Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day
Words that I do not know
Pronounced: an-al-fuh-BET-ick, adj/noun
Notes: You may be able to figure this one out
The word caprine means “of, or pertaining to, goats”
Our word comes from the late 1300s or early 1400s
Our word came from late Middle English, which came from the Latin word caprinous, which comes from caper (male goat).
Pronounced: KAP-rine (alt: KAP-rin), adj
Notes: You may know this word, but I didn’t
The word uliginous means “swampy; slimy; slippery”
Our word came into English in the late 1500s
I don’t think I’ve every run across this word, but it does look (at a quick glance) as though it is related to “ugly”. Our word comes from the Latin word uligo (moisture).
Pronounced: you-LIJ-uh-nuss, adj
Notes: This word looks like it is related to “ugly” (but it does not)
The phrase ad hominem means “that which appeals to one’s prejudices or emotions rather than to one’s intellect or reason”
The definition above came into English in the late 1500s (see comments below).
The data I took our phrase from only gives one definition, and it wasn’t the one I thought. I thought the word meant to make a personal attack instead of addressing the issue at hand. It turns out that this definition is also correct, but is later (came into usage in the late 1700s). So I wasn’t really mistaken; I just wasn’t aware of the original definition. Our phrase comes from Latin and literally means “to the man” or “to the person”; that is, to the passions or prejudices or interests of the person.
Pronounced: ad HOM-uh-nuhm (alt: ahd HOM-uh-nuhm), adj
Notes: I’ve run across this phrase, but I have misunderstood us
The word lodestar means “someone or something that serves as a guiding principle, model, inspiration, ambition, etc.”
This word came into English in the later 1300s
Our word comes from the Old English word lad (way) combined with star. A lodestar was first used because it was used in navigation — thus, showing the way. The other shades of meaning all came from the original meaning.
I haven’t made an entry for a few days; I had computer problems; I thought at first a hard drive had crashed, but now I’m not sure. In any event, the computer was unavailable.
Pronounced: LOAD-star, noun
Notes: I’ve heard this word, but realized I could not define it very accurately
The word grabble means “to feel and search for something with the hands; to grope; to scramble”
This word came into English in the late 1500s
I thought our word was much newer than it actually is. It sounds a lot like “grapple” unless one is careful to distinguish between the “b” and “p” sounds, and in a quieter voice, they can be very hard to tell apart. Our word is just the verb grab with -le added – according to one source, the -le ending adds “a frequentative force” to the verb: that phrase is just a fancy one to mean that is repeats. The word grab comes from the Middle Dutch word grabben; the Dutch also have a “frequentative” word grabbelen.
Pronounced: GRAB-uhl, verb
Notes: I was rather fuzzy on the definition of this word
The word adolesce means “to reach of pass through adolescence”
In what was a surprise to me, this word goes back to the mid-1800s
Our word, a verb, is a back-formation from the noun adolescent. It comes from the Latin word adolescere (to grow up), which came from alere (to feed). I thought that this would be a word from the 1900s instead of the 1800s.
Pronounced: ad-uh-LESS, verb
Notes: You may be able to guess the meaning, but I didn’t know this word
The word adret means “the side of a mountain that receives direct sunlight”
The word came into English in the 1930s
I don’t do much mountain climbing (okay, none at all), so that may be why I haven’t heard this word. It seems kind of a technical word. The word came from French, which came from the Provençal word adreit, which came from old Provençal word adreg/adret (good; suitable – as in the side of the mountain suitable for vineyards).
Pronounced: ah-DRAY, noun
Notes: I didn’t know this word
The word allocute means “to make a formal speech, especially by a defendant after being found guilty and before being sentenced in a court”
This word came into English in the mid-1800s
Our word came from allocution (a formal speech), which comes from the Latin word allocution, which came from loqui (to speak).
Pronounced: AH-luh-cute, verb
Notes: Another word I don’t know
The word verbicide is “the willful and intentional distortion of the original meaning of a word”
Our word came into English in the mid-1800s
Our word comes from verb plus -icide (to kill). The word verb is from the Latin word verbum (verb).
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