The NEVERENDING word(s) of the day thread

The last few postings have inevitably led me to think of the word risible.

risible (adj.) inciting or leading to laughter or ridicule.

I mean, of course, that the postings are risible in the first sense of the definition, not the second.

Hey Gustav, Keep that kid and his frog farm out of my neck of the woods.

Hi Andy, Risible made me think of my word of the day--riant, mirthful. I learned this word from crossword puzzles. Never thought I'd get to use it. What a riant group.

Let's get things rolling today with this word.... Uropygium

n. The fleshy and bony prominence at the posterior end of a bird's body -- the part of a bird to which its tail feathers are attached.


Two good ol' boys from the South are hunting quail one day. A quail rises from the brush and flies away in a desperate attempt at survival. Clem raises his shotgun and begins to fire. The bird escapes, seemingly unscathed. Jeeter starts to chide Clem about his poor aim. Clem responds angrily, "Damn it, Jeeter! I know I hit that damn bird. We gonna find that bird and you is gonna see some buckshot in its uropygium!"

Great word, Gus!

Have you ever considered how many times we use words inappropriately, thinking we know what they mean but, in fact, not being aware that we are, in fact, using a malapropism?

Case in point: I had asked my immediate superior at work to write me a letter of recommendation, since it's likely we'll all be out of jobs by September (no, this is not the time or place for details on that). He wrote a very glowing letter and gave it to me this morning. Among other things, he mentioned as one of my assets that I have "a wry sense of humor."

So I asked him to look up "wry" in the dictionary

wry
(adj.) wri·er
(rr) or wry·er, wri·est
(rst) or wry·est
Dryly humorous, often with a touch of irony.
Temporarily twisted in an expression of distaste or displeasure: made a wry face.
Abnormally twisted or bent to one side; crooked: a wry nose.
Being at variance d

Italics mine.

Gee, gosh, and golly Gustav, Do you think you might be able to find a word just a bit more obscure? You can say it however you want to, but, from my perspective, the boid got shot in the ass.

Andy, What am I missing? "Dryly humorous, often with a touch of irony." A wry sense of humor is wrong? Please clear this up for me.

I don't have a word for today. I've got stuff on my mind.

quatrayle - great great great grandfather

Roberta -- what you're mising is "temporarily twisted" and "abnormally twisted." the 2nd and 3rd definition. In the dictionary we had to hand, those definitions preceded "drily humorous." A "wry sense of humor" is, in effect, "a twisted sense of humor."

Merry A..;

Did you ever consider that perhaps your co-worker was subtly issuing a warning ("wry sense of humour") to prospective employers!

Roberta;
I wonder if there is any connection (derivation) between your "riant", and miscreant, a "bad actor"; perhaps sapping any potential humour from a situation?

Roberta is going to like todays word, because it ties in with a previous insult. Without further hesitation, I give you.... limaceous

a. Sluglike, having to do with slugs.

Roberta is on a date. As she sips her wine her date makes a crude advance. Roberta throws the wine in the guy's face as she screams,
"You limaceous creep! You slimy, boneless gastropod."

With a whimper, he scurries off.

This is a word that I believe seattlefriend taught me. And no, she hasn't seen mine:

callipygian

Hiya Andy, I didn't miss the second and third definitions. I don't think that they apply. Wry humor relates to the first definition. The other two defs are irrelevant, unless the user's intention makes them relevant. Look at the word "sad." It can mean unhappy; it can also mean deplorable (among other things). If a tear is streaming down someone's face at a funeral, the word "sad" applies in the context of unhappy or mournful--not deplorable. Unless of course the person with the tear bumped off the person in the coffin.

Bo, I doubt that there's a linguistic connection. But I'm sure that plenty of miscreants "unriantize" things.

Gustav, I do like limaceous. I once had a boss who was limaceous. He left a trail of slime wherever he went.

Craven, I also like callipygian. I'm trying to think up a sentence for this adjective. Is this the correct usage? Many athletes are callipygian.

Still no word of the day from me. Still got a lot on my mind. I'll come up with something soon.

Roberta,

I believe your usage to be devoid of abusage. :-)

And, of course, there's the popular "callipygmian" or "small", shapely buttocks!

And think of the clueless "withit" teen who's date buys her a lime icecream cone; after the first lick, she declares "it's totally limaceous"!
(Maybe a little too much "edible oil" content!)

Bo, Limaceous ice cream. Euuuwwww.

Finally thunk up a word. My word for today is ablution--the washing of one's body or a part of it, as in a religious rite; the act or action of bathing. Most people do their ablutions in the morning, which is why they refer to them as their morning ablutions.

Not to be confused with ablation--surgical removal; loss of a part (as ice from a glacier) by melting or vaporization. The ablation of his limbs made his doing his morning ablutions a real challenge.

I take it then the constant washing of one's self to remove the vestiges of "sin", would be referred to as the "ablution solution"; not highly efficacious!

Speaking of risible and riant --

Weird Words: Cachinnatory /'kak@,neIt@rI/
Relating to loud or immoderate laughter.

Though this may seem to be celebrating boisterous high spirits, it
dates from the early nineteenth century, at a time when gentlemen
in England did not laugh out loud, at least not in public. It has
about it a sense of the distaste we feel when persons nearby are
carousing too loudly for comfort. That master of the second-rate
novel, Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, was a great user of the word and
illustrated its exuberance in his Paul Clifford of 1842: "If Paul's
comrade laughed at first, he now laughed ten times more merrily
than ever. He threw his full length of limb upon a neighbouring
sofa, and literally rolled with cachinnatory convulsions". It also
appears in Fan by Henry Harford, published in 1892, in which the
heroine is visiting London Zoo: "The laughing jackasses laughed
their loudest, almost frightening her with their weird cachinnatory
chorus". The Romans clearly knew of this unrestrained outpouring of
immoderate humour, since the word is from Latin "cachinnare" with
the same sense.

World Wide Words is copyright (c) Michael Quinion 2003. All rights
reserved. The Words Web site is at <http://www.worldwidewords.org>.

Here in Canada we have three major political persuasions two of which are refered to as "Tory"; conservative, and "Grit"; liberal.
So, I suppose, the act of removing an opponent from participation in the debate would be refered to by the Grits as "cashinnatory"!
and would, of course, provide a great degree of humour!

bombast: pompous or pretentious speech or writing.

I haven't been able to work this word into a sentence.

Zaftig a. Desirably plump and curvaceous

Any suggestions?