 | by
Paige in my world of make-believe |
February 27th, 2006
Word of the Day for Monday February 20, 2006
titivate TIT-uh-vayt, transitive and intransitive verb:
To smarten up; to spruce up.
It's easy to laugh at a book in which the heroine's husband
says to her, "You look beautiful," and then adds, "So stop
titivating yourself."
-- Joyce Cohen, "review of To Be the Best, by Barbara
Taylor Bradford," [1]New York Times, July 31, 1988
In The Idle Class, when Chaplin is titivating in a hotel
room, the cloth on his dressing table rides up and down,
caught in the same furious gusts.
-- Peter Conrad, [2]Modern Times, Modern Places
Word of the Day for Tuesday February 21, 2006
jovial JOH-vee-uhl, adjective:
Merry; joyous; jolly; characterized by mirth or jollity.
One pupil of the sixteen-year-old Custer remembered him as
"socially inclined," jovial, and full of life.
-- Louise Barnett, [1]Touched by Fire
The Puritans took a dim view of the jovial, amiable cleric
who liked to have a pot of ale at one of Purleigh's pubs.
-- Willard Sterne Randall, [2]George Washington: A Life
He smiled, joked and at times seemed downright jovial.
-- "Piazza Booed Again (Till He Homers)," [3]New York
Times, August 22, 1998
Word of the Day for Wednesday February 22, 2006
salutary SAL-yuh-ter-ee, adjective:
1. Producing or contributing to a beneficial effect;
beneficial; advantageous.
2. Wholesome; healthful; promoting health.
Alexis de Tocqueville famously observed during his sojourn
in this country that America was teeming with such
associations -- charities, choral groups, church study
groups, book clubs -- and that they had a remarkably
salutary effect on society, turning selfish individuals
into public-spirited citizens.
-- Fareed Zakaria, "Bigger Than the Family, Smaller Than
the State," [1]New York Times, August 13, 1995
Surviving a near-death experience has the salutary effect
of concentrating the mind.
-- Kenneth T. Walsh and Roger Simon, "Bush turns the tide,"
[2]U.S. News, February 28, 2000
And they washed it all down with sharp red wines, moderate
amounts of which are known to be salutary.
-- Rod Usher, "The Fat of the Land," [3]Time Europe,
January 8, 2000
Word of the Day for Thursday February 23, 2006
alacrity uh-LACK-ruh-tee, noun:
A cheerful or eager readiness or willingness, often manifestedby brisk, lively action or promptness in response.
As for his homemade meatloaf sandwich with green tomato
ketchup, a condiment he developed while working in New
York, I devoured it with an alacrity unbecoming in someone
who gets paid to taste carefully.
-- R.W. Apple Jr., "Southern Tastes, Worldly Memories,"
[1]New York Times, April 26, 2000
Arranged in long ranks, ten-, twelve-, or thirteen-year-old
girls, pale and hollow-eyed, their pinned-back hair
sprouting tendrils limp with perspiration, operated the
machinery with such alacrity that arms and hands were a
flying blur.
-- Patricia Albers, [2]Shadows, Fire, Snow: The Life of
Tina Modotti
So, I am sure that I was thrilled when I got the letter
offering me the fellowship and equally sure that I wrote
back to accept with alacrity.
-- Joan L. Richards, [3]Angles of Reflection
Never was a sinking ship abandoned with such alacrity and
unanimity, never was an experiment condemned so
conclusively.
-- Ernest Gellner, [4]The End of Utopia by Russell Jacoby
Word of the Day for Friday February 24, 2006
munificent myoo-NIF-i-suhnt, adjective:
Very liberal in giving or bestowing; very generous; lavish.
Another munificent friend has given me the most splendid
reclining chair conceivable.
-- George Eliot, Letters
The fleeting movement of air inside the black tunnel before
and after the passage of a train made it a source of
refreshment more munificent than a roaring window air
conditioner.
-- Norma Field, [1]From My Grandmother's Bedside: Sketches
of Postwar Tokyo
John Sr.'s paycheck, while hardly munificent, was steady,
and frugality did the rest.-- Sylvia Nasar, [2]A Beautiful Mind
Word of the Day for Saturday February 25, 2006
cogent KOH-juhnt, adjective:
Having the power to compel conviction; appealing to the mind
or to reason; convincing.
One woman, Adrian Pomerantz, was so intelligent that the
professors always lit up when Adrian spoke; her eloquent,
cogent analyses forced them not to be lazy, not to repeat
themselves.
-- Meg Wolitzer, [1]Surrender, Dorothy
I suggested to the student that she take her refusal as the
theme of her term paper and ponder it as carefully as
possible. A few weeks later she submitted one of the most
cogent, intelligent papers I have read.
-- Denis Donoghue, [2]The Practice of Reading
Word of the Day for Sunday February 26, 2006
apothegm AP-uh-them, noun:
A short, witty, and instructive saying.
Nineteen Eighty-four the most contemporary novel of this
year and who knows of how many past and to come, is a great
examination into and dramatization of Lord Acton's famous
apothegm, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power
corrupts absolutely."
-- Mark Schorer, "When Newspeak Was New," [1]New York
Times, October 6, 1996
The rare talent of compressing a mass of profound thought
into an apophthegm.
-- Henry Hart Milman, The History of Latin Christianity
The admirable Hebrew apophthegm, Learn to say I do not
know.
-- Frederic Farrar, Life of St. Paul
Word of the Day for Monday February 27, 2006
posit POZ-it, transitive verb:
1. To assume as real or conceded.2. To propose as an explanation; to suggest.
3. To dispose or set firmly or fixedly.
It is not necessary to posit mysterious forces to explain
coincidences.
-- Bruce Martin, "Coincidences: Remarkable or Random?,"
[1]Skeptical Inquirer, September/October 1998
Among other things, the researchers posit that the behavior
of the muscles during laughter probably explains why
phrases like "weak with laughter" pops up in many different
languages.
-- "How Muscles Can Go Weak With Laughter," [2]New York
Times, September 14, 1999
Some scientists subscribe to this "catastrophic" view of
evolutionary history and posit such events as meteoritic
collisions with earth, viral epidemics, and explosive
evolutionary changes as responsible for species extinctions
in the past.
-- Noel T. Boaz Ph.D., [3]Eco Homo
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