Some more loanwords

[greennotebook]

arriviste - "a person who has recently gained social or financial status or is ambitious to do so" (French)
au courant - "up to date and well-informed" (French)
catafalque - " a decorated wooden framework to support a coffin". (Italian)
Erse - Scots or Irish Gaelic (Scots Gaelic)
gasconading - boasting (M-W) (French)
habitué - resident of, or

Comments

[prettygoodword]

Is a catafalque specifically wooden? I've seen the stone pediments for tombs called that.

---L.

[ikonsbykate]

I looked through a few other dictionaries, and only Ask Oxford seems to insist that it's wooden. It may be that it's come to mean any form of support for a coffin.

[gooofy]

Bartleby says Schnorchel is dialectal German for "nose." Maybe it's related to "snort."

[greennotebook]

omg, that's hilarious!

[gooofy]

and the Oxford etymological dictionary says it's related to the German schnarchen, to snore.

[ikonsbykate]

I think we can guess at a link to the Yiddish schnorrer (a word which much puzzled my mum when it cropped up in a Marx Bros movie.)

[greennotebook]

In this household "mess" is perhaps best rendered as "something stuck to the kitchen counter".

[gooofy]

Why are they called loanwords? Do we have to give them back?