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word | 1 Jan 2004 20:51

preprandial

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The Word of the Day for January 1 is:

preprandial   \pree-PRAN-dee-ul\   adjective
     : of, relating to, or suitable for the time just before 
dinner 

Example sentence:
     Our celebration last night began with a preprandial 
cocktail followed by a lavish buffet dinner, and it ended with a 
champagne toast at the stroke of midnight.

Did you know? 
     Though the Latin noun "prandium" means "late breakfast" 
or "luncheon," its derivative English 
adjectives, "preprandial," "prandial," and "postprandial," are 
just as likely to refer to other meals; in fact, "preprandial" 
is usually applied to dinner. Those adjectives were quite new in 
our language ("prandial" and "postprandial" first appeared in 
print in 1820, and "preprandial" in 1822) when a Scottish judge 
wrote in his memoirs, "Every glass during dinner required to be 
dedicated to the health of some one.... This prandial nuisance 
was horrible." Perhaps those prandial drinks gave the poor 
fellow a postprandial hangover! English also acquired the 
adverbs "prandially" and "postprandially," but those are much
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word | 2 Jan 2004 06:50

snowbird

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The Word of the Day for January 2 is:

snowbird   \SNOH-berd\   noun
     1 : any of several birds (as a junco or fieldfare) seen 
chiefly in winter
    *2 : one who travels to warm climes for the winter

Example sentence:
     Now that they are retired, the Johnsons have become 
snowbirds, closing up their New England home each winter and 
heading south.

Did you know?
     "Snowbird" has been applied to the human species since the 
early 1900s. It was first used to describe men who enlisted in 
the armed forces to get food and clothing during the winter 
months and then deserted as the benign spring weather 
approached. Not long after, northern laborers soon caught on to 
this way of living, and many could be seen flocking down south 
to work as the cold, harsh winter set in up north. Today, 
northern birds of all kinds, from the vacationer to the retiree, 
can be seen migrating as soon as the first frost arrives. 

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
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word | 3 Jan 2004 06:50

debilitate

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The Word of the Day for January 3 is:

debilitate   \dih-BIH-luh-tayt\   verb
     : to impair the strength of : enfeeble

Example sentence:
     After his wildly successful first novel, Alistair was so 
debilitated by a severe case of writer's block that he didn't 
produce another publishable work for ten years.

Did you know? 
     "Debilitate," "enfeeble," "undermine," "sap," "cripple," 
and "disable" all share in common the general sense "to weaken." 
But while "debilitate" holds the distinction among these words 
of coming from the Latin word for "weak" -- "debilis" -- it 
packs a potent punch. Often used of disease or something that 
strikes like a disease or illness, "debilitate" might suggest a 
temporary impairment, but a pervasive one. "Enfeeble," a very 
close synonym of "debilitate," connotes a pitiable, but often 
reversible, condition of weakness and helplessness. "Undermine" 
and "sap" suggest a weakening by something working 
surreptitiously and insidiously. "Cripple" implies causing a 
serious loss of functioning power through damaging or removing 
an essential part or element, while "disable" usually suggests a
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word | 4 Jan 2004 06:59

exigent

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The Word of the Day for January 4 is:

exigent   \EK-suh-junt\   adjective
     1 : requiring immediate aid or action
    *2 : requiring or calling for much : demanding 

Example sentence:
     The demands of even the most exigent of bosses can be 
tolerated if he or she has real influence with upper management 
when it comes to recommending raises. 

Did you know?
     "This writ seemeth to be called an Exigent because it 
exacteth the party, that is, requireth his expearance or 
forthcomming, to answer the lawe." Writer John Cowell, referring 
in 1607 to a writ summoning a person on pain of outlawry, 
clearly recognized "exigent" as a derivative of Latin "exigere," 
which means "to demand."  Over the last five centuries we have 
demanded a lot from "exigent." It has served as a legal term (as 
in Cowell's quote), as well as a noun meaning either "an 
emergency" or "an end or extremity." Nowadays the adjective is 
seen frequently in legal contexts referring to "exigent 
circumstances," such as those used to justify a search by police 
without a warrant.
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word | 5 Jan 2004 06:59

handsel

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The Word of the Day for January 5 is:

handsel   \HAN-sul\   noun
    *1 : a gift made as a token of good wishes or luck 
especially at the beginning of a new year
     2 : something received first (as in a day of trading) and 
taken to be a token of good luck
     3 a : a first installment : earnest money  b : earnest, 
foretaste

Example sentence:
     Aunt Mary gave New Year's handsels to all the children in 
the family.

Did you know?
     According to an old custom in the British Isles, the first 
Monday of the new year is Handsel Monday, a day to give a small 
gift or good luck charm to children or to those who have served 
you well. As long ago as the year 1200, English speakers were 
using the ancestor of "handsel" for any good luck charm, 
especially one given at the start of some new situation or 
condition. By the 1500s, traders were using "handsel" for the 
first cash they earned in the morning -- to them, an omen of 
good things to follow. Nowadays, it's likely to be used for the
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word | 6 Jan 2004 06:50

mantic

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The Word of the Day for January 6 is:

mantic   \MAN-tik\   adjective
     : of or relating to the faculty of divination : prophetic

Example sentence:
     "You may be skeptical now of my mantic skills," said the 
fortune-teller, "but you'll soon learn that my prophecies are 
true."

Did you know? 
     The adjective "mantic" comes from the Greek 
word "mantikos," which itself derives from "mantis," 
meaning "prophet." (The mantis insect got its name from this 
same source, supposedly because its posture -- with the 
forelimbs extended as though in prayer -- reminded folks of a 
prophet.) Not surprisingly, the combining form "-mancy," which 
means "divination in a (specified) manner" (as in "necromancy" 
and "pyromancy"), is a relative of "mantic." A less expected, 
and more distant, relative is "mania," meaning "insanity marked 
by uncontrollable emotion or excitement" or "excessive 
enthusiasm." "Mania" descends from the Greek "mainesthai" ("to 
be mad"), a word akin to "mantis" and its offspring. And indeed, 
prophesying in ancient Greece was sometimes believed to
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word | 7 Jan 2004 06:59

acerbate

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The Word of the Day for January 7 is:

acerbate   \ASS-er-bayt\   verb
     : irritate, exasperate

Example sentence:
     The repetitive little noise acerbated the nerves of 
everyone in the vicinity.

Did you know? 
    The verb "acerbate" was first documented in English around 
1731 and is ultimately derived (via the past participle of the 
Latin verb "acerbare") from the Latin "acerbus," meaning "harsh" 
or "bitter." There's also an adjective "acerbate" (pronounced uh-
SER-but and meaning "irritated, exasperated, harsh"), but it is 
used infrequently. These days, the verb turns up fairly often in 
place of "exacerbate" ("to make worse"), although this sense is 
not quite common enough yet to be in dictionaries. The use 
of "acerbate" for "exacerbate" may be an error created by 
confusing two very similar words, but it's actually a pretty 
insightful mistake -- "exacerbate" is also from "acerbus."
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word | 8 Jan 2004 06:59

taciturn

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The Word of the Day for January 8 is: 

taciturn   \TASS-uh-tern\   adjective
     : temperamentally disinclined to talk

Example sentence:
     Upon hearing that soft-spoken Calvin Coolidge -- arguably 
the most taciturn president in U.S. history -- had died, Dorothy 
Parker quipped, "How could they tell?"

Did you know?
     We first find "taciturn" in a satiric drama written in 1734 
by James Miller, a British clergyman educated at Oxford. A 
character describes a nephew thus: "When he was little, he never 
was what they call Roguish or Waggish, but was always close, 
quiet, and taciturn." It seems we waited unduly long to adopt 
this useful descendent of the verb "tacere," meaning "to be 
silent" -- we were much quicker to adopt other words from 
the "tacere" family. We've been using "tacit," an adjective 
meaning "expressed without words" or "implied," since 1576. And 
we've had the noun "taciturnity," meaning "habitual silence," 
since at least 1450.
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word | 9 Jan 2004 06:59

malapropism

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The Word of the Day for January 9 is:

malapropism   \MAL-uh-prah-pih-zuhm\   noun
     1 : the usually unintentionally humorous misuse or 
distortion of a word or phrase; especially : the use of a word 
sounding somewhat like the one intended but ludicrously wrong in 
the context
    *2 : malaprop : an example of malapropism

Example sentence:
     Paul, who was given to blurting out malapropisms, said the 
rambling lecturer had gone off on a "tandem."

Did you know?
     Mrs. Malaprop, a character in Richard Sheridan's 1775 play 
_The Rivals_, was known for her verbal blunders. "He is the very 
pine-apple of politeness," she exclaimed, complimenting a 
courteous young man. Thinking of the geography of contiguous 
countries, she spoke of the "geometry" of "contagious 
countries," and she hoped that her daughter might "reprehend" 
the true meaning of what she was saying. She regretted that 
her "affluence" over her niece was small. The word "malapropism" 
derives from this blundering character's name, which Sheridan 
took from the French term "malapropos," meaning "inappropriate."
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word | 10 Jan 2004 06:59

uxorial

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The Word of the Day for January 10 is:

uxorial   \uk-SOR-ee-ul\   adjective
     : of, relating to, or characteristic of a wife 

Example sentence: 
     Joe's idea of uxorial duties -- cooking, cleaning, planning 
parties, and balancing his checkbook -- didn't sit well with his 
coworkers.

Did you know? 
     With help from "-ial," "-ious," and "-icide," the Latin 
word "uxor," meaning "wife," has given us the English 
words "uxorial," "uxorious" (meaning "excessively fond of or 
submissive to a wife"), and "uxoricide" ("murder of a wife by 
her husband" or "a wife murderer"). Do we have 
equivalent "husband" words? Well, sort of. "Maritus" 
means "husband" in Latin, so "marital" can mean "of or relating 
to a husband and his role in marriage" (although "maritus" also 
means "married," and the "of or relating to marriage or the 
married state" sense of "marital" is far more common). And 
while "mariticide" is "spouse killing," it can also be 
specifically "husband-killing."
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Gmane