unusual_words

Whats the word for this...

ronsrants wrote in unusual_words Aug 15, 2007 21:34

We have a word that describes the concept of being, existing, and living. We call that word: alive

We have a word that describes what happens to something after it is no longer alive. That word is deadHowever, is there a word to describe the concept of not being alive yet? I'm not talking about prenatal, because while that might apply, I would ( Read more... )

Invitation

forthright wrote in unusual_words Aug 06, 2007 14:19

Hi! I want to invite all language-lovers to participate in my ongoing series of weekly English pronunciation polls. Every Monday (more or less) I post a new LJ poll on an English word with variable pronunciation, and on the following Sunday I analyze the results in a short essay (500-1000 words). The polls, and the results, are posted to my ( Read more... )

preponderate

acidosaur wrote in unusual_words Jul 11, 2007 12:45

preponderate \prih-PON-duh-rayt\, intransitive verb:

1. To exceed in weight.
2. To incline or descend, as the scale of a balance; to be weighed down.
3. To exceed in influence, power, importance, number, amount, etc.

It's about the random acts of kindness which still, magically, preponderate over acts of incivility or nastiness.
-- John Diamond, " ( Read more... )

Smouch

mhw wrote in unusual_words Jun 29, 2007 17:33

(Obs./cant) Dried leaves of the ash tree, used by smugglers for adulterating the black, or bohea, teas.

[Francis Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1785]

smouch

Veridicality

malkhos wrote in unusual_words Jun 18, 2007 23:10

Veracity is no longer sufficient. Tonight we read 'veridicality."

"Ibn Fa−dlan’s cultural chauvinism does not, however, in my
opinion, necessitate a total rejection of his veridicality."

Montgomery, James E., “Ibn Fadlān and the Rūsiyyah,” Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 3 (2000): 1-25, at p. 3. Leave a comment 4

Atrabilious

petrusplancius wrote in unusual_words Jun 18, 2007 14:11

Another term for 'melancholic', derived from atra bilis, the Latin term for black bile, as opposed to the Greek melaina chole. Athough 'atrabilious' is thus exactly equivalent to 'melancholic' in etymological terms, it has an curiously different feel. One thinks of an atrabilious person as being peevish and splenetic, whilst one pictures a ( Read more... )

atrabilious

Fascicle

mothrinventor wrote in unusual_words Jun 18, 2007 07:31

A fascicle is a bundle or a cluster.

Fascicle may also refer to:

* Muscle fascicle, in anatomy, a bundle of skeletal muscle fibers surrounded by connective tissue
* Nerve fascicle, in anatomy, a larger bundle of fibers enclosed by the perineurium
* a bundle of thin leaves of pines

(from wikipedia)

fascicle

Demonym

mhw wrote in unusual_words Jun 16, 2007 21:44

A demonym or gentilic is a word that denotes the members of a people or the inhabitants of a place. In English, the name of a people's language is often the same as this word, e.g., the "French" (language or people).

[Excerpted from the Wikipedia article Demonym]

demonym, gentilic

Bokeh

mhw wrote in unusual_words Jun 16, 2007 12:41

Bokeh (from the Japanese boke ぼけ, "blur") is a photographic term referring to out-of-focus areas in an image produced by a camera lens. The aesthetic qualities of the bokehs produced by various lenses are open to dispute, but it is generally conceded that an out-of-focus background image can at the very least reduce distractions and emphasize the ( Read more... )

bokeh

palimpsest

emperor wrote in unusual_words Jun 14, 2007 14:05

This is both a noun and an adjective, and I came across it in a discussion of extracting over-written data from hard-disks. It's a very pretty word, in my opinion!

[< classical Latin palimpsestus paper or parchment which has been written on again < Hellenistic Greek παλιμψηστοσ scraped again, also παλιμψηστον a parchment from which writing has ( Read more... )

palimpsest