Today’s list of the day is “The History of Cool,” featuring a number of different ways you can call something good, great, neat, or excellent in English.
Tag Archives: English
Synesis and Garden State places
Today’s word of the day is synesis. The dictionary definition is “a construction in which a form, such as a pronoun, differs in number but agrees in meaning with the word governing it.” A typical example is when the subject and verb don’t agree, as in “There were a large number of people waiting.” To most people, that sounds better than “there is a large number of people waiting,” even though “number” is ostensibly the subject which should be paired with the “was” form of the copula.
Today’s list of the day is “funny place names in the Garden State.” Cheesequake, New Jersey, is a helluva town.
Belvedere; words that roll or stumble off the tongue
Today’s word of the day is belvedere, a roofed structure, especially a small pavilion or tower on top of a building, situated so as to command a wide view.
We have a pair of “lists of the day” today: words that roll of the tongue and words that stumble off the tongue.
Wordnik word of the day: indicia
Today’s word of the day is indicia, a plural noun meaning “identifying marks” or “indications.” It’s a favorite of legal minds: “If the defendant is dishonorable, it can take advantage of this window by doing everything possible to cover its tracks; documents will be shredded, electronic evidence will be scrubbed, and any other indicia of wrongdoing will disappear.” It’s from the Latin plural of indicium, a notice, information, discovery, sign, mark, token.
Tump, the Wordnik word of the day
Today’s word of the day is tump, meaning “to overturn” or “to fall over.” It’s probably etymologically related to tumble and probably is not a contraction of “turn over” and “dump.”
Photo of a tumped-over outhouse by Ryan Junell under a Creative Commons license.
Wordnik word of the day: flagitious
Such a nice word for a Wednesday… Today’s word of the day is flagitious, an adjective meaning “characterized by extremely brutal or cruel crimes; vicious; shamefully wicked; atrocious; scandalous; flagrant; grossly criminal.” It is related to flagitate ‘to demand fiercely or imperiously.’