Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day
Words that I do not know
Pronounced: gad-ZOO-kuh-ree, noun
Notes: I’ve not run across this word
The word yerk means, as a verb, “to rise, stir, strike, whip, pull, kick… and so on”. As a noun it means “a sudden movement, kick, jerk, stab, etc”
Our word came into English in the early 1400s
Well, not much to say here… the origin of our word is uncertain.
Pronounced: yuhrk, verb/noun
Notes: I don’t think I’ve run across this word
The word hackle means
Our word came into English in the first half of the 1400s
Like you, I was aware of the phrase “raise one’s hackles”, said of people. This usage is figurative; a person does not raise the hairs on the back of his head. When the word first came into English, it referred to a bird’s neck plumage. On male birds, the neck feathers can stand up when the bird is defensive, and our word also was used to refer to an instrument that was used to comb our long fibers of flax, hemp, or jute. The instrument definition is no longer in use; however, in the 1800s the word was used to refer to dogs (and people). With all of that, I have not heard of the word in the second sense; that is, to mean temper or dander. Our word comes from the late Middle English word hakel/hakele/hakle (animal’s skin; bird’s plumage).
Pronounced: HAH-kuhl, noun
Notes: I knew one definition (you probably do, too), but one was not known to me
The word bacchant means “a boisterous reveler”
Our word came into English in the very late 1600
Even though it was the third pronunciation, it is how I would pronounce this word (BACK-uhnt). Our word comes from Roman mythology; specifically, from Bacchus, the god of wine in Roman mythology (the Greek equivalent is Dionysus).
Pronounced: buh-KANT (alt-1: buh-KAHNT; alt-2: BAK-uhnt)
Notes: I didn’t quite define this word properly, but I was a bit close
The word picaresque means “of or relating to rogues, rascals, or roguish protagonists”
Our word came into English in the early 1800s
Our word comes from the Spanish word picaresco (of or relating to a picaro). The word picaro means “rogue” or “bohemian”. Our word generally describes a novel in which a person of low standing has a series of adventures among people of higher classes, using his wits (and some dishonesty) to get by. The first picaresque novel is considered to be Lazarillo de Tormes, written around 1554 by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza.
Pronounced: pih-kuh-RESK, adj
Notes: A neat word, unknown to me
The word autolycan means “characterized by thievery or trickery”
Our word came into English in the late 1800s
The reason I said that I was surprised that I didn’t know our word was that while in school, I was very interested in Greek mythology and read a lot of it. Our word comes from a character from Greek mythology (Autolycus), who was the son of Hermes and Chione. He was skilled in theft and trickery, probably because he had the ability to make himself or things he touched invisible.
Pronounced: ah-TAHL-uh-kuhn, adj
Notes: I’m a little surprised that this word was new to me
The word misbegotten means
Our word came into English in the mid-1500s
The only definition I knew was the third one; I have a faint memory of hearing it used in some old-time radio show; one character used used the word to describe things he didn’t think like (Whose misbegotten idea was this!?!?). After seeing the definitions, I realized that I should have been able to work out the first definition: after all, one of the most famous verses in the Bible is John 3:16 (For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son…) contains the root word ‘begotten’ and I recognized the prefix mis- (wrong; bad; not). These two together should have given me the first definition. The second definition is clearly a generalization of the first definition… and, of course, the third is broader still.
Pronounced: miss-bih-GAH-tuhn, adj
Notes: I knew one of the definitions, but not all of them
The word welter, as a noun, means
As a verb, it means
Our word came into English in the very early 1400s
Our word came from the Middle Dutch word welteren; possibly from the Middle Low German word weltern (to roll). I’m not sure why this word isn’t used more, but I don’t remember coming across us anywhere.
Pronounced: WELL-tuhr, noun/verb
Notes: I was thinking of “welt” (and that was incorrect)
The word bumbershoot means “umbrella” (as you may know)
Our word came into English in the very late 1800s
When I saw this word, the UK came to mind; possibly because they have several nicknames for umbrellas, possibly because it rains a lot there. But I also thought of the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but I didn’t know why. After some additional thought, it came to me that perhaps our word was used in the song “Me Ol’ Bamboo”. I looked up the song, and our word is indeed used: …you can have me hat or me bumbershoot, but ye better never bother with me ol’ bamboo! Getting back to nicknames, there is “brolly” (which I knew), and “gamp” (which I didn’t know; it comes from the Charles Dickens’s novel Martin Chuzzlewit, in which the character Sarah Gamp carried an oversized umbrella), and there is our word, which I was pretty sure was another nickname for umbrella. I included it because I enjoyed the background of our word: it is thought to be a combination of bumber- (thought to be a humorous corruption of the first part of umbrella [umber]) combined with -shoot (altered from “chute” – the umbrella looks like a tiny parachute).
Pronounced: BUM-ber-shoot, noun
Notes: I knew this word, but it has an interesting background. Do you know the word?
The word megrim can mean
Our word is quite old; coming into English in the mid-1400s
Our word is another one that was created in error; when we took the word into English from the French word migraine, the “in” was mistakenly thought to be the letter “m” — and thus the word was thought to be ‘megrame’, which was Anglicized as megrim. The word migraine came from the Latin word hemicrania (a pain in one side of the head), which came from the Greek words hemi- (half) and kranion (skull).
Pronounced: ME-grim, noun
Notes: Not a word I’ve heard
The word Argus is a
I could not find information about when this word came into English
As I noted yesterday, our word was a marginal case. I was aware of the Argus from Greek mythology, but I wasn’t very clear about the other definition. I think I’ve read the word with that meaning somewhere – perhaps in one of Dorothy Sayers’s books. According to the story in Greek mythology, after the death of Argos, his eyes were placed on the tail of the peacock.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day