Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day
Words that I do not know
Pronounced: A-nuh, noun/adv
Notes: This word has been around a long time, but I’ve not heard it
The word ploce is “a rhetorical phrase with internal repetition, such as I mean what I mean“
Our word came into English in the late 1500s
Apparently, the word used to be spelled ploche. It came from the Late Latin word plocē, which came from the Greek word plokḗ (plaiting).
Pronounced: PLOH-see, noun
Notes: Interesting word
The word retral means
This word came into English in the early 1800s
Our word comes from the Latin word retro (back). I suppose a “back door” would be a “retral entrance”.
Pronounced: REE-truhl (alt: REH-truhl), adj
Notes: I haven’t heard this word, but it’s helpful
The word rifacimento means “a re-making or complete reworking of a literary or musical piece”
This word came into English in the mid-1700s
I enjoy the Agatha Christie mysteries, but I don’t care for the rifacimenti of them… I find they are best when they follow her plots. I understand that often, when making a film from a book, it is common to drop minor characters, but that’s not a re-make or a re-work. A re-make is when the guilty party is changed from one person to another. Our word comes to us from the Italian word rifare (to make over), which comes from ri- [re-] (again) combined with fare (to do).
Pronounced: rih-fah-chih-MEN-toh, noun
Notes: I’ve not heard this word before, but most of us have run across rifacimenti (the plural form of rifacimento)
The word hap can mean, as a noun
As a verb, it can mean
The word goes back to the 1300s (see the next section)
If you’re like me, you probably knew both of the noun meanings (or were reasonably close), and the first verb meaning — it is the second verb meaning that caused this word to appear in the list; I had not heard this before. Both noun meanings and the first verb meaning come from the Old Norse word happ (good luck), from which we get happen, mishap, hapless, and happy. This was the earlier meaning, coming into English in the mid-1300s. The origin of the second verb meaning is unknown, but it is know that it came into English in the late 1300s.
Pronounced: hap (duh), noun/verb
Notes: You probably think you know the meaning (as did I), but there is one of the verb meanings that I’d not heard before (and so it made the list)
The word fribble means, as a verb, “to act in a foolish, frivolous way” (often followed by ‘away’). As a noun, it is “a fool”
The word came into English in the mid-1600s
I am pleased with myself about this one: before I looked at the background, I assumed that it came from a corruption of “frivolous”, and that is pretty close to correct: the verb “frivol” is a back-formation from the adjective “frivolous”, and it is assumed that fribble is an alteration (corruption?) of “frivol”.
Pronounced: FRIB-uhl, verb/noun
Notes: I don’t think I’ve run across this word, and I could not guess the definition
The word mithridatize means “to develop immunity to a poison by gradually increasing the dose”
This word came into English in the mid-1800s
I like reading mysteries; especially the older classical mysteries: Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Rex Stout, and Sherlock Holmes stories. In many of the stories poison is used, and the Dorothy Sayers book “Strong Poison”, which features mithridatism (however, it doesn’t use that term). I don’t think all poisons work this way, but (as I understand it), it is possible to mithridatize oneself against arsenic. Our word comes from a person: Mithridates VI, king of Pontus (a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea – now part of Turkey), who reigned from 120-63 BC. It is said of him that he acquired immunity to poison by ingesting gradually larger doses of it. His father was poisoned, which explains his interest in being able to develop a tolerance to poison. He was defeated in battle by Pompey; the story is that he didn’t want to be taken alive, so he tried to poison himself, but failed due to his immunity. So, he asked a servant to stab him to death.
Pronounced: MYTH-rih-day-tize, verb
Notes: I’m surprised, given my enjoyment of mysteries, that I haven’t run across this word
The word scabrous means
This word came into English in the late 1500s
I thought that this word might somehow be related to scabs… maybe describing someone who had a lot of scabs. As you can see, that’s not right. The word comes from the Latin word scaber (rough).
Pronounced: SKAB-ruhs, adj
Notes: Not what I thought it was…
The word grimthorpe means “to restore or remodel something without paying attention to its original character, history, etc”
This word came into usage in the late 1800s
Nothing to do with “grim” (although it might be considered “grim” to grimthorpe a building). The word comes from a person’s name: Edmund Beckett, the first Baron Grimthorpe. He was an architect that “restored” St Albans Cathedral – because of the radical changes he made he made during the restoration, he was critized, and his name became a verb.
Pronounced: GRIM-thorp, verb
Notes: I don’t recall running across this word, but “grim” makes it look vaguely bad
The word poetaster is “a bad poet; a writer of poor or mediocre verse”
Our word came into English in the late 1500s
As I noted yesterday, I think I’ve posted this word before… but I had vocabulary words at work for several years and I posted words on Facebook for a year before I moved it here. I was surprised at the age of this word; I thought it was more recent. In addition, I thought that this word was just poet run together with disaster, but that’s not right. The poet part is correct (and comes from Latin), but the -aster is also Latin and is a pejorative suffix meaning “something that imperfectly resembles or mimics the real thing”.
Pronounced: POE-it-as-ter, noun
Notes: This word looks familiar; I may have posted this same word a couple of years ago when I had these on Facebook (I cannot guarantee that I’ll never repeat a word)
The word subrogate means “to substitute one person or entity for another in a legal claim”
This word goes back to the mid-1400s
Our word makes me think of a smashed together “substitute” and “abrogate”. In fact, it comes from the Latin word subrogare, which is composed of sub- (in place of) and rogare (to ask; to propose a law). So, I had the parts of the word correct (abrogate also comes in part from rogare), but I could not figure out a meaning from those two words.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day