Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day
Words that I do not know
Pronounced: BEE-buh-low, noun
Notes: My guesses were of the meaning were wide of the mark
An arroyo is “a narrow, steep-sided watercourse, usually dry except after rain”
Our word came into English in the mid-1800s
Our word came from the Spanish word arroyo, which came from the Latin word arrugia (mine shaft). I don’t know for sure, but I think I remember reading this word in a Three Investigators mystery story.
Pronounced: uh-ROY-oh, noun
Notes: I’ve run across this word in some reading, but I was not sure of the meaning
The word esplanade is “a level open stretch of paved or grassy ground — especially one designed for walking or driving along a shore”
Our word came into English in the late 1500s
Our word came from the Middle French word esplanade, which came from the Italian word spianata (a level stretch of ground), which came from the verb spinianare (to make level), which came from the Latin word explanare (to make level). [Incidentally, this Latin word is the source for “explain”.] Our word these days refers to a place of enjoyment, but in the 1600s, our word was associated with war.
Pronounced: ES-pluh-nod, noun
Notes: I wasn’t sure of the meaning, and I didn’t know how to pronounce this word
The word pungle means “to make a payment; to shell out”
Our word came into English in the mid-1800s
Our word came from non-Spanish people pronouncing the Spanish word póngale (put it down): The proper pronunciation is PONE-gah-lay, but if one didn’t know that, one could assume that the word is pronounced PUHN-gull. Then another English-speaking person heard the wrong pronunciation and wrote it down as our word. The word póngale came from the Spanish word ponere (to put), which came from the Latin word ponere (to put).
Pronounced: PUNG-uhl
Notes: Another word I have no recollection of running across
The word chatoyant means “having a changeable luster or color with an undulating narrow band of white light”
Our word came into English in the late 1700s
You may recognize the first four letters of our word (“chat”) – that is the French word for “cat”. Our word in French is the present participle of chatoyer (to shine like a cat’s eyes). It is the name of the effect in what is commonly called a “cat’s eye gem”.
Pronounced: shuh-TOI-unt, adj
Notes: Interesting word; you may recognize part of it
The word camarilla is “a group of confidential scheming advisors”
Our word came into English in the mid-1800s
If you didn’t guess, our word came from the Spanish; it is a diminutive of cámara (chamber), which came from the Latin word camera (room), which came from the Greek word kamara (an object with an arched cover).
Pronounced: kam-uh-RIL-uh (alt: kah-mah-REE-yah), noun
Notes: This word rings absolutely no bells in my memory
The word bemuse means
Our word came into English around 1700
I like the third definition above — especially the phrase “wry or tolerant amusement”.The first definition above is also interesting: it stems from a misunderstanding about something written by by Alexander Pope. He wrote Poets… irrecoverably Bemus’d and also used the phrase a parson much bemus’d in beer. In both cases, he meant to be inspired by or devoted to one of the Muses (the Greek sister goddesses of art, music, and literature). He likewise meant that the parson was inspired by beer, but authors of dictionaries thought he meant confused by beer, and thus the first definition came about.
Pronounced: bih-MYOOZ, verb
Notes: This word has some different meanings; I’m not sure I knew all of them
The word votary means, as an adjective, “bound by a vow or relating to a vow”. As a noun, it means
Our word came into English in the mid-1500s
Our word came from the Latin noun votum (vow), which came from the verb vovere (to vow). I said yesterday that our word’s meaning has nothing to do with “vote”, but we do get our word vote from the aforementioned Latin verb.
Pronounced: VOH-tuh-ree, noun/adj
Notes: Nothing to do with voting (which is what I thought)
The word clerihew is “a light verse quatrain rhyming a-a-b-b and usually dealing with a person named in the initial line”
Our word came into English in the 1920s
I don’t have any memory of having run across any clerihews. Our word came from a book called Biography for Beginners by E Clerihew (whose real name was Edmund Clerihew Bentley). The book was a collection of humorous four-line verses about famous people, that he claimed he started as a bored high school student. The readers of the book began to call such verses clerihews, and it stuck. Here’s one from his book: Sir Humphrey Davy / Abominated gray. / He lived in the odium / Of having discovered Sodium.
Pronounced: KLER-ih-hyoo, noun
Notes: I have not heard of our word
The word plutarchy means
Our word came into English in the mid-1600s
I thought our word was related to Pluto, from Roman mythology, but that is wrong. I’ve never considered our word to be related to “Plutarch” (a Greek biographer); if you do, that is also wrong. Our word comes from Greek mythology – “Plutus” (more literally “Ploutos”), who was the god of riches. Our word is a combination of pluto- (wealth) and -archos (ruler).
Pronounced: PLOO-tar-kee, noun
Notes: You may know this word; it was somewhat familiar to me, but I was incorrect as to the origin
The phrase tu quoque is “a retort charging an adversary with being or doing what he criticizes in others”
Our phrase came into English in the early 1600s
One of the childish arguments is “You too!” and that is what the Latin phrase tu quoque literally means. Using our phrase sounds much more high-class instead of childish. A tu quoque, for all that it sounds erudite, is really evading the accusation instead of answering the point (or points) raised. Note that our word, thought it is a noun, can function as an adjective, such as in the phrase “a tu quoque argument”.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day