Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day
Words that I do not know
Pronounced: jack-tuh-TAY-shun, noun
Notes: I don’t think I’ve run across this word
The word leechdom is “a remedy or medicine”
Our word came into English around 900
Our word has nothing to do with leeches – the origin of that word is different. Our word came from the Old English word laecedom (medicine; healing) which came from laece (physician).
Pronounced: LEECH-duhm, noun
Notes: Not at all what I thought it was
The word biophilia is “a hypothetical human tendency to interact or be closely associated with other forms of life in nature”
Our word came into English in the 1960s (but see comments below)
Our word was coined by Erich Fromm who has a psychoanalyst; it came from the New Latin words bio- (life) and -philia (a friendly feeling toward). He used it to mean the biological drive toward self-preservation. It was in the 1970s that Edward O Wilson, an American biologist, modified the meaning of our word to “the rich, natural pleasure that comes from being surrounded by living organisms”.
Pronounced: by-oh-FIH-lee-uh, noun
Notes: This word is new to me
The word lissom (or lissome) means “agile; graceful”
Our word came into English around 1800
Our word is simply an altered spelling of “lithesome”, which came from the Old English word lithe (flexible; mild) combined with -some (having the quality of). I was in the neighborhood of the meaning — I thought it implied youth as well… but perhaps only youth are considered capable of being agile.
Pronounced: LISS-uhm, adj
Notes: Also spelled “lissome” – kind of knew this word, but chose to include it
The word samara is “a dry indehiscent usually one-seeded winged fruit” (such as the fruit of a maple, ash, or elm tree).
Our word came into English in the late 1500s
When I saw the definition, I thought “What does indehiscent mean?” Although I was tempted to give this word its own entry, I didn’t. So, when I looked it up, the entry said “not dehiscent” — not very helpful. A little more research found that it refers to a fruit that does not open at maturity. I think we called the fruit of the maple tree “helicopter seeds”, after the helicopter-like rotation as they fall from the tree. Some say that a samara looks like a key, so they are also called “keys”. Other terms are “whirlybird” (I think I’ve heard this one), “whirligig” (not sure about this), and “spinning jenny” (I’ve not heard this word for a samara). Our word came from Latin, where it means “seed of the elm”.
Pronounced: sah-MAH-ruh, noun
Notes: Not only did I not know our word, I didn’t know a word in the definition
The word os is
The first definition came into English in the mid-1800s; the second definition came into English in the early 1400s
The first definition came from the Latin word os (mouth). The second definition came from the Latin word ōs (bone).
Pronounced: aws
Notes: An interesting word, but I didn’t know it
The word swivet is “a state of extreme agitation”
Our word came into English in the late 1800s
I have not run across our word, but I have (and probably you have, too) heard other words that fit the phrase “he got into a swivet about X” – I can think of “sweat”, “lather”, “tether”, and “tizzy”, and I’m sure there are other. The origin of our word is unknown.
Pronounced: SWIH-vuht, noun
Notes: A new word to me
The word intractable means “not easily handled, managed, or controlled”
Our word came into English in the mid-1500s
I thought that this word meant something like “stubborn”. Our word came from the Latin word tractare (to handle), which came from trahere (draw).
Pronounced: in-TRAK-tuh-bull, adj
Notes: I’ve read this word enough that I recognize it, but my understanding was off a bit
The word winkle means
Our word came into English in the late 1910s or early 1920s
I have run across our word in the Peter Wimsey stories by Dorothy Sayers (but I cannot recall the exact story or stories). From the context, I was pretty close to the second definition above. Our word is a shortening of periwinkle, which is a marine or freshwater snail (and it is a not a simple task to exact one from its shell). The word periwinkle came from the Latin word pina (the name of a mussel) and the Old English word wincle (a snail shell). During World War I, the Allies found that removing enemies from the trenches was as hard as extracting a well-entrenched snail. They began to use our word to describe their efforts – later, it expanded in a figurative sense, such as “winkling information out of someone”.
Pronounced: WING-kuhl, verb
Notes: This word is more common in the UK; it was a borderline case for me
The word opisthograph is “a text written on both front and back” (can refer to paper, stone, parchment, etc).
Our word came into English in the early 1600s
The Word-of-the-Day calendars (one of my reference material) is an opisthograph, with one side having the word, its pronunciation, and meaning, and the other side having interesting information about the word or its background. Cartoon calendars tend to NOT be opisthographs because they are blank on one side (and thus they make nice scratch paper for me). As you probably did, I recognized the word “graph” in our word and suspected that it had something to do with writing. In fact, our word came from the Greek words opistho- (back) and -graph (writing).
Pronounced: o-PISS-thuh-graf, noun
Notes: I didn’t know this word, but I really like it and hope I get to use it soon!
The word raffish means
Our word came into English in either the very late 1700s or very early 1800s
Originally, the reference material for our word included the synonym “rakish” for the second definition, but after doing additional research, I believe that to have been a mistake – possible a printing error; it would fit with the first definition, but not the second. I guessed that our word came from “rakish”; possibly from someone who could not pronounce the ‘k’ sound very well. My guess was wrong: our word came from the word raff, which is a shortening of riffraff (a group of people regarded as disreputable or worthless), which came from the Middle English rif and raf (every particle; things of small value), which came from the Old French expression rif et raf, which came from rifler (to spoil).
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day