Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day
Words that I do not know
Pronounced: REH-kuhn-dite, adj
Notes: I knew this word a bit
The word piacular means “making or requiring atonement”
Our word came into English in the early 1600s
Our word comes from the Latin word piare (to appease).
Pronounced: pie-ACK-yuh-luhr, adj
Notes: I don’t think I’ve heard of this word
The word liminal means
Our word came into English in the late 1800s
As I noted, I should have been able to work out the meaning our of word because of the well-known word subliminal, which means below the level of being noticed. Our word liminal is the adjectival form of the noun limen, which refers to the point at which a physiological or psychological effect beings to be produced, which is called the sensory threshold. Our word has expanded to take on the second and third meanings above.
Pronounced: LIH-muh-n’l, adj
Notes: I should have worked out the definition of this word
The word frontispiece is
Our word came into English in the late 1500s
This word is another one that was created in error; it was a corruption of the French word frontispice because it looked like “piece”. The word comes from the Latin word frontispicium (facade), which is made of front- (front) and specere (to look).
Pronounced: FRUN-tih-spees, noun
Notes: I think I’ve seen this word, or a word close to it
The phrase banyan day is “a day on which no meat is served to the crew of a ship”
I haven’t been able to find out when our phrase came into English
The banyans are a caste of Hindu merchants: like all practicing Hindus, they ate no meat. Sailors began to use the phrase banyan day to refer to any day in which they were not given meat to eat; such fare would be pretty meager to sailors. Note that in Australia, our phrase can refer to any day on which the food is worse than usual — such as days when the budget is running out.
Pronounced: BAN-yuhn day, noun
Notes: I’ve seen banyan trees, but I don’t know this word
The word messuage means “a residential building with outbuildings and the attached land”
Our word came into English in the late 1400s
I like the origin story of our word. The word came from the Old French word mesnage (household), but the ‘n’ was misread as a ‘u’ — thus, messuage. The Old French word came from the Latin word manere (to remain; dwell).
Pronounced: MESS-wij, noun
Notes: I like the origin story for this word (it’s not pronounced as I would think)
The word parlous means “full of danger or risk; hazardous”
Our word came into English in the 1300s
If you think “the definition seems like the definition for perilous”, you are correct. In Middle English, it was an altered form of ‘perilous’. In the 1600s, our word fell out of favor, but in the 1900s, it started to be used again. As noted, our word was an altered form of ‘perilous’ which comes from the Anglo-French word perilleus, which traces back to the Latin word periculum (danger).
Pronounced: PAR-luss, adj
Notes: I don’t think I’ve seen this word, either
The word complot means, as a noun, “a plot or conspiracy”. As a verb, it means “to plot or conspire”
Our word came into English in the late 1500s
Our word comes from the French word complot (crowd, plot).
Pronounced: KOM-plot, noun; kuhm-PLOT, verb
Notes: You might be able to guess this word, but I’ve not heard of it
The word casbah means
Our word came into English in the mid-1700s
Our word can be capitalized (Casbah) and may also be spelled kasbah/Kasbah. I know of a phrase: Come with me to the Casbah, but I don’t know anything about it — I’ve just heard it somewhere… and associated with comedy in my mind. In doing research on our word, it is thought that the phrase comes from the movie Algiers, which came out in 1938 and starred Charles Boyer. Although he did not say it in the film, I learned that his character in the film was the inspiration for the Looney Tunes character Pepé Le Pew, and and that character did use the phrase Come with me to the Casbah, so that is where I remembered it from. Our word comes from an Arabic dialect word qasbah (fortress).
Pronounced: KAZZ-bah, noun
Notes: This word is sometimes capitalized
A rebus is “a representative of a word or phrase using pictures, symbols, letters, etc”
Our word came into English in the early 1600s
I enjoy rebus puzzles, but when seeing rebus with the word “puzzle”, I couldn’t think what it meant, but it came back when I saw the definition. Our word comes from the Latin word rebus (by things), which came from res (thing).
Pronounced: REE-bus, noun
Notes: After seeing the definition, I knew this word, but I didn’t know the meaning when seeing it
The word divers means “made up of an indefinite number greater than one; various”
Our word came into English in the early to mid-1200s (but see the comments below)
Our word looks like the plural of “diver” or a misspelling of “diverse”. Both “diverse” and our word come from the same source, and for around 500 years they were more or less interchangeable… and even pronounced the same (either DIE-verse or die-VERSE). However, after 1700, “diverse” began to be pronounced “die-VERSE” and implies dissimilar options. Our word took on the pronunciation of DIE-verse and just mean multiple options. Our word comes the Latin word diversus (turning in opposite directions).
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day