A.Word.A.Day --bouillabaisse

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Dec 14, 2015

This week’s theme
Food as metaphor

This week’s words
bouillabaisse
cherry-pick
rechauffe
saccharine
farrago

Veg bouillabaisse

Photo: Alex Dizon

A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

Food is, literally, a matter of life. No wonder, it’s also a metaphor for life. Some things are a piece of cake, while others may be a hard nut to crack. Sometimes you have to take a carrot-and-stick approach to make things work. Ultimately, when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. At any rate, having to eat one’s words is never fun.

Well, variety is the spice of life and this week we’ll feature five words having food-related origins.

bouillabaisse

PRONUNCIATION:

(boo-yuh-BAYS, BOO-yuh-bays, BOOL-yuh-bays, bool-yuh-BAYS)

MEANING:

noun: 1. A rich and spicy fish stew or soup. 2. A mixture of incongruous things.

ETYMOLOGY:

From French bouillabaisse, from Provençal bouiabaisso, from Latin bullire (to boil) + bassus (low). Earliest documented use: 1855.

USAGE:

“Though he was born and raised in Southern California, Kish has an odd, almost foreign-sounding accent -- a bouillabaisse of Canadian, British, and relaxed Los Angeleno.”
Michael Finkel; The Blind Man Who Taught Himself To See; Men’s Journal (New York); Mar 2011.

See more usage examples of bouillabaisse in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Style is time's fool. Form is time's student. -Stewart Brand, writer and editor (b. 14 Dec 1938)

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