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word | 1 Nov 2005 06:50

golden handcuffs

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The Word of the Day for November 1 is: 

golden handcuffs   \GOAL-dun-HAND-kuffs\   noun
     : special benefits offered to an employee as an inducement to continue service

Example sentence:
     Dad eventually accepted the golden handcuffs and agreed to five more years with the company.

Did you know?
     Chances are you've heard of a "golden handshake," which is a particularly tempting severance agreement
offered to an employee in an effort to induce the person to retire early. People started getting "golden
handshakes" (by that name) around 1960; by 1976, English speakers had also coined the accompanying
"golden handcuffs" to describe a situation in which someone is offered a special inducement to stay. The
expression turns up often in quasi-literal uses, such as "slapped golden handcuffs on" or reference to "a
shiny new set of golden handcuffs." (It's also common in British, as well as American, usage.)
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word | 2 Nov 2005 06:59

jejune

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The Word of the Day for November 2 is:

jejune   \jih-JOON\   adjective 
     1 : lacking nutritive value
    *2 : devoid of significance or interest : dull 
     3 : juvenile, puerile 

Example sentence: 
     Professor Hazlett's jejune lectures often left students dozing in the auditorium.

Did you know? 
     If you are starved for excitement, you won't get it from something jejune. That term derives from the Latin
"jejunus," which means "empty of food," "meager," or "hungry." Back in the 1600s, English speakers used
"jejune" in senses very similar to those of its Latin parent, lamenting "jejune appetites" and "jejune
morsels." Something that is meager usually doesn't satisfy one's desires, and before long "jejune" was
being used not only for meager meals or hunger, but also for things wanting in intellectual or emotional
substance. The word most likely gained its "juvenile" or "childish" sense when people confused it with
the look-alike French word "jeune," which means "young."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
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word | 3 Nov 2005 06:50

catachresis

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The Word of the Day for November 3 is:

catachresis   \kat-uh-KREE-sis\   noun 
    *1 : use of the wrong word for the context 
     2 : use of a forced and especially paradoxical figure of speech 

Example sentence:  	 
     The paper printed a correction for the previous day's catachresis: dubbing a local
artist-philanthropist a "socialist" when they meant "socialite."

Did you know? 
      As you might have guessed, "catachresis" is a word favored by grammarians. It can be employed as a fancy
label of disparagement for whatever uses the grammarian finds unacceptable. Thus could Henry Fowler, in
the 1920s, call "mutual" in "our mutual friend" a catachresis. (Fowler preferred "common," but "mutual"
does have an established sense which is correct in that context.) More often, "catachresis" is used for an
unintentional misuse and is very close in meaning to "malapropism," which usually refers to an
unintentionally _humorous_ misuse of a word. "Catachresis" has been used to describe (or decry) misuses
of words since at least 1550. The word comes to us by way of Latin from the Greek noun "katachresis," which
means "misuse." 

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
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word | 4 Nov 2005 06:50

ab ovo

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The Word of the Day for November 4 is: 

ab ovo   \ab-OH-voh\   adverb
     : from the beginning

Example sentence:
     "Would you live your life differently if you could start again ab ovo?" Rachel asked.

Did you know?
     "Ab ovo usque ad mala." That phrase translates as "from the egg to the apples," and it was penned by the Roman
poet Horace. He was alluding to the Roman tradition of starting a meal with eggs and finishing it with
apples. Horace also applied "ab ovo" in an account of the Trojan War that begins with the mythical egg of
Leda from which Helen (whose beauty sparked the war) was born. In both cases, Horace used "ab ovo" to allude
to a literal egg while figuratively suggesting the meaning "from the beginning." It was this figurative
meaning that found its way into English in the 16th century, when Sir Philip Sidney wrote: "If [the
dramatic poets] wil represent an history, they must not (as Horace saith) beginne Ab ouo: but they must
come to the principall poynt of that one action."
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word | 5 Nov 2005 06:50

zenith

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The Word of the Day for November 5 is:

zenith   \ZEE-nith\   noun
     1 : the point of the celestial sphere that is directly opposite the nadir and vertically above the observer 
     2 : the highest point reached in the heavens by a celestial body 
    *3 : culminating point : acme 

Example sentence: 
     "Winning a gold medal at the Olympic games would be the zenith of my career," said the skier in a recent
interview. 

Did you know? 
     When you reach the zenith, you're at the top, the pinnacle, the summit, the peak. "Zenith" developed from
Arabic terms meaning "the way over one's head." As long ago as the 1300s, English speakers used "zenith" to
name the highest point in the celestial heavens, directly overhead. By the 1600s, "zenith" was being used
in English for other high points as well. 

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
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word | 6 Nov 2005 06:50

temporize

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The Word of the Day for November 6 is:

temporize   \TEM-puh-ryze\   verb 
     1 : to act to suit the time or occasion : yield to current or dominant opinion
    *2 : to draw out discussions or negotiations so as to gain time 

Example sentence:
     The senators have been accused of temporizing while the budget crisis continues to worsen.

Did you know?
     "Temporize" comes from the Medieval Latin verb "temporizare" ("to pass the time"), which itself comes
from the Latin noun "tempus," meaning "time." ("Tempus" is also an ancestor of such words as "tempo,"
"contemporary," and "temporal.") If you need to buy some time, you might resort to temporizing -- but you
probably won't win admiration for doing so. "Temporize" can have a somewhat negative connotation. For
instance, a political leader faced with a difficult issue might temporize by talking vaguely about
possible solutions without actually doing anything. The point of such temporizing is to avoid taking
definite -- and possibly unpopular -- action, in hopes that the problem will somehow go away. But the
effect is often just to make matters worse.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
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word | 7 Nov 2005 06:50

detritus

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The Word of the Day for November 7 is:

detritus   \dih-TRYE-tus\   noun
     1 : loose material (as rock fragments or organic particles) that results directly from disintegration
     2 a : a product of disintegration, destruction, or wearing away : debris  *b : miscellaneous remnants : odds
and ends

Example sentence:
     "The blog originated ... as a catch basin for mental detritus, for the kind of stuff not good enough for
print, but too good to waste on casual conversation." (Joel Achenbach, _The Washington Post_, August 21, 2005)

Did you know?
     In the late 18th century, Scottish geologist James Hutton borrowed the Latin word "detritus" (meaning
"rubbing away") for the process of wearing away or wearing down rock. His use of the word, however, was
short-lived: one of the last appearances of this usage is in an 1802 book on his geologic theory. In that
book, "detritus" was also used to describe the loose material that results from disintegration. It is
that use, unlike Hutton's original, which has withstood the test of time and is firmly established in
geology. Not surprisingly, "detritus," with its erudite sound and figurative possibility, was also
taken up by non-geologists, from other scientists to nonscientists.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
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word | 8 Nov 2005 06:50

vulnerary

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The Word of the Day for November 8 is:

vulnerary  \VUL-nuh-rair-ee\   adjective 
     : used for or useful in healing wounds 

Example sentence: 
     Native Americans prized the herb echinacea for its vulnerary properties, using it to treat burns and
snakebite as well as arrow wounds. 

Did you know? 
     "Vulnus," in Latin means "wound." You might think, then, that the English adjective "vulnerary" would
mean "wounding, causing a wound." And, indeed, "vulnerary" has been used that way, along with two
obsolete adjectives, "vulnerative" and "vulnific." But for the lasting and current use of "vulnerary,"
we took our cue from the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder. In his _Natural History_, he used the Latin
adjective "vulnerarius" to describe a plaster, or dressing, for healing wounds. And that's fine -- the
suffix "-ary" merely indicates that there is a connection, which, in this case, is to wounds. (As you may
have already suspected, "vulnerable" is related; it comes from the Latin verb "vulnerare," which means
"to wound.")
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word | 9 Nov 2005 06:50

yahoo

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The Word of the Day for November 9 is: 

yahoo   \YAH-hoo\   noun
     : a boorish, crass, or stupid person 

Example sentence:
     The local teenagers' reputation as a bunch of yahoos was belied by their courteous treatment of the
stranded motorists.

Did you know?
     We know exactly how old "yahoo" is because its debut in print also marked its entrance into the English
language as a whole. "Yahoo" began life as a made-up word invented by Jonathan Swift in his book
_Gulliver's Travels_, which was published in 1726. The Yahoos were a race of brutes, with the form and
vices of humans, encountered by Gulliver in his fourth and final voyage. They represented Swift's view of
mankind at its lowest. It is not surprising, then, that "yahoo" came to be applied to any actual human who
was particularly unpleasant or unintelligent. Yahoos were controlled by the intelligent and virtuous
Houyhnhnms, a word which apparently did not catch people's fancy as "yahoo" did.
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word | 10 Nov 2005 06:59

carceral

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The Word of the Day for November 10 is:

carceral   \KAHR-suh-rul\   adjective
     : of, relating to, or suggesting a jail or prison 

Example sentence:
     When James first glimpsed his new campus, he thought there was something rather carceral about the
school?s tall wrought-iron fence.

Did you know?
     Describing a painting of John Howard visiting a prison in 1787, writer Robert Hughes reminds us that Howard
was "the pioneer of English carceral reform" (_Time Magazine_, November 11, 1985). Huges might have said
"prison reform," but what about Vladimir Nabokov, when, in his inimitable prose, he describes a prison
scene in _Invitation to a Beheading_: "The door opened, whining, rattling and groaning in keeping with
all the rules of carceral counterpoint." Here we find "carceral" not only practical but practically
poetical. An adjective borrowed directly from Late Latin, "carceral" appeared shortly after
"incarcerate" ("to imprison"), which first showed up in English around the mid-1500s; they're both
ultimately from "carcer," Latin for "prison."
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Gmane