Word of the Day-obstreperous0 评论
Obstreperous (Adj.)
Pronunciation: [ahb-'stre-pê-rês] Listen Definition: Uncontrollably loud hence unruly, uncontrollable. Also boisterously defiant. Suggested Usage: Impress your buddies at the poker game by substituting this expressive adjective for clichés like 'raise hell', 'raise Cain': If you guys get any more obstreperous, you'll have to leave. I wonder why the bartender seldom says things like: If things get any more obstreperous, I'll have to bring out me baseball bat? Wouldn't it add to the local pub's atmosphere? Word of the Day-sequacious0 评论
sequacious \sih-KWAY-shuhs\, adjective:
1. proceeding smoothly and regularly 2. disposed to follow, especially slavishly In a world peopled with limp critics and sequacious art historians the ruthlessness with which he used the battering ram（(古代)攻城(木或铁的)槌） of talent invariably earned my admiration and almost invariably my support. -- John Pope-Hennessy, Learning to Look By which she did not mean a sequacious helpmeet to the Man of the House, picking up his dirty underwear and serving him Budweisers during commercials. -- Bill Kauffman, The Way of Love, Whole Earth, July 2000 Reminds one of the liberal journalist who was shocked Richard Nixon got elected because she didn't know anyone who had voted for him. That's what you get when you surround yourself with sequacious lefties. -- Thomas Mitchell, Gore's new testament of liberal gobbledygook, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 6/3/2007 Sequacious (Adjective) Pronunciation: [see-'kwey-shês] Definition: (1) Inclined to follow rather than lead, conformist, following others in thought and behavior; (2) continuing in a consistent direction, as a line of reasoning. Usage: Since "sequacity" is too close to a sound a duck might produce, most writers today prefer "sequaciousness" as the noun for this adjective. "Sequaciously" is the adverb, available to modify verbs, as to think sequaciously. Suggested Usage: "Sequacious" is a much lovelier and more descriptive word than "conformist," making it the perfect substitute, "The tattoo business thrives on sequacious youth." Sequacious politicians always toe their party's line（听从命令）. But don't forget that this word also refers to following a consistent thread or path: "Bipsy's behavior is not at all sequacious—one minute she is bubbly, the next she is moping, then she is happy again." Word of the Day-terpsichorean0 评论
Terpsichorean (Adj.)
Pronunciation: [têrp-sê-'kor-ee-yên] Definition: Pertaining to dance. Usage: "Terpsichorean" may also be used as a high-style noun meaning "dancer." Today "terpsichore" refers more often to the art of dancing than to the Greek goddess (see Etymology). However, you may refer to the muse that inspires your dancing as "Terpsichore." (May she fill your days with dance and song—without any song and dance（不着边际的废话，大肆宣扬）). Suggested Usage: "Terpsichorean" sounds a bit haughty, even humorous, in ordinary contexts today, "My son's terpsichorean studies seem to have strengthened his drive to the basket on the basketball team." But today's is such a lilting word, it would serve as an elegant euphemism, "By 'terpsichorean circumvention' are you referring to the song and dance she did at the press conference today?" Word of the Day-indubitable0 评论
Indubitable (Adjective)
Pronunciation: [in-'du-bi-tê-bêl] Definition: Doubtless, without doubt, unquestioned; unquestionable. Usage: Both "doubtless" and "indubitable" may be used as adverbs but you must add -ly to the latter: "Indubitably/Doubtless he left early." Both may be used in the predicate: "His wisdom is indubitable/doubtless." Only "indubitable" may be used attributively: "His indubitable wisdom failed him." "Doubtless" does not work here. Suggested Usage: Use this adjective where you would want to say "undoubtable" (?): There has been indubitable failure of communication here," or "I think it indubitable that you misspoke yourself just now." (This word was suggested by YDC friend Dave Rosenzweig.) Word of the Day-interminable0 评论
interminable \in-TUR-muh-nuh-buhl\, adjective:
so long as to seem endless; never stopping The mother-in-law's/mentor's talking was interminable. Word of the Day-tautology0 评论
Tautology (Noun)
Pronunciation: [ta-'tah-lê-ji or taw-] Definition: Redundant word or phrase, a pleonasm; (in philosophy) a statement comprising two clauses that make the statement necessarily true whether either of the two statements is true or false, e.g. "Philosophy will either drive me crazy or it won't drive me crazy." Usage: The classical tautology as "an unmarried bachelor." This phrase is tautological (the adjective) because "unmarried" is part of the meaning of "bachelor" and hence does not have to be repeated. The colloquial meaning of today's word makes it a synonym of another recent Word of the Day, "pleonasm" (for which see our Archives). Suggested Usage: "That is tautological" is one of the better punch lines for your armory of witticisms. Try using it when you hear people utter phrases like "devious politician," "greedy Enron executive," "the stock market is risky," or "sneaky lobbyist." If you give advance warning of a dangerous terrorist attack, you have wasted two words squeezing two tautologies into one utterance. Word of the Day-tautological0 评论
tautological \taw-TOL-uh-guh-kuhl\, adjective:
unnecessarily or uselessly repetitive Perhaps the very term novel of ideas is tautological, for what novel is barren of ideas, unshaped by ideas? -- Joyce Carol Oates, Loving the Illusions, New York Times, July 17, 1983 It may sound tautological to suggest that he wrote historically, because that was the way his culture had taught him to think, but that is the case nonetheless. -- Donald Harman Akenson, Surpassing Wonder Word of the Day-germane0 评论
Pronunciation: [jêr-'meyn]
Definition: Closely related, relevant, pertinent, apposite. Usage: Today's word is related to English german "having the same parents or grand-parents," as in "brother-german," "sister-german," "cousin-german." A sister-german is the contrary of a step-sister. The current meaning of the word with the final [e] is but a short hop from the meaning of "most closely related by kinship." Suggested Usage: Today's word refers to a stronger relation than does "pertinent" or "relevant." Raising pigs for their skin might be pertinent to a discussion of US football since footballs are made from pigskin but hardly germane. Quarterbacks, field goals, and end runs are, however, quite germane to any discussion of football. So, would a discussion of the word "German" be germane here? Apparently, not. The English name for the Germans apparently comes from an accidentally similar Latin word, perhaps itself borrowed from Celtic. Word of the Day-desultory0 评论
Pronunciation: ['de-zêl-to-ree]
Definition: Moving disconnectedly without focus; lacking enthusiam, sluggish. Usage: Today's word is an adjective that has moved out on its own and left its mother behind. It originally meant "like a desultor," a desultor being an equestrian performer in a circus who leaps back and forth between loping steeds. The adverb is the regular "desultorily" and the noun, "desultoriness." Suggested Usage: As I write this, I am watching desultory leaves falling from the sugar maple in my back yard. You might think they were choosing a spot to land, seeing the brilliant carpet they are weaving across the lawn. People, on the other hand, work better in focus, "Logan's desultory work habits make it highly unlikely that he will finish a job." Did you ever meet someone whose desultory attempts at conversation made it clear they did not want to talk to you? Me, neither. Word of the Day-ravel0 评论
THIS IS SUCH AN ANOMALY. BE CAREFUL.
Pronunciation: ['ræ-vêl] Definition: To unweave, to disentangle, to unwind or untwist; to fray. Usage: Here is another word we have bungled. Because raveling knitwear is undoing something previously done, we feel we need the prefix un- on this verb but the meaning of that suffix is built into the meaning of "ravel." The error is similar to the one which led us to remove the in- from "inflammable," thinking that it means "un-" when in fact it means "begin." Inflame means "to ignite," so inflammable means "ignitable." Well, guess what: unravel means "to reweave" that is, to un-unweave. The British like to double the [L] with suffixes: "ravelling," "ravelled," while North Americans prefer hobbling along on one: "raveling," "raveled." Both are correct. Suggested Usage: Sweaters are not the only things that go raveling: "As Germaine explained her situation, Percy could see his plans for a quiet domestic life with her raveling before his ears." Things ravel outside the head, too: "Celeste could feel her new hair-do raveling in the wind and mist of Foggy Bottom." Harsh winters can ravel poorly maintained roads and the nerves of those who drive over them. Randy Lauer wrote: I recently discovered that the words ravel and unravel mean the same thing. How can this be? It's worse than you think. Not only can ravel and unravel mean the same thing, 'to disentangle; unweave; disentwine; come apart' (as the threads of a cloth or the plans of a conspiracy), but ravel itself can mean its own opposite! That is, it also means 'to tangle or entangle'. Threads that were previously neat (aligned, coiled, etc.) can become raveled--i.e., twisted and knotted. It is easy to see how the ambiguity could arise, since as fabric frays the loose threads become at the same time disentangled from the fabric and entangled with each other. This potential confusion appears to have existed from the beginning; the word comes from the Dutch rafelen or ravelen, said to mean 'to unweave; fray; tangle' (from rafel or ravel 'a thread'). But to explain why we have both ravel and unravel, we have to examine the prefix un-. When affixed to verbs, its most common purpose is to reverse their meanings, a function it has had since Old English. Middle English saw such formations as unbend, uncover, unhasp, still in use today. In fact un- in this sense is so productive that it lends itself to spontaneous formations, some of them "nonce" or one-time-only verbs. It can be attached to virtually any verb representing an action that can be undone: "You hired that person? Well, go unhire him!" Far more rarely, the prefix is not reversive but redundant. From Middle English we have unloose, and Modern English (16th century) added unthaw, which essentially mean the same thing as the verbs loose and thaw. Redundant un- has taken on the function of intensifying the force of the verb. With unravel, however, it is difficult to determine whether we have un- reversing the 'tangle' sense of ravel or intensifying the 'untangle' sense. Centuries of usage of ravel would seem to point to the latter. Almost without exception, a search for ravel through old and new writings yielded the sense that is synonymous with unravel. From University Reform: an Address to the Alumni of Harvard, at Their Triennial Festival, July 19, 1866, a literal use: "And before new armies in hostile encounter on American soil shall unfurl new banners to the breeze, may every thread and thrum of their texture ravel and rot and resolve itself into dust!" From an 1875 issue of Scribners Monthly, the metaphorical sense of untangling: "Then the General retired, went to his house and found his carriage waiting, and, in less than an hour, was absorbed in raveling the snarled affairs connected with his recent disastrous speculation" (J. G. Holland, "The Story of Sevenoaks"). I found only one citation, in a recent book review, that used ravel in the 'tangle' sense. "In 'Speak You Also', which is eloquently translated from the French by Linda Coverdale with Bill Ford, Steinberg cryptically ravels and unravels his past" (Susan Shapiro, The New York Times). On the other hand, un- is so rarely the redundant (or intensifying) prefix that we tend overwhelmingly to perceive it as the reversive one. That is why you were perplexed enough to ask your question and why the rest of us still wonder at such anomalies as unloose and unthaw. And the very earliest citations in the OED for ravel (1585-1600) are for the now rare sense of 'entangle', with unravel appearing shortly thereafter (1603), just barely before the first known occurrence of the 'disentangle' sense of ravel (1606). Consequently, most major dictionaries have concluded that what we have in unravel is the un- that reverses. That would mean that the prefix serves to reverse the less common, or 'entangle', sense of ravel. Unravel that if you can. http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20010302 Both words have variant spellings when adding affixes: (un)raveled or (un)ravelled, (un)raveling or (un)ravelling. Once ravel meant “to entangle and so to confuse,” but now it means “to come unwound, unknit, or separated into strands”: The sleeve of my sweater has begun to ravel. But the likely confusion between tangling and untangling (even though a raveling or ravelling is “a separated single thread or strand”) has been enough to give us an even more frequently used verb, unravel, which makes certain the undoing, the unmaking, the reducing to ravelings that we intend. So in Standard English your sleeve can fray and begin to ravel, but it is even more likely to be reported as fraying and beginning to unravel. Figuratively, unravel means “disentangle or solve,” and ravel rarely occurs in that sense: He thought he could unravel the mystery. Compare LOOSE; UNLOOSE. http://www.bartleby.com/68/86/4986.html 现在总结一下这些变态的意思相同但貌似相反的单词： ravel unravel (和它们意思相同/相近的还有：unweave, unwind, untwist, disentangle, fray) loose unloose thaw unthaw flammable inflammable by the way, the opposite of flammable is 'non-flammable' or 'non-inflammable'. 还有一组反义词："tangle entangle" 和 "untangle disentangle" Word of the Day-contemn0 评论
Contemn (verb)
Pronunciation: [kên-'tem] Definition: To view with contempt; despise. Usage: An endangered verb used far less widely than the noun, contempt, derived from it. Suggested Usage: Give "hate" and "despise" a rest and try "I contemn everything he stands for," carefully articulating the "t". "Mary contemns the way her neighbors reduplicate her garden in theirs." Word of the Day-countenance0 评论
Countenance (verb)
Pronunciation: ['kæwn-tê-nêns] Definition: Tolerate; sanction (positively), put up with, favor. Usage: It is odd that the verb "countenance" means "tolerate" while the noun means "expression on the face." However, at one time "to keep one's countenance" meant to remain normal or neutral in behavior, not to show any emotional response. So both terms originally referred to the control of behavior (as expressed by the face), then the verb's meaning developed into remaining neutral and from there, by a short hop, to showing toleration or favor. Even the noun "countenance" when used alone implies a positive expression on the face. There is a negative verb, discountenance "to disfavor, not tolerate." Suggested Usage: It would seem that most of the world has decided that we should no longer countenance terrorism. Let us hope acts of terrorism and the factors motivating them may be obviated. But here is a word that works as well around the kitchen as in the halls of government, "Talking back to parents will no longer be countenanced in this house!" No doubt we could all countenance more respect inside and outside the kitchen. Word of the Day-monomania0 评论
Pronunciation: [mah-nê-'mey-niyê]
Definition: Fixation on or obsession with a single object or idea. Usage: People with a single-minded obsession are monomaniacs and they behave monomaniacally. Suggested Usage: Here is a variant of "obsessive" that can be applied to any kind of single-minded obsession. "He is a football monomaniac and never watches anything else on TV" or "The media's monomaniacal focus on the election results is driving ME crazy."
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