What new word did you learn recently?

By the way pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is a disease you get from inhaling volcanic gas. I remember it from eighth grade English class.

eidetic--photographic memory. Letty posted it the other day on WA2K.

Coprophage - Somebody who eats their own poo... I love ancient Greek!

riparian

-- relating to or living or located on the bank of a natural watercourse (as a river) or sometimes of a lake or a tidewater

Covenant ~
A binding agreement; a compact. See Synonyms at bargain.
Law.
A formal sealed agreement or contract.
A suit to recover damages for violation of such a contract.
In the Bible, God's promise to the human race.

Thanks to Calamity Jane for alerting me to this:

suasiveness

-- Main Entry: sua·sion
Pronunciation: 'swA-zh&n
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin suasion-, suasio, from suadEre to urge, persuade -- more at SWEET
: the act of influencing or persuading
- sua·sive /'swA-siv, -ziv/ adjective
- sua·sive·ly adverb
- sua·sive·ness noun

digraph

-- 1 : a group of two successive letters whose phonetic value is a single sound (as ea in bread or ng in sing) or whose value is not the sum of a value borne by each in other occurrences (as ch in chin where the value is \t\ + \sh\)
2 : a group of two successive letters
3 : LIGATURE

Intarsia-the art of wood inlay

Friend

Cynosure - object of general attention or attraction

Subtle - I never knew how to spell that until today....

And I'd seen cynosure used several times and always figured it meant, lessee, archetype or prime example. Finally looked it up..

You do that, too, eh?

Nice word, btw. :wink:

I think most people do, reyn..

I did grow up in a family with a fat dictionary out in the living room and so did my cousins. While that is true, I was not a dictionary porer-over, myself, I just read voluminously. Much I know is from context and much of my pronunciation is self evolved, though I did take Latin in high school to whatever avail that might adjust my go for it type pronunciation.

Still, I have, even me, looked up many many words. Many many being a local colloquialism from a friend or two.

Thus I say DEB'acle for deb-AHK'le, and other such mistakes.

What the hell. We are all learning, one way or another.

...to know the name is to have the power...

giro

-- a service of many European banks that permits authorized direct transfer of funds among account holders as well as conventional transfers by check

This is not a new word, nor one that I learned just recently. But I found out just today where it comes from. Interesting, I think.

Namby-pamby

Feeble or effeminate in behaviour or expression.

We owe this word to a very public literary spat between the poets
Alexander Pope and Ambrose Philips at the start of the eighteenth
century. Pope hated Philips because political opponents such as
Joseph Addison praised the latter's rustic verses above his own.

It has to be said, from today's perspective, that Pope had a point.
Philips is now virtually unknown and rarely read, and even his best
known lines, from a poem called A Winter-Piece, describing the
rigours of the Danish winter, which was printed in The Tatler in
1709 ("There solid billows of enormous size, / Alps of green ice,
in wild disorder rise"), are merely competent. What his critics
hated most was a series of dreadful sentimental and sycophantic
poems, written in little short lines, that eulogised the children
of friends. The most-quoted example is the opening of one with the
title of Miss Charlotte Pulteney, in Her Mother's Arms: "Timely
blossom, infant fair, / Fondling of a happy pair, / Every morn and
every night / Their solicitous delight". I can't bear to reproduce
any more; even the Victorians never surpassed it for ickiness.

In 1725, a friend of Pope's named Henry Carey wrote a scabrous
lampoon about these poems in which he invented a mocking nickname,
"Namby-Pamby", based on Philips's given name, and used it in the
title, Namby-Pamby: Or, A Panegyric on the New Versification. An
extract will give you the tone: "Namby-Pamby, pilly-piss, / Rhimy-
pim'd on Missy Miss / Tartaretta Tartaree / From the navel to the
knee; / That her father's gracy grace / Might give him a placy
place." Pope liked the name and included it in the 1733 edition of
The Dunciad, his denunciation of popular authors of the day.

It's odd to think it was largely because of the poetic diatribes
against Philips by Carey and Pope that Philips is remembered today.
But the most significant result was that "namby-pamby" permanently
entered the language.

World Wide Words is copyright (c) Michael Quinion 2005. All rights
reserved. The Words Web site is at http://www.worldwidewords.org .

Interesting story behind that word, Andrew. Thanks!

I didn't know that about namby-pamby either.

Giro is the italian word for tour, which makes sense re transfer of funds. Thus the Giro d'Italia bicycle race is the italian equivalent of the Tour d'France.

Osso, are you of Italian origin? You seem to be very knowledgeable about all things Italian? :wink:

No, I'm something like 15/16th irish by heritage, the other 1/16th being welsh. I just am interested in much in and about italy.