Wordnik word of the day: jane-of-apes

Today’s word of the day is jane-of-apes, a silly pert girl and the female counterpart of jackanapes, from which the word jane-of-apes was modeled. A jackanapes, which, despite the “s” ending, is not plural, is an impertinent or conceited fellow or a coxcomb. Jackanapes definitely appeared first in Middle English and is usually connected to William de la Pole, Fourth Earl and First Duke of Suffolk (1396-1450), who had the nickname “Jack Napis.”

Wordnik word of the day: ruelle

Today’s word of the day is ruelle, which means “the space between a bed and the wall” or “a private circle or assembly at a private house; a circle.” A note by Henri Van Laun to the play Les Précieuses Ridicules (The Pretentious Young Ladies) in The Dramatic Works of Molière Vol. I describes how ruelle went from meaning “small street” or any narrow passage or space in French to describing a part of a room used in the company of précieuses, fashionable women who held salons to socialize and discuss the question of love: “The Précieuses at that time received their visitors lying dressed in a bed, which was placed in an alcove and upon a raised platform. Their fashionable friends (alcovistes) took their places between the bed and the wall, and thus the name ruelle came to be given to all fashionable assemblies.”

Wordnik word of the day: arenose

Today’s word of the day is arenose, an adjective meaning “full of sand” or “sandy.” It comes from the same Latin root as the word arena, which originally meant “a sandy place” and was often used to mean “a sand-strewn place of combat in an amphitheater.” It’s most often used to describe soil or land. James Bell in his Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara wrote in 1848, “The soil of the Fezzan oases is indeed mostly arenose, and the dates are nearly all impregnated with fine particles of sand, which takes place when they are ripe, and very much lowers their value.” Words that are approximateley synonymous with arenose include arenaceous, arenarious, arenilitic, and arenulous.

Wordnik word of the day: mirliton

Today’s word of the day is mirliton, noun, a kind of musical toy into which one sings, hums, or speaks, producing a coarse, reedy sound. It resembles a kazoo. The word mirliton comes to English through Louisiana French, from standard French, in which it can refer to anything from a reed pipe, a party whistle such as those used at Carnival time, or any kind of rudimentary instrument. It shares its name with a type of edible gourd, which goes not only by the name mirliton, but also by chayote, christophene, sayote, choko, and others. The Christian Science Monitor has an article about one man’s attempt to bring the mirliton back to New Orleans.

Wordnik word of the day: crotchet

Today’s word of the day is crotchet, noun, “an odd, whimsical, or stubborn notion.” It came to Middle English from the Old French, a diminutive form of croche. Most people know the more common adjective form, crotchety, “characterized by odd fancies or crotchets; fantastic or eccentric in thought; whimsical.” William Temple Hornaday used it to describe giraffes in The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: “Each one has its own headful of notions, and rarely will two be found quite alike in temperament and views of life. Some are sanguine and sensible, others are nervous, crotchety, and full of senseless fears.”

Wordnik word of the day: rux

Today’s word of the day is rux, meaning “to bother; fret; work (oneself) up.” Origin unknown but perhaps related to ruction, “a vexation or annoyance; also, a disturbance; a row or rumpus,” ruckus, “a disturbance; a commotion,” or one meaning of ruck: “a crowd or throng; especially, a closely packed and indiscriminate crowd or mass of persons or things; a jam; a press,” also known as a loose scrum in rugby.

Wordnik word of the day: slitheroo

Today’s word of the day is slitheroo, meaning “to slide with a slow gliding motion; slidder.” The verb slidder, in turn, means “to slip; slide; especially, to slide clumsily or in a gingerly, timorous way” or “to slide with interruption.” Naturally, both words are related to slither, slide, sled, sledge, and sleigh. Rudyard Kipling is one of few people to use the verb slitheroo in print, though thickness of dialect makes even normal language in Captains Courageous hard to decipher.