compiled from various sources, under license.

Date "Somnifugous" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1914. (references)

Etymology:Somnifugous \Som*nif"u*gous\, adjective. [Latin expression somnus sleep fugare to put to flight.].

Apogee
apo·gee noun \ˈa-pə-(ˌ)jē\

Definition of APOGEE
1: the point in the orbit of an object (as a satellite) orbiting the earth that is at the greatest distance from the center of the earth; also : the point farthest from a planet or a satellite (as the moon) reached by an object orbiting it — compare perigee
2: the farthest or highest point : culmination <Aegean civilization reached its apogee in Crete>
— apo·ge·an adjective
See apogee defined for English-language learners »
See apogee defined for kids »

Examples of APOGEE
shag carpeting reached the apogee of its popularity in the 1970s but is now considered outdated

Illustration of APOGEE


Origin of APOGEE
French apogée, from New Latin apogaeum, from Greek apogaion, from neuter of apogeios, apogaios far from the earth, from apo- + gē, gaia earth
First Known Use: 1594

Related to APOGEE
Synonyms: acme, apex, height, capstone, climax, crescendo, crest, crown, culmination, head, high noon, high tide, high-water mark, meridian, ne plus ultra, noon, noontime, peak, pinnacle, sum, summit, tip-top, top, zenith
Antonyms: bottom, nadir, rock bottom

Other Astronomy Terms
gibbous, nadir, nebulous, penumbra, retrograde, sidereal, syzygy, wane, wax, zenith

agemate (EYJ-meyt), noun:
A person of about the same age as another.

She tolerates the family, especially an agemate named Isabelle, although they kid her about getting letters from a mysterious swain every day.
-- Faye Moskowitz, Her face in the Mirror

She had no agemate in that house, no one she could think of as an ally.
-- Julie Orringer, The Invisible Bridge

Agemate entered English in the late 1500s when the word mate meant "guest" in Old English.

Flummox
flum·mox
   [fluhm-uhks]

verb (used with object) Informal .
to bewilder; confound; confuse.

Origin:
1830–40; origin uncertain

surfeit (SUR-fit), noun:
1. Excess; an excessive amount: a surfeit of speechmaking.
2. Excess or overindulgence in eating or drinking.
3. An uncomfortably full or crapulous feeling due to excessive eating or drinking.
4. General disgust caused by excess or satiety.

verb:
1. To bring to a state of surfeit by excess of food or drink.
2. To supply with anything to excess or satiety; satiate.

In both adults a surfeit of prudence and a surfeit of energy, and with the couple two boys still pretty much all soft surfaces, young children of youthful parents, keenly attractive and in good health and incorrigible only in their optimism.
-- Philip Roth, The Plot Against America

She peered at the parents, imagining their hearts like machines, manufacturing surfeit upon surfeit of love for their children, and then wondered how something could be so awesome and so utterly powerless.
-- Chris Adrian, The Great Night

Surfeit is a very old English word. It is recorded as early as 1393. It comes from the Latin roots sur- meaning "over" and facere meaning "to do."

Lenticular



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

Surfeit = sacrifice

Symmetry

What makes everything seem square.

I don't think so. Please me find a dictionary reference to back up that one. I've never seen it used that way anywhere.

stymie (STAHY-mee), verb:
1. To hinder, block, or thwart.

noun:
1. Golf. (On a putting green) an instance of a ball's lying on a direct line between the cup and the ball of an opponent about to putt.
2. A situation or problem presenting such difficulties as to discourage or defeat any attempt to deal with or resolve it.

This rule, and its corollary—admit nothing into the ambit of the characters' consciousness which would not reasonably have been there—accounts for both the authenticity of Ulysses and much of its ability to stymie its readers.
-- James Joyce, Jeri Johnson, "Introduction," Ulysses

No, I won't stymie you, but I could, real fast, you know that.
-- Catherine Coulter, KnockOut

Stymie is of unknown origin. It came into common usage in the 1830s, before the rise of golf as a popular game.

Sanguine

san·guine  [sang-gwin]
adjective
1.cheerfully optimistic, hopeful, or confident: a sanguine disposition; sanguine expectations.
2.reddish; ruddy: a sanguine complexion.
3.(in old physiology) having blood as the predominating humor and consequently being ruddy-faced, cheerful, etc.
4.bloody; sanguinary.
5.blood-red; red.
noun
7.a red iron-oxide crayon used in making drawings.

Origin:
1275–1325; Middle English sanguyne a blood-red cloth < Old French sanguin < Latin sanguineus bloody, equivalent to sanguin-, stem of sanguis blood + -eus -eous

I got this word from Spock in a Star Trek episode.

Proletariat

1: the laboring class; especially : the class of industrial workers who lack their own means of production and hence sell their labor to live
2: the lowest social or economic class of a community

Examples of PROLETARIAT
the Bolsheviks believed that Russia's discontented proletariat made that nation ripe for revolution

Origin of PROLETARIAT
French prolétariat, from Latin proletarius
First Known Use: 1847

aliquant (AL-i-kwuhnt), adjective:
Contained in a number or quantity, but not dividing it evenly: An aliquant part of 16 is 5.

Cunning is the aliquant of talent; as hypocrisy is of religion; all the threes in the universe cannot make ten.
-- Thomas Hall, of Raby Rattler and The Fortunes and Adventures His Man Floss

...even though that number was an odd number and by a quarter the number of his confiteors, even though four was an aliquant part of two thousand to hundred and nineteen, nothing being changed with regard to the masses...
-- Raymond Queneau, The Blue Flowers

Aliquant stems from the Latin roots ali- meaning "differently" and quantus meaning "great."

Embiggen

Etymology
em- +‎ big +‎ -en. Ad-hoc coinage, created independently twice: first by C. A. Ward in 1884 in the British journal Notes and Queries ("but the people magnified them, to make great or embiggen, if we may invent an English parallel as ugly. After all, use is nearly everything") and then by Dan Greaney in 1996 for The Simpsons.

/ɛmˈbɪɡə̆n/

Verb
embiggen (third-person singular simple present embiggens, present participle embiggening, simple past and past participle embiggened)

vamp (vamp), verb:
1. To patch up; repair.
2. To give (something) a new appearance by adding a patch or piece.
3. To concoct or invent (often followed by up): He vamped up a few ugly rumors to discredit his enemies.
4. To furnish with a vamp, especially to repair (a shoe or boot) with a new vamp.

noun:
1. The portion of a shoe or boot upper that covers the instep and toes.
2. Something patched up or pieced together.

...plod and plow, vamp your old coats and hats, weave a shoestring; great affairs and the best wine by and by.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Illusions," Essays and Poems

To lay false claim to an invention or discovery which has an immediate market value; to vamp up a professedly new book of reference by stealing from the pages of one already produced at the cost of much labour and material…
-- George Eliot, Impressions of Theophrastus Such
Vamp is a shortening of the Middle French word avant-pie literally meaning "fore-foot." This sense of the word is embedded in the more common word revamp.