Word of the Day-notional
Definition: (adjective) Not based on fact; unreal.
Synonyms: imaginary, fanciful Usage: She created a notional world for herself in order to escape the disappointments of reality. Word of the Day-myriad
myriad \MEER-ee-ud\ noun
Meaning 1 : ten thousand *2 : a great number Example Sentence The newspaper office received a myriad of e-mails telling them about the three incorrect clues in Sunday's crossword puzzle. Did you know? In English, the "ten thousand" sense of "myriad" mostly appears in references to Ancient Greece, such as the following from Thirwall's History of Greece: "4000 men from Peloponnesus had fought at Thermopylae with 300 myriads." More often, however, English speakers use "myriad" in the broad sense — both as a singular noun ("a myriad of tiny particles") and a plural noun ("myriads of tiny particles"). "Myriad" can also serve as an adjective meaning "innumerable" ("myriad particles"). "Myriad" comes from Greek "myrias," which in turn comes from "myrioi" ("countless" or "ten thousand"). A relative of "myriad" is "myriapod," which descends in part from the Greek word for "foot." A myriapod is a creature with many feet — a centipede or millipede, that is. Word of the Day-hackle
hackle \HACK-ul\ noun
Meaning 1 : one of the long feathers on the neck or back of a bird 2 plural : hairs (as on a dog's neck) that can be erected *3 plural : temper, dander Example Sentence The Senator's aggressive stance toward illegal immigration has raised some hackles. Did you know? In its earliest uses in the 15th century, "hackle" denoted either a bird's neck plumage or an instrument used to comb out long fibers of flax, hemp, or jute. Apparently, some folks saw a resemblance between the neck feathers of domestic birds — which, on a male, become erect when the bird is defensive — and the prongs of the comb-like tool. In the 19th century, English speakers extended the word's use to both dogs and people. Like the bird's feathers, the erectile hairs on the back of a dog's neck stand up when the animal is agitated. With humans, use of the word "hackles" is usually figurative. When you raise someone's hackles, you make them angry or put them on the defensive. get (one's) hackles up: To be extremely insulted or irritated. Word of the Day-gesticulate
Definition: (verb) To make gestures especially while speaking, as for emphasis.
Synonyms: gesture, motion Usage: The choking patron gesticulated wildly to the waiter, who recognized the diner's distress and proceeded to perform the Heimlich maneuver(海姆利克急救法). Word of the Day-protagonist
Definition: (noun) The main character in a drama or other literary work.
Synonyms: agonist Usage: Dorothy Gale, a young girl from the flat grey plains of Kansas who is swept away to a magical world of Munchkins and witches, is the protagonist in many of L. Frank Baum's Oz novels. Word of the Day-spoony
spoony \SPOO-nee\ adjective
Meaning 1 : silly, foolish; especially : unduly sentimental *2 : being sentimentally in love Example Sentence It was Valentine's Day and spoony couples were enjoying romantic candlelit dinners at the city's many fine restaurants. Did you know? In 19th-century British slang, "spoon" meant "simpleton" (a meaning that may have been influenced by the "shallowness" of some spoons). That use of "spoon" brought about the adjective "spoony" to describe a silly or foolish person. In time, the foolish manner implied by "spoony" began to take on sentimental and amorous overtones, and it soon became the perfect word for those foolishly head over heels in love. Another "spoon" is a verb referring to love-making or necking. That use of "spoon" may stem from a Welsh custom in which an engaged man presented his fiancé with an elaborately carved wooden spoon. 这个词让我联想到了 
Word of the Day-consternation
consternation \kon-ster-NEY-shuhn\, noun:
sudden dread or paralyzing terror To our consternation, the phone rang just as we were about to leave. Word of the Day-suffuse
Suffuse (verb)
Pronunciation: [sê-'fyuz] Definition: To spread throughout or all over, to permeate or infuse thoroughly. Usage: Today's word has a near synonym in perfuse "to pour all over or throughout." To effuse is to pour forth, usually profusely, as blood from a serious wound or good spirits from a happy person. To infuse is to pour into so as to permeate. The noun for today's word is "suffusion" and the adjective, suffusive "tending to suffuse," as a suffusive sense of happiness at the arrival of spring. Suggested Usage: In 'Desire under the Elms,' Eugene O'Neill sets this scene: "The sky above the roof is suffused with deep colors, the green of the elms glows, but the house is in shadow, seeming pale and washed out by contrast." Suffusion can be a bad thing: "The soil was suffused with so much mercury that nothing could be built on it." It can just as well be good, "Her every word was suffused with warmth and understanding." Word of the Day-rodomontade
rodomontade \rod-uh-muhn-TADE; roh-duh-; -TAHD\, noun:
Vain boasting; empty bluster; pretentious, bragging speech; rant. These are rejoinders born out of a need to deflate a balloon filled with what others view as pomposity or rodomontade.-- Corey Mesler, "Dispatch #1: Buying the Bookstore (The Early Days)", ForeWord, August 2000 The very absurdity of some of his later claims (inventors of jazz, originators of swing) . . . has made him an easy target in a way far beyond anything generated by that other (and in some ways quite similar) master of rodomontade, Jelly Roll Morton.-- Richard M. Sudhalter, Lost Chords . . .the me-me-me rodomontade of macho rap.-- Nicholas Barber, "In the very bleak midwinter", Independent, January 7, 1996 But what he said -- that if any official came to his house to requisition his pistol, he'd better shoot straight -- was more rodomontade than a call to arms or hatred.-- William F. Buckley Jr., "What does Clinton have in mind?", National Review, May 29, 1995 Pronunciation: [rah-dê-mên-'teyd, ro-dê-mên-'teyd] Definition: Pretentious boasting or bragging; bluster and hence any arrogant act. Usage: The same word may be used as an intransitive verb: "We have a $10 million deal with IBM? That's just Jack rodomontading about his sales department again." Suggested Usage: This is the pretentious means of referring to pretentious boasting. Using the word itself is a sort of rodomontade. (Don't you just love words like that?) "The commencement speaker's point was less acuminate behind the absolute rodomontade of his accomplishments he brandished in the foreground." Word of the Day-jeremiad
jeremiad \jair-uh-MY-uhd\, noun:
A tale of sorrow, disappointment, or complaint; a doleful story; also, a dolorous or angry tirade. This age in which leisure and letters were gilded with commerce did not see the decline and fall of art, despite the jeremiads of such artists as William Blake ('Where any view of money exists,' he prophesied, 'art cannot be carried on').-- Roy Porter, English Society in the Eighteenth Century Johnson's jeremiad against what he sees as American imperialism and militarism exhaustively catalogs decades of U.S. military misdeeds-- Stan Crock, review of The Sorrows of Empire by Chalmers Johnson, Business Week, February 2, 2004 Economics ministers in general were taken aback when a recent World Bank report -- after a year of jeremiads -- suggested the crisis was being exaggerated-- Lance Castle, "The economic crisis revisited", Jakarta Post, April 1, 1999 Pronunciation: [je-rê-'mI-æd] Definition: An extended lamentation; a long, drawn-out complaining tirade, often accompanied by a prophecy or insinuation of imminent doom. Usage: One could write a jeremiad about this word itself, a poor lexical orphan without siblings or off-spring and whose parents lie far away in the Middle East (see Etymology). However, the etymology will prove its lineage heavenly and no cause for lament. Suggested Usage: Today's Biblical word works even in a commoner's home: "Every time I ask you to clean the garage all I hear is a jeremiad on how much easier your sister's lot is than yours!" However, the word tends to be more at home in conversations on loftier topics: "I grow a bit weary of the jeremiads against progress and modernity that pervade contemporary European and American literature." Word of the Day-tirade
tirade \TY-raid; tih-RAID\, noun:
A long angry speech; a violent denunciation; a prolonged outburst full of censure or abuse. The force of this tirade made Matthew glance nervously at Coots, who shrugged and asked his partner, "You just about all through?"-- Trevanian, Incident at Twenty-Mile Bobby wanted to enquire further, but knew better; more questions were apt to set off a tirade.-- Stephen King, Hearts In Atlantis He was likeable, had panache, and his contemptuous tirades were rarely taken at face value.-- Michael Schaller, Altered States Word of the Day-diatribe
noun
Pronunciation: ['dI-ê-trIb] Definition: An unrelenting tirade of criticism, a scathing verbal attack on someone or something comprising unbridled invective. Usage: If a tirade is an intemperate even vituperative verbal attack, a diatribe is a protracted tirade, a tirade that goes on too long. A polemic is an aggressive verbal attack by an opinionated partisan of an opposing position that may be on point. A harangue is a rambling, vituperative verbal attack that ranges way off point if not missing it altogether. Finally, a jeremiad is an angry but also cautionary verbal tirade while our former Word of the Day, rodomontade, is a tirade of self-serving boasting. Suggested Usage: We hope, of course, you never have to use this word; the behavior it refers to only aggravates a situation. However, you may find circumstances where comments like these fit: "In the middle of his diatribe on the evils of using office telephones for personal use, his wife called to remind him to pick up some pork chops on the way home." "Mom, why don't you tidy up the rest of the house before launching your next tirade on how messy my room is?" Word of the Day-meliorate
verb
Pronunciation: ['mee-lyêr-eyt] Definition: To make or become better, to improve. Usage: We at YourDictionary are always looking for ways to make speech more efficient. Today we offer a way to save you a syllable in expressing "ameliorate"—just skip the initial [a]. In fact, "meliorate" was the original word, appearing as early as 1552, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. "Ameliorate," influenced by French "améliorer," first appeared in Swinburn's 'Travels in Spain' in 1767. All the forms of "ameliorate" are also available from "meliorate," including meliorable "improvable," meliorative "making better," the action noun "melioration," and the agent noun, meliorator "one who makes things better." Suggested Usage: One of the most gratifying aspects of the current world is the spacious room it allows for improvement. This means that today's word will always find work, "You could meliorate your life (and mine) immensely by whining less about yourself and thinking more of others." In fact, human relationships provide multitudinous opportunities for melioration, "Would it meliorate our relationship if I spent less time with you?" It is an option we seldom think of.
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