Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day
Words that I do not know
Pronounced: pah-lee-AH-nuh-muhs, adj
Notes: I didn’t know this word, but my guess was correct (that’s rare!)
The word lithophone is “any of various musical instruments in which sound is produced by striking pieces of stone”
Our word came into English in the late 1800s
You probably got the meaning right if you parsed the word into its Greek roots: litho- (stone) and -phone (sound). I really didn’t know that stones could make music.
Pronounced: LITH-uh-phone, noun
Notes: If you guess at the meaning, you may be right
The word extremophile is “an organism that lives under extreme environmental conditions (such as in a hot spring or ice cap)”
Our word came into English in the 1980s
If you parsed the word, you would see extreme and -phile (lover), and you would be correct. You would then guess that our word means loving extremes, which is pretty close to the correct meaning. However, our word is not a lover of extreme sports; it is used for microbes that living in extreme places, such as those that are highly toxic or radioactive or (as noted above) very hot or very cold.
Pronounced: ik-STREE-muh-file (alt: ik-STREE-muh-fie-uhl), noun
Notes: You may be able to guess the meaning
The word Niagara is “an outpouring; a deluge”
Our word came into English around 1800
As you may guess, our word comes from the Niagara river, not the Niagara Falls (the Niagara river forms the Niagara Falls).
Pronounced: ny-AG-ruh (alt: ny-AG-uhr-uh), noun
Notes: I was close on the meaning
The word lèse-majesté is
Our word came into English in the mid- to late 1400s
Our word is also spelled “lese majesty”; it came from Middle French, which came from the Latin phrase laesa majestas (injured majesty). The word can refer to anything from a small breach of etiquette to treason. Our word has acquired an ironic meaning, referring to an insult or impudence to a particularly pompous or self-important person.
Pronounced: laze-MA-juh-stee, noun
Notes: I think I’ve run across this word in reading, but I don’t know the meaning
The word Rubicon is “a point of no return, one where an action taken commits a person irrevocably”
Our word came into English in the early 1600s
As I noted yesterday, if you are good at Roman history, you may know about the connection between Julius Caesar and the Rubicon river: it was this river he crossed in 49 BC, exclaiming “lacta alea est” (the die is cast). His action was effectively a declaration of war with Rome. I am familiar with the phrase “crossing the Rubicon”, but I did not know that Rubicon was a word in its own right.
Pronounced: ROO-bih-kon, noun
Notes: If you are good at history, you may know the meaning of this word
The word zeugma is “the use of a word to modify or govern two or more words in such a way that it applies to each in a different sense”
Our word came into English in the early 1500s
An example of zeugma may be useful: “On his fishing trip, he caught three salmon and a cold” — “caught” is a zeugma, as it applies to both the salmon and the cold, but there is a different sense for each. Our word came from the Greek word zeugma (a yoking; a bond; a joining). Have you heard of zeugmatography? That was the name chosen by chemistry professor Paul Lauterbur for a technique he developed to produce images of internal organs. He was awarded a Nobel prize, but the name of his technique didn’t stick: today we call it MRI (magnetic resonance imaging).
Pronounced: ZUG-muh, noun
Notes: An interesting tie-in with a Nobel Prize winner
The word Klondike is “a rice source of something valuable”
Our word came into English in the late 1800s
I knew of the Klondike gold rush, but didn’t know our word meant anything else. Our word came from the Klondike region, which was named after the Klondike River (the Klondike is in the Yukon Territory of Canada).
Pronounced: KLAN-dike, noun
Notes: While I know about the Klondike region, there is another meaning that I didn’t know
The word clerisy is “the artistic, social, or political vanguard or elite; intelligentsia”
Our word came into English in the early 1800s
Our word was coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. From my reference information, he believed that is humanity was to flourish, it was necessary to create a secular organization of learned individuals – poets, philosophers, scholars, etc – to spread indispensable knowledge throughout the community. He called this group the clerisy, which came from the German word Klerisei (clergy). Note that in old times, the word “clergy” meant “learning” or “knowledge”.
Pronounced: KLER-uh-see, noun
Notes: This word makes me think of a disease (but it isn’t!)
The word Yarra-banker is
Our word came into English in the late 1800s
The Yarra is a river in Victoria, Australia. The bank of that river was a hangout for vagrants, soapbox orators, and similar folk. I am not very familiar with Australia; I didn’t even know that Yarra is a river in that country. People that know more about Australia may have had an idea of the meaning.
Pronounced: YAHR-uh-bank-uhr, noun
Notes: Certain people may know this word (I didn’t)
The word nabob is
Our word came into English in the mid-1600s
As you might have guessed, the first definition above was the original meaning, which came from the Urdu title nawab for the provincial governor. In the early 1600s, it was reported in English that, in Mogul, the equivalent of an earl was called a Nawbob; this spelling was changed to nabob, but it wasn’t until the late 1700s that it gained the idea of a prominent person — as it was used sarcastically to refer to British officials of the East India Company who returned home with great wealth.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day