Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day
Words that I do not know
Pronounced: SHA-tuh-land, noun
Notes: I have heard this word and had a vague idea of the meaning, but there was a meaning I didn’t know
The word zoonosis is “any disease that can be transmitted from animals to humans”
Our word came into English in the late mid-1800s
I am pretty sure I’ve heard this word when discussing diseases, but I didn’t recall it. Our word came from the Greeks words zoo- (animal) and nosos (disease).
Pronounced: zoh-AHN-uh-sis (alt: zoh-uh-NOH-sis)
Notes: I’ve probably heard this word; I just don’t remember hearing it
The word syllepsis means “the use of a word in the same grammatical relation to two different adjacent words in the context with one literal and the other metaphorical in sense”
Our word came into English in the late 1500s
Here is an example of a syllepsis taken from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens: he wrote that one of his characters “went straight home, in a flood of tears and a sedan chair”. When I read that, it sounded a lot like a recent entry. It does seem to me to be similar to zeugma, which I did last month. However, the search revealed that I also used zeugma as my word eight months earlier (oops; my apologies, gentle reader). From my research, a syllepsis can refer to such cases in which there is a problem with verb/subject agreement. In the syllepsis “She exercises to keep healthy and I to lose weight.”, the word “exercises” agrees with “she” but does not agree with “I”. Our word came from the Greek word syllēpsis, which came from syllambanien (to gather together).
Pronounced: suh-LEP-suhs
Notes: I have posted a similar word before
The word topsy is “something growing without intention or direction”
Our word came into English in the late 1800s
Quite a coincidence: I’m sure I’ve never run across our word, but the day after I wrote the entry for it, I was reading something and ran across our word. Any,way our word came from a character in a book: specifically, Topsy, a young slave girl in the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin (by Harriet Beecher Stowe). I’ve never read that book — if you have, you might have known our word (or at least the character). She had a cute reply when she was asked who made her, and it became popular and thus became a word in English for unplanned growth.
Pronounced: TOP-see
Notes: I’ve never run across this word (but see tomorrow’s comments), but if you are sufficiently well-read, you may know it
The word veridical means
Our word came into English in the mid-1600s
As I noted yesterday, I saw the “ver” and thought “green”, and then I saw the similarity to “vertical” and thought it may be related. Our word came from the Latin word veridicus, which is made up of verus (true) and dicere (to say). The second meaning above tends to be limited to the philosophical and psychological fields.
Pronounced: vuh-RIH-dih-kuhl, adj
Notes: It looked to me like it should have something to do with greenness or related to vertical (both of these are wrong)
The word fig, as a verb, means “to dress up”. As a noun, it means
The verb, and the first noun definition came into English in the mid-1800s. The other definition are earlier, coming into English in the early 1200s.
I had no idea that our word could refer to clothing. I certainly knew about the tree/fruit called a fig — I once lived at a place that had a fig tree in the back yard. Although it didn’t come to mind, I did know that it could refer to something of little value, as in “I don’t give a fig for your opinions”. The gesture of contempt was new to me as well. It’s not clear why the fig was considered so valueless as to be used for such a gesture, or the little worth of something. In any event, the last three meanings above came from the Old French word fige, which came from Provencal word figa, which came from the Latin word fica (fig; ficus).
Pronounced: (well, really! – as it sounds), noun/verb
Notes: I know some of the definitions; some were unknown to me
The word mantic means “of or relating to the faculty of divination; prophetic”
Our word came into English in the late 1500s
As I noted yesterday, when I saw our word, I thought of “manic” and so a completely wrong idea. Our word came from the Greek word mantikos, which came from mantis (prophet). The insect called “praying mantis” comes from the same source, as people thought it looked like a prophet praying. There is a related suffix “-mancy”, which means divination by <prefix word>. Thus, “tasseomancy” is divination by reading tea leaves – there are many other types of divination that end in “-mancy”.
Pronounced: MAN-tick, adj
Notes: I confused this word with another word
The word birch, as a noun means
As a verb, it means
Our word came into English around 700
As I noted, I know about birch trees, but I did not know that birch could be a verb. It came from the Old English word berc or beorc.
Pronounced: buhrch, noun/verb
Notes: I know the noun, but the verb was new to me
The word primogeniture is
Our word came into English in the early 1600s
I could guess the first meaning by parsing our word. It came from the Late Latin word primogenitura, which is a combination of the Latin word primus (first) and genitura (birth); the latter came from past participle of gignere (to beget). I could see “first” in “primo” and the second part looked like a word for “birth”. As I mentioned yesterday, there is a related word – “ultimogeniture”. It came into English around 250 years after our word, and refers to the last one born (the ultimate one). It is rather uncommon, but it is rather satisfying that our word has a counterpart.
Pronounced: pry-moh-JEH-nuh-chur, noun
Notes: I kind of knew this word; it’s related to a word I’ve never heard of
The word palmary means “of supreme importance; outstanding; praiseworthy”
Our word came into English in the mid-1600s
Our word came from the Latin word palmarius (deserving or carrying the palm), which comes from palma (palm) – in ancient times, the branches of the palm tree were carried as symbols of victory in ancient times.
Pronounced: PAL-muh-ree, adj
Notes: Not at all what I thought this word meant
The word jabberwocky is “meaningless speech or writing”
Our word came into English in the 1900s (first decade of the 1900s)
Like me, you probably know the poem “Jabberwocky” in Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (published in 1872). The poem caught the imagination of the public, and our word shortly became a generic term for meaningless speech.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day