Author Archives: Richard

Pronounced: AH-luh-cute, verb Notes: Another word I don’t know Yesterday’s word The word verbicide is “the willful and intentional distortion of the original meaning of a word” First usage Our word came into English in the mid-1800s Background / Comments Our word comes from verb plus -icide (to kill). The word verb is from theContinue reading “allocute”

Pronounced: VUR-buh-side, noun Notes: I didn’t know this word, but have known instances of it Yesterday’s word The word politick means “to engage in (usually partisan) political activity” First usage This word came into English in the late 1800s Background / Comments I thought that our word was obsolete; we use politic and politics, andContinue reading “verbicide”

Pronounced: POL-ih-tick, verb Notes: You probably know this word; I’ll talk more about tomorrow Yesterday’s word The word meta means “of, or related to, a story, play, film or character that consciously references its own subject” First usage This may be the most recent word; the reference material says it came into usage in theContinue reading “politick”

Pronounced: MEH-tuh, adj Notes: The vocabulary reference I took this from says it is pronounced “MEE-tuh”; however, this particular reference seems to be riddled with errors; I’ve always heard it pronounced “MEH-tuh”. In addition, no web site I checked has it as “MEE-tuh”, so I think this is just another error. Yesterday’s word The wordContinue reading “meta”

Pronounced: ih-MAY-go (alt: ih-MAH-go), noun Notes: Interesting plural: imagines (ih-MAY-guh-neez); can also use the (expected) imagoes Yesterday’s word The word bel-esprit means “a person of great wit or intellect; a witty or clever person” First usage Our word came into English in the mid-1600s Background / Comments A nice word to use to as anContinue reading “imago”

Pronounced: bell-es-PREE, noun Notes: Another word I don’t know (but a good one) Yesterday’s word The word ecdysis is “the shedding of an outer layer; molting” First usage This word came into English in the mid-1800s Background / Comments Our word came from the Greek word ekdysis, which is from ekdyein (to take off), whichContinue reading “bel-esprit”

Pronounced: EK-duh-sis, noun Notes: I’m pretty sure I have run across this word, but I could not recall the definition Yesterday’s word The word meliorism means “the belief that the world can be made better and improved by concentrated effort and diligent work” First usage Our word came into English in the mid-1800s Background /Continue reading “ecdysis”

Pronounced: MEAL-yuh-riz-uhm (alt: MEE-lee-uh-riz-uhm), noun Notes: Nice word, but I didn’t know it Yesterday’s word The word earwig means, as a noun, “any of various insects of the order Dermaptera, having a pair of pincers at the rear of the abdomen”. As a verb, it means to influence or bias a person by insinuations toContinue reading “meliorism”

Pronounced: EAR-wig, noun/verb Notes: I had a faint idea of the meaning of the noun form, but no clue concerning the verb form Yesterday’s word The word xyst means “a garden walkway planted and bordered with trees” First usage Our word came into English in the mid-1600s Background / Comments Our word comes from theContinue reading “earwig”

Pronounced: zist, noun Notes: This looks like a pretty good scrabble word! Yesterday’s word The word miscible means “capable of being mixed together” First usage This word came into English in the mid-1500s Background / Comments Our word comes from the Latin word miscere (to mix). As I noted yesterday, this word is one I’veContinue reading “xyst”