A.Word.A.Day Archives from https://wordsmith.org/awad -------- Date: Fri Oct 1 00:01:25 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--bimillenary X-Bonus: When the effective leader is finished with his work, the people say it happened naturally. -Lao-Tzu, Chinese philosopher (6th century BCE) bimillenary (bye-MIL-uh-ner-ee) noun (also bimillenium) 1. A span of 2,000 years. 2. A 2,000th anniversary. [Bi- two + Latin millenarius, from milleni, a thousand each, from mille, thousand.] "Anyone who has been to Washington, D.C. recently knows what a metropolis that capital city is, yet only 200 years ago, farms, berry fields and orchards were all which could be found where government offices, museums, parks and oodles of traffic exist today. Can you imagine what Washington will be like when the hustle-bustle busy city celebrates its bimillenary anniversary?" Zonay, Jeanne Huddleston, "Americana" is a popular topical theme, Stamps, 4 Feb 95. This week's theme: words about numbers. -------- Date: Sat Oct 2 00:01:35 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--googolplex X-Bonus: True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it be lost. -Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832) googolplex (GOO-gol-pleks) noun The number 10 raised to the power googol, written out as the numeral 1 followed by 10 raised to 100 zeros. [Googol + -plex as in duplex.] "In North Jersey, where the reservoirs are at 99.2 percent capacity and puddles have taken on a look of permanence, a googolplex of baby mosquitoes is being incubated." Rod Allee, Mosquitoes Should Go Way of the Dinosaur, The Record (Bergen County, NJ), 19 Jun 1996. This week's theme: words about numbers. -------- Date: Sun Oct 3 00:01:37 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--quinquagenarian X-Bonus: You cannot be lonely if you like the person you're alone with. -Wayne Dyer quinquagenarian (kwing-kwuh-juh-NAR-ee-uhn) noun A person 50 years old, or in his or her fifties. adjective Of or characteristic of a person in his or her fifties. [From Latin quinquagenarius, containing fifty, from quinquageni, fifty each, from quinquaginta, fifty.] "The quinquagenarian performer is also now talking about making his recent Madison Square Garden birthday event, benefiting Save The Children, into an annual affair." Marilyn Beck, Rock Icon David Bowie Enjoys Return to Spotlight, Denver Rocky Mountain News, 11 Feb 1997. This week's theme: words about numbers. -------- Date: Mon Oct 4 02:25:37 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--testaceous X-Bonus: No really great man ever thought himself so. -William Hazlitt, essayist (1778-1830) testaceous (teh-STAY-shuhs) adjective 1. Having a hard shell or shell-like outer covering. Composed of a shell or shell-like material. 2. Having the reddish-brown or brownish-yellow hue of bricks. [From Latin testaceus, from testa, shell.] "I am informed by Mr. F. Smith that the male ants of several species are black, the females being testaceous." Darwin, Charles, Descent Of Man, The: Chapter 10.2, History of the World, 1 Jan 1992. Since AWAD reaches almost all parts of the globe, you may be reading this on a torrid summer or gentle spring day. Perhaps you are forced indoors by a drenching monsoon or a frigid snowstorm. But in this part of the world we are celebrating autumn, the festival of colors. As the falling leaves form a feast for the eyes, it is a perfect week to talk about colors. Let's consider some unusual words to describe oranges and browns, grays and blues, and almost all other shades in between. -Anu -------- Date: Tue Oct 5 00:03:44 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--tawny X-Bonus: Any life, no matter how long and complex it may be, is made up of a single moment - the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is. -Jorge Luis Borges, Argentinean writer (1899-1986) tawny (TAW-nee) noun A light brown to brownish orange. [Middle English, from Anglo-Norman taune, variant of Old French tane, from past participle of taner, to tan.] "Millions hit the beach to catch some rays even though doctors have warned that any tanning at all is evidence of skin damage. So we were astounded to find that some of Hollywood's tawny stars totally avoid the sun." Arnold Diaz, Hugh Downs, Who Needs the Sun?, ABC 20/20, 10 Aug 1998. This week's theme: words about colors. -------- Date: Wed Oct 6 00:03:35 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--versicolor X-Bonus: Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for 'tis better to be alone than in bad company. -George Washington (1732-1799) versicolor (VUR-si-kul-uhr) adjective 1. Having a variety of colors; variegated. 2. Changing in color; iridescent. [Latin : versus, past participle of vertere, to turn + color.] "The St. Lucia parrot, with the apt scientific name Amazona versicolor, sports a cobalt blue face, emerald wings and splashes of scarlet across its throat and breast." Blake Edgar, Fighting For A Rare Bird, International Wildlife, 1 Mar 1999. This week's theme: words about colors. -------- Date: Thu Oct 7 00:03:28 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--puce X-Bonus: Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not by rule. Nevertheless one had better know the rules, for they sometimes guide in doubtful cases, though not often. -Samuel Butler (1612-1680) puce (pyoos) noun A deep red to dark grayish purple. [French (couleur) puce, flea (color), puce, from Old French, variant of pulce, flea, from Latin pulex, pulic-.] "Red faces turned puce at Bankers Trust, an American investment bank in a legal battle with Procter & Gamble, a consumer-goods company." Trial and error. Barings Bank's Nick Leeson's extradition, The Economist, 7 Oct 1995. This week's theme: words about colors. -------- Date: Fri Oct 8 00:03:28 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--cerulean X-Bonus: My friends are my estate. -Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886) cerulean (seh-ROO-lee-ahn) adjective Azure; sky-blue. [From Latin caeruleus, dark blue akin to caelum, sky.] "A cerulean sky and cool morning air hung over the neighborhood's old brick buildings." Tamala M. Edwards, American Scene: Harvard vs. the School Of Hard Knocks, Time, 21 Jun 1999. This week's theme: words about colors. -------- Date: Sat Oct 9 00:03:34 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--subfusc X-Bonus: Our enemies come nearer the truth in the opinions they form of us than we do in our opinion of ourselves. -La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) subfusc (sub-FUSK) adjective Of a dark, dull, or somber color. noun Dark, dull clothing. [Latin subfuscus, brownish : sub-, + fuscus, dark.] "Shaw moves around, wearing now a cardigan, now a jacket, now a sleeveless dress, but always something black or subfusc." John Gross, The Arts: Decay comes to life in the East End Theatre, The Sunday Telegraph, 28 Dec 1997. This week's theme: words about colors. -------- Date: Sun Oct 10 00:03:36 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--grizzle X-Bonus: Difficulties increase the nearer we approach our goal. -Goethe (1749-1832) grizzle (GRIZ-uhl) verb tr. To make or become gray. noun 1. The color of a grizzled animal. A grizzled animal. 2. Archaic. Gray hair. adjective 1. Gray. 2. Grizzled. [From Middle English grisel, gray, from Old French, diminutive of gris, gray.] "Picturesque posings; laconic utterance; tacit understanding among friends; and that stock European hero, the grizzle-bearded fellow who is tacitly Very Real." Kauffmann, Stanley, Before the Rain.(movie reviews), The New Republic, 27 Mar 1995. This week's theme: words about colors. -------- Date: Mon Oct 11 00:03:32 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--agnate X-Bonus: Integrity has no need of rules. -Albert Camus (1913-1960) agnate (AG-nayt) adjective 1. Related on or descended from the father's or male side. 2. Coming from a common source; akin. noun A relative on the father's or male side only. [Latin agnatus, past participle of agnasci, to become an agnate : ad-, + nasci, to be born.] "On April 17, 1907 Grand Duke William IV, last agnate of the senior branch of the House of Nassau, father of six princesses but denied a male heir, promulgated a family statute under which his eldest daughter, Princess Marie - Adelaide, was declared heir presumptive to the Crown." Pierre Majerus, Luxembourg: Chapter 2A. Form of Government., Countries of the World, 01-01-1991. While English has one of the most expansive vocabularies among languages, one area where it is easy to notice its impoverishment is in words to describe relations. When you introduce a bright young fellow as your brother-in-law, you don't really tell much. He could be any of the maybe half dozen people in your kinship. On the other hand, many languages have words to describe even the most complicated relation concisely and unambiguously. In the Hindi language, for example, there are distinct words to spell out all possibilities of brothers-in-law, and in some cases, there are separate words depending on whether the bro-in-law is younger or older than the person through whom this relationship takes place. In this week's AWAD let's enrich our verbal clan with some words about relations. -Anu -------- Date: Tue Oct 12 00:03:33 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--enate X-Bonus: Dear God, Did you mean for the giraffe to look like that or was it an accident? -Norma [Children's Letters to God, 1991] enate (i-NAYT, EE-nayt) adjective 1. Growing outward. 2. Also enatic. Related on the mother's side. noun A relative on one's mother's side. [Latin enatus, past participle of enasci, to issue forth : e-, ex-, + nasci, to be born.] "Never was a writer so blessed (or cursed?) with so many interactive relatives. Garner likes to label them as Enates or Agnates; but whether on his mother's side or his father's, these collateral branch members of the family tree were often in contact with Melville and his immediate family, and sometimes on a daily basis." Griffin, Gerald R., The Civil War World of Herman Melville, Studies in American Fiction, 22 Sep 95 This week's theme: words about relations. -------- Date: Wed Oct 13 00:03:42 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--miscegenation X-Bonus: Have no friends not equal to yourself. -Confucius (551-497 BCE) miscegenation (mi-sej-uh-NAY-shuhn, mis-i-juh-) noun 1. A mixture of different races. 2. Cohabitation, sexual relations, or marriage involving persons of different races. [Latin miscere, to mix + genus, race + -ation.] "In some parts of the South, marrying someone of another race --- or miscegenation --- was once forbidden by culture and by law. This month, the Alabama state legislature repealed its 100-year-old ban on interracial marriage, becoming the last state do so." Lyle V. Harris, A comfort zone at arm's length, Blacks And Whites Draw Closer, But Keep Distance, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 20 Jun 1999. "That some bosses may have paid politicians, or helped launder their money, would surprise no one in South Korea. The chaebols are the progeny of miscegenation between business and government that took place in the early 1960s in an effort to force swift economic growth." Those lovely chaebols and their little local difficulty. (South Korean business), The Economist, 11 Nov 1995. This week's theme: words about relations. -------- Date: Thu Oct 14 00:03:38 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--polyphyletic X-Bonus: True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in their worth and choice. -Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784) polyphyletic (pol-ee-fye-LET-ik) adjective Relating to or characterized by development from more than one ancestral type. William Oscar Johnson, Olympics: Who is the Greatest? TIME International, 24 Jun 1996, pp. 50+. "Oh, yes, the species Homo olympianus is a madly mixed breed -- polyphyletic beyond any other on earth." This week's theme: words about relations. -------- Date: Fri Oct 15 00:03:50 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--progenitor X-Bonus: All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer. -Robert Louis Stevenson [Reflections and Remarks on Human Life](1850-1894) progenitor (pro-JEN-i-tuhr) noun 1. A direct ancestor. 2. An originator of a line of descent; a precursor. 3. An originator; a founder. [Middle English progenitour, from Old French progeniteur, from Latin progenitor, from progenitus, past participle of progignere, to beget : pro-, forward. + gignere, gen-, to beget.] "By treason, falsehood and by treachery, Our great progenitors had conquered?" Shakespeare, William, King Henry VI, Part I: Act V, Scene IV. This week's theme: words about relations. -------- Date: Sat Oct 16 00:03:37 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--primogenitor X-Bonus: It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882) primogenitor (pry-moe-JEN-i-tuhr) noun 1. The earliest ancestor. 2. An ancestor or a forefather. [Late Latin primogenitor : Latin primo, at first (from primus, first.) + Latin genitor, begetter, from gignere, genit-, to beget.] "One theory focuses on `Clay World,' where proteins and the building blocks of genes assemble on clay particles. Another posits a `Hot World,' a scenario that places life's primogenitor at the mouth of undersea hot vents, where chemicals that serve as an early energy source are in abundant supply." Shannon Brownlee, A cosmic imperative: Make life, U.S. News & World Report, 19 Aug 1996. This week's theme: words about relations. -------- Date: Sun Oct 17 00:03:36 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--phyletic X-Bonus: To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs. -Aurobindo Ghose, Indian philosopher (1872-1950) phyletic (fi-LET-ik) adjective Of or relating to the evolutionary descent and development of a species or group of organisms; phylogenetic. [From Greek phuletikos, of or for a tribesman, from phuletes, tribesman, from phule, tribe.] "`Nothing,' (Ernst) Mayr concluded, `demonstrates the improbability of the origin of high intelligence better than the millions of phyletic lineages that failed to achieve it.'" Ron Seely, OK, Planets Discovered; What's Next?, Wisconsin State Journal, 25 Feb 1996. This week's theme: words about relations. -------- Date: Mon Oct 18 00:03:30 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--coryphaeus X-Bonus: Absence diminishes commonplace passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and kindles fire. -La Rochefoucauld coryphaeus (kohr-uh-FEE-uhs) noun [plural coryphaei (-FEE-eye)] 1. The leader of a Greek chorus. 2. A leader or spokesperson. [Latin, leader, from Greek koruphaios, from koruphe, head.] "I look into the future to see nothing but disaster; really so much embarrassed that the sale of my library hangs over me like an impending doom and with no coryphaeus of the [r]ed-flag fraternity like Keese to `knock down' my darlings." John Reuben Thompson, Lee to the Rear, The World's Best Poetry on CD(tm), 20 Mar 1995. "I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have was that I didn't study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people." Former US Vice President and former presidential candidate Dan Quayle is purported to have said these immortal words. Fortunately, you don't have to make a trip to Greece to use this week's words from Greek--they are all perfectly usable in the English language. -Anu -------- Date: Tue Oct 19 00:03:26 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--isohyet X-Bonus: Be humble, if thou would'st attain to wisdom. Be humbler still, when wisdom thou hast mastered. -Helena Petrovna Hahn Blavatsky, Russian-born theosophist (1831-1891) isohyet (eye-soh-HIGH-it) noun A line drawn on a map connecting points that receive equal amounts of rainfall. [Iso- + Greek huetos, rain.] "In the 1860s, South Australians had been advised not to farm north of Goyder line, an isohyet that separated arable land from semi desert." Best, Daryl, Australia's Greentime history, History Today, 1 Oct 1997. This week's theme: words from Greek. -------- Date: Wed Oct 20 00:03:26 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--limnology X-Bonus: Let us be of good cheer, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never happen. -James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) limnology (lim-NOL-uh-jee) noun The scientific study of the life and phenomena of fresh water, especially lakes and ponds. [Greek limne, lake + -logy.] "Based on our eagerness to understand the mysteries of such places, we have developed the science of limnology: the study of the origins, natural cycles, and ecology of lakes." Ian Skilling, Sky Water, The World & I, 1 Mar 1999. This week's theme: words from Greek. -------- Date: Thu Oct 21 00:03:32 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--panoply X-Bonus: We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. -Aesop, Greek fabulist panoply (PAN-uh-plee) noun 1. A splendid or striking array. 2. Ceremonial attire with all accessories. 3. Something that covers and protects. 4. The complete arms and armor of a warrior. [Greek panoplia : pan-, + hopla, arms, armor, pl. of hoplon, weapon.] "But getting us out of the global mess we're in will require a panoply of tactics, technology, and innovative partnerships." Robert H. Waterman; Judith A. Waterman; Betsy A. Collard, The Challenge of Going Green, Harvard Business Review, 1 Jul 1994. This week's theme: words from Greek. -------- Date: Fri Oct 22 00:03:37 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--omphalos X-Bonus: He who allows oppression, shares the crime. -Erasmus Darwin, physician, scientist, reformer, and poet; grandfather of Charles Darwin [The Botanic Garden] (1731-1802) omphalos (OM-fuh-los) noun [plural omphali (-lee)] 1. The navel. 2. A central part; a focal point. [Greek.] Baumann, Paul, Saint Joseph, a.k.a. Leopold Bloom; on fatherhood and hopefulness), Commonweal, 16 Dec 1994. "Turning to my overworked, overwrought, and under-Catholicized (read Jewish) wife, I put a hand on her deflated belly, that omphalos of our little world." Seamus Heaney: "I talk about them driving past, but they cannot shake the omphalos, which is the center of belonging for the Irish person." Charles Guenther, Nobel Prize Poet Discusses His Irish Muse, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 14 Oct 1998. This week's theme: words from Greek. -------- Date: Sat Oct 23 00:03:40 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--hamartia X-Bonus: It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882) hamartia (ha-mar-TEE-uh) noun Tragic flaw. [Greek, from hamartanein, to miss the mark, err.] "These minuses are meant to add up to the hamartia, the tragic flaw in Nixon's potentially heroic stature. To me, despite his foreign-policy accomplishments, Nixon always seemed to be a nontragic nonentity, and Kissinger, though clever, something rather worse. Simon, John, Nixon.(movie reviews), National Review, 12 Feb 1996. This week's theme: words from Greek. -------- Date: Sun Oct 24 00:03:29 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--topos X-Bonus: Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts. -Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662) topos (TOH-pohs) noun [plural topoi (-poi)] A traditional theme or motif; a literary convention. [Greek, short for (koinos) topos, (common)place.] "[T]he Israeli-Palestinian conflict has served authors of thrillers as a topos to write about from the vantage point of world-weary observers ...." Hillel Halkin, The Jerusalem Syndrome, The New Republic, 25 May 1998. This week's theme: words from Greek. -------- Date: Mon Oct 25 00:03:29 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--Grand Guignol X-Bonus: There are two perfect men; one dead, and the other unborn. -Chinese proverb Grand Guignol (grahn gee-NYOL) noun Drama that emphasizes the horrifying or the macabre. [After Le Grand Guignol, a theater in Paris.] "Thus Crowbar (1990), which takes place in an old Broadway theatre, is a kind of vaudeville show for ghosts - casualties of history - who compulsively turn their lives and deaths into grand guignol." Savran, David, The world according to Wellman: a political and linguistic outlaw revels in the theatre of excess, American Theatre, 19 Feb 99. With Halloween around the corner almost every town in the US and perhaps in many other parts of the world sports a Haunted Hoochie or two. But those would appear like children's playgrounds compared to Le Theatre du Grand Guignol, the ultimate in horror and the grotesque. This turn-of-the-century Parisian theater was known for its true-to-life, or should I say true-to-death, portrayal of all things ghastly, grisly, and frightful. The theater's expertise in creating gory effects can be judged from the fact that its actors counted their successes by the number of faintings in the audience. The theater eventually died out but its name lives on in dictionaries. During the rest of this week, we'll see other words or phrases derived from the names of landmarks, some of which you may even wish to visit. -Anu -------- Date: Tue Oct 26 00:03:32 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--parnassian X-Bonus: Men in great place are thrice servants: servants of the sovereign or state; servants of fame; and servants of business. -Francis Bacon [Essays Or Counsels - Civil And Moral] (1561-1626) Parnassian (pahr-NAS-ee-uhn) adjective Of or relating to poetry. [From Latin Parnassius, of Parnassus, from Greek parnasios after Parnasos (Parnassus), a mountain in Greece sacred to Apollo and the Muses.] noun A member of a school of late 19th-century French poets whose work is characterized by detachment and emphasis on metrical form. [From French parnassien after Le Parnasse contemporain, the group's first anthology of poetry (1866), from Parnasse, Parnassus, from Latin Parnassus, from Greek Parnasos.] "We do West posthumous justice by acknowledging the plotless freak as cinema's beautiful beginning and by categorizing West not as a sex goddess but as a Parnassian personality whose splendors stop narrative, on which movies continue, to their detriment, to rely." Wayne Koestenbaum, Vamp and Camp; Becoming Mae West By Emily Wortis Leider, Los Angeles Times, 13 Jul 1997. This week's theme: toponyms or words derived from place names. -------- Date: Wed Oct 27 00:03:38 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--bayonet X-Bonus: It is more shameful to distrust one's friends than to be deceived by them. -De la Rochefoucauld, writer (1613-1680) bayonet (BAY-uh-nit, -net, bay-uh-NET) noun A blade adapted to fit the muzzle end of a rifle and used as a weapon in close combat. verb tr. To prod, stab, or kill with this weapon. [French baionnette after Bayonne, a town in southwest France where the weapon was first made. The French word baionnette could mean "a dagger or a knife" as well, and the English word bayonet is first found in 1672 with this meaning. The word is first recorded in its present sense in 1704.] "Although no tactician has taken the bayonet seriously since the Civil War, the Army sees bayonet training as a way of pumping up aggressiveness. On this morning, some of the women seemed tentative as they jabbed at dummies - but no more so than an equal ratio of men, the sergeants said." This Woman's Army With a `No Big Deal' Shrug, Basic Training at Fort Leonard Wood Again Mixes Genders, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 26 Feb 1995. This week's theme: toponyms or words derived from place names. -------- Date: Thu Oct 28 00:03:30 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--dunkirk X-Bonus: There is nothing so disagreeable, that a patient mind cannot find some solace for it. -Lucius Annaeus Seneca, philosopher (BCE 3-65 CE) Dunkirk (DUN-kurk) noun 1. A desperate retreat. 2. A condition in which a desperate last effort is the only alternative to total defeat. [After Dunkirk (also Dunkerque), a city of northern France on the North Sea. In World War II more than 330,000 Allied troops were evacuated from its beaches in the face of enemy fire (May-June 1940).] "Humanity is now facing a sort of slow motion environmental Dunkirk. It remains to be seen whether civilization can avoid the perilous trap it has set for itself. " Ehrlich, Paul R., Ehrlich, Anne H., Brownlash: the new environmental anti-science, The Humanist, 21 Nov 96 This week's theme: toponyms or words derived from place names. -------- Date: Fri Oct 29 00:03:25 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--Grub Street X-Bonus: Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets. -Paul Tournier Grub Street (grub street) noun The world of impoverished writers and literary hacks. [After Grub Street, London, former name of Milton Street, where such writers lived.] "Is a mere commoner of Grub Street expected to do better? Especially when it is from Grub Street that so much of the flood of misuse wells up." Presently, hopefully, if not happily, The Economist, 17 Dec 1994. This week's theme: toponyms or words derived from place names. -------- Date: Sat Oct 30 00:03:41 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--solecism X-Bonus: It is not so much our friends' help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us. -Epicurus, Greek philosopher (341-270 BCE) solecism (SOL-i-siz-ehm, SOA-li-) noun 1. A nonstandard usage or grammatical construction. 2. A violation of etiquette. 3. An impropriety, a mistake, or an incongruity. [Latin soloecismus, from Greek soloikismos, from soloikizein, to speak incorrectly, from soloikos, speaking incorrectly after Soloi (Soli), an Athenian colony in Cilicia where a dialect regarded as substandard was spoken.] "He ought to study grammar amongst the other helps of speaking well, but it must be the grammar of his own tongue, of the language he uses, that he may understand his own country speech nicely, and speak it properly, without shocking the ears of those it is addressed to, with solecisms and offensive irregularities." Locke, John, Some Thoughts Concerning Education: Part X. This week's theme: toponyms or words derived from place names. -------- Date: Sun Oct 31 00:03:29 EDT 1999 Subject: A.Word.A.Day--meander X-Bonus: The quiet and solitary man apprehends the inscrutable. He seeks nothing, holds to the mean, and remains free from entanglements. -I Ching (BCE 1150?) meander (mee-AN-duhr) verb intr. 1. To follow a winding and turning course. 2. To move aimlessly and idly without fixed direction. noun 1. meanders. Circuitous windings or sinuosities, as of a stream or path. 2. Often meanders. A circuitous journey or excursion; ramble. 3. The Greek fret or key pattern, used in art and architecture. [From Latin maeander, circuitous windings, from Greek maiandros after the Maeander River in Phrygia.] "The sun sets on some retired meadow, where no house is visible, with all the glory and splendor that it lavishes on cities, and perchance as it has never set before, - where there is but a solitary marsh-hawk to have his wings gilded by it, or only a musquash looks out from his cabin, and there is some little black-veined brook in the midst of the marsh, just beginning to meander, winding slowly round a decaying stump." Thoreau, Henry David, Walking: Part II. This week's theme: toponyms or words derived from place names.