Thursday, 6 September 2012

Word Of The Day

26/4/13

Word of the day: missle

Mizzle is a term used in Devon and Cornwall for a combination of fine drenching drizzle or extremely fine rain and thick, heavy saturating.

Source: www.weatheronline.co.uk

26/2/13

Word of the day: hurtle

verb

Meaning: to rush violently; move with great speed

Example: The car hurtled down the highway.


Source: www.dictionary.com


16/01/13

Word of the day: inkling

noun

Meaning: a slight hint or suspicion

Example: He had an inkling that something bad was about to happen

"I remember that, although I was full of fervour, I didn't have the slightest inkling, even at forty, of the deeper side to the movement we were pursuing by instinct. It was in the air!"
--Camille Pisarro


Source: www.searchquotes.com


Word of the day: Fuddy-duddy

Meaning: a person who is stuffy, old-fashioned, and conservative.

Note: adjective or noun


Source: www.dictionary.com 


16/11/12

Word of the day: bird-dog



bird-dog \BURD-dawg\ , verb:

1. To follow, watch carefully, or investigate.
2. In slang, to steal or attempt to steal another person's date.
noun:
1. One of various breeds of dogs trained to hunt or retrieve birds.
2. A person hired to locate special items or people, especially a talent scout who seeks out promising athletes.
“Connors thinks my department is so incompetent that he's sending someone tobird-dog my investigation?
-- Judith A. Jance, Partner in Crime
Smart organizations will assign an employee to bird-dog the consultant from the start and learn everything there is to know about a service or application.
-- Dan Tynan, Escaping Services Addiction, Infoworld, August, 2006.




Date: 31/10/12


Word of the day: lily-livered

lily-livered \LIL-ee-LIV-erd\ , noun:

Weak or lacking in courage; cowardly; pusillanimous.

But surely, for your own sake, you will not be so lily-livered as to fall into this trap which he has baited for you and let him take the very bread out of your mouth without a struggle.

-- Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers

He had skin as white as a lily, but he was not lily-livered; he was as strong as a champion at the Shrovetide games.

-- Geoffrey Chaucer and Peter Ackroyd, Canterbury Tales

Source: www.dictionary.com


26/10/12


Word of the day: Supernormal

supernormal \soo-per-NAWR-muhl\ , adjective:

1. In excess of the normal or average: supernormal faculties; supernormal production.
2. Lying beyond normal or natural powers of comprehension: supernormal intimations.
On the other hand, the voyager may also feel that he possesses supernormalpowers of perception and movement, that he can perform miracles, extraordinary feats of bodily control, etc …
-- Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, Richard Alpert, The Psychedelic Experience
The limbs twitched, the eyes gleamed, the blood-pressure appeared heightened, and there was a supernormal pinkness in the epidermis of the cheek.
-- P. G. Wodehouse, Summer Lightning



Source:  www.dictionary.com


25/10/12


Word of the Day - uncanny:



uncanny \uhn-KAN-ee\ , adjective:

1. Having or seeming to have a supernatural or inexplicable basis; beyond the ordinary or normal; extraordinary: uncanny accuracy; an uncanny knack of foreseeing trouble.
2. Mysterious; arousing superstitious fear or dread; uncomfortably strange: Uncanny sounds filled the house.
Again the mood is uncanny, with strange perturbations in the atmosphere, the abstruse word choice purposely jarring: “suzerain,” “diacritic,” “acephalous,” “zebu,” “argute.”
-- Charles Bukowski, introduction by David Stephen Calonne, Absence of the Hero
She saw him put his hand on the shoulder of their mother's chair, touch the fringe on a lampshade, as if to confirm for himself that the uncanny persistence of half-forgotten objects, all in their old places, was not some trick of the mind.
-- Marilynne Robinson, Home


Source:  www.dictionary.com



17/10/12


Word of the day: Fulgurant


fulgurant \FUHL-gyer-uhnt\  , adjective:


Flashing like lightning.[1]


Now, as died the fulgurant rage that had supported her, and her normal strength being exhausted, a sudden weakness intervened, and she couldn't but allow Mike to lead her to a seat.



-- George Moore, Mike Fletcher: A Novel




Source: www.dictionary.com 



Longest word in a major English dictionary

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis


Noun

an obscure term ostensibly referring to a lung disease caused by silicadust, sometimes cited as one of the longest words in the English language.


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