BOREAS

I once wrote a high school poem concerning cruel Boreas after reading the name in my mythology class. I've never forgotten the word. It does have a great sound, no?

BOREAS

N, or NNE. wind. Boreas was one of the four winds, children of Eos (Aurora), goddess of the dawn by Titan Astraeus.

Boreas was characterized by rude violence and was dreaded as a ravisher of maidens. One of them, Orithyia, became by him the mother of Calais and Zetes, who figure in the story of the Argonauts.

The Athenians erected an altar to Boreas.

Cease, rude Boreas, blustering railer!

The Storm, G. A. Stevens (1719-84)



from Word Origins: The Romance of Language by Cecil Hunt

VEXILLOLOGY

Sometimes the way a word sounds infers upon it a more exotic or nefarious meaning than its actual connotation. However, a flag collector is hardly vexing. Unless one is collecting Confederate or Nazi flags or their ilk and surely somebody will be mortally and spiritually wounded by a symbol.

VEXILLOLOGY

the collecting of flags or banners. --vexillologist, n.



from -Ologies & -Isms: A Thematic Dictionary, ed. by Laurence Urdang

SAROS

I picked this word because it reminded me of that shape-shifting Nazi lizard named George Soros who destroys countries by indoctrinating the incurably stupid with the most profoundly baffling and ignorant stances a human could take outside of hurling their selves into a burping volcano.

SAROS

(ser'os), n. the period of years after which eclipses are repeated but are 120° toward the west from the previous series, equivalent to 233 synodic months or 6585.32 days.



from The New York Times Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misued & Mispronounced Words edited by Laurence Urdang

GEGGIE

I saw this same volume at the bookstore for $12 (or something like that) a month ago and decided to just wait until I found one in the wild. Yesterday was that day.

GEGGIE

A "penny gaff"; a cheap vaudeville show; showmen's, EX gag? Also spelt geggy.



from Partridge's Concise Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English edited by Paul Beale

WITCH'S BREW

WITCH'S BREW

Neither witches nor their male counterparts, warlocks, commonly pretended to be in league with the devil. Most were herbalists and midwives, while others charged fees for peering into the future or the secrets of nature.

Popular thought credited a witch with supernatural power even if she didn't claim it. To ordinary folk, such a woman seemed to be forever boiling some mysterious brew in a cauldron--often a homemade cold remedy. When ready for use, this potent stuff was believed capable of influencing the fate of individuals and nations. Shakespeare immortalized the concept when in Macbeth he described "dreadful charms" simmering in a big iron pot.

Despite modern health concerns for natural ingredients, few today bend over pots in order to concoct a witch's brew. But the name of the mysterious stuff lives in speech to designate any potent compound prepared with unknown motives.



from Why You Say It: The Fascinating Stories Behind Over 600 Everyday Words and Phrases by Webb Garrison

HAMARTIA

HAMARTIA

the Greek word for error or failure, used by Aristotle in his Poetics (4th century BC) to designate the false step that leads the *protagonist in a *tragedy to his or her downfall. The term has often been translated as "tragic flaw", but this misleadingly confines the cause of the reversal of fortunes to some personal defect of character, whereas Aristotle's emphasis was rather upon the protagonist's action, which could be brought about by misjudgement, ignorance, or some other cause. See also hubris, peripeteia.



from The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms by Chris Baldick

QUINTOQUADAGINTILLION

QUINTOQUADAGINTILLION

The number 1 followed by 138 zeros--larger than a googol.



Words: A Connoisseur's Collection of Old and New, Weird and Wonderful, Useful and Outlandish by Paul Dickson

PEINOTHERAPY

This 1947 W. B. Saunders Company edition is fraught with brevity and seemingly inappropriate definitions for a medical-specific book. For example, the word SALTATION, which has several meanings, cites the non-medical definition of dancing over the biological process of "abrupt evolutionary change; sudden large-scale mutation."

As you'll see with the word and definition below the practitioner better know the terms by heart because the explication is vague and minimalist.

PEINOTHERAPY

The hunger or starvation cure.



from The American Pocket Medical Dictionary edited by W. A. Newman Dorland


A better definition from the early 20th century can be found here in the "Practitioner's Medical Dictionary" by George Milbry Gould: "The cure of disease by deprivation of food." 

DUKIE (OR DOOKIE)

At the rate that I keep finding so-called alternate dictionaries I'll never be qualified for a copyright violation for reproducing excessive material from one source. I think this is the 60th book that I now own and that's probably way too many for any one stooge. Such is my life. 

As for the book itself, since I already own the earlier edition of Mr. Chapman's book American Slang I will cross reference the two and make sure that used words used in the latter edition didn't appear in the original.

DUKIE

n outdated carnival A meal ticket 2 n A box lunch



from the New Dictionary of American Slang by Robert L. Chapman

SCHNATTERMAUL

SCHNATTERMAUL

n. Talkative person. Ihr Mann ist 'n richtiges Schnattermaul. "Her husband's a real chatterbox."



from the Dictionary of German Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Henry Strutz

LALLAPALOOSA

LALLAPALOOSA

Where does the term "lallapaloosa" come from?

"Lallapaloosa" comes from a provincialism of County Mayo, Ireland--allay-foozee, meaning a "sturdy fellow." The Irish adopted it from the French--who, when they landed at Killala in 1798, repeatedly shouted, Allez-fusil!--meaning, "Forward the muskets."

from Why Do We Say It? The Stories Behind the Words, Expressions and Cliches We Use

BUSMAN'S HOLIDAY

BUSMAN'S HOLIDAY

Spare time spent in doing the same thing one does in one's regular occupation. The story is that the regular driver of a London bus actually did that--spent one of his days off riding as a passenger alongside the driver who was taking his place. But if the episode ever occurred, no report of it has yet been found. The age of the expression cannot be determined, but it had become proverbial many years before the first reported appearance in print--1921. A carpenter who, on a holiday repairs his own porch--a school-teacher who uses his weekends as a Boy Scout master--a newspaper reporter who, at night, writes fiction; each may be said to take a busman's holiday.



from Heavens to Betsy & Other Curious Sayings by Charles Earle Funk

DOMUNYM

DOMUNYM

Invented by language maven Paul Dickson, a domunym, literally "home name," is a word used to identify people from particular places: Philadelphians, Rhode Islanders, Tacomans, Hoosiers, Liverpudlians, Oxonians, and Cantabridgians.



from Crazy English: The Ultimate Joy Ride Through Our Language by Richard Lederer

PROCUL HINC, PROCUL ESTE, SEVERAE!

So it's come to this: revelry of the lowest order in the words and phrases of dead people. I'm fine with that. 

PROCUL HINC, PROCUL ESTE, SEVERAE!

Keep away, far away, you sour-faced women.

--Ovid



from Ars Amoris: Latin for Lovers by Sean McMahon

SLIPSHOD

I learned the word slipshod in my late teens from the poet E. E. Cummings who used it rather artistically, as he did many erudite words, in a musical fashion. Which would make sense since he based the poem, if I recall correctly, off a radio jingle.

SLIPSHOD

Light house slippers of various design became popular in the 1400s. Made without heels or fastening devices, they were easy to slip on and off the foot. Thin felt was the usual material used in making them. Such slip-shoes, as they were called, were designed for indoor use, but careless persons sometimes wore them when strolling near the house, or even on longer excursions. By 1580 it was proverbial that a shameless person would go slip-shod even to church. Such an individual was likely to be slovenly in his or her entire dress, so a man or woman careless in any respect was dubbed slipshod.



What's in a Word?: Fascinating Stories of More Than 350 Everyday Words and Phrases by Webb Garrison

GAUDETE SUNDAY

Apparently, dictionaries span the spectrum of all subjects. Catholicism is no exception. I picked this tome up for a dime the other week just because it makes this endeavor all the more annoying and less academic to the unenlightened heathens of our age. I, on the other hand and despite being a non-believer, think that we'd still be in the intellectual Dark Ages sans religion. 

GAUDETE SUNDAY

Third Sunday of Advent, so named from the opening antiphon of the Introit Gaudete in Domino semper (Rejoice in the Lord always). On this Sunday rose vestments are permitted in the Eucharistic liturgy. (Etym. Latin gaudete, rejoice.) See also LAETERE SUNDAY.



from the Pocket Catholic Dictionary by John A. Hardon, S.J.

DABCHICK

Alternate my ass. These dictionaries are seemingly everywhere lately. Picked this one up at the library for a buck before work. Dabchick sounds like it means a girl that dabs a lot but apparently means dimple, dip or dive or something like that.

DABCHICK

see DEEP

DEEP 

[OE] Deep is a member of a quite extensive and heterogeneous family of English words. It comes from a prehistoric Germanic *deupaz (source also of German tief, Dutch diep, and Swedish djup), which was a derivative of the base *d(e)u- 'deep, hollow.' This may also have been the ancestor of the first syllable of dabchick 'little grebe' [I6] (which would thus mean literally 'diving duck'), while a nasalized version of it may underlie dimple. It produced dip, and a variant has given us dive.

>dabchick, dimple, dip, dive



from the Arcade Dictionary of Word Origins by John Ayto

A CURATE'S EGG

A CURATE'S EGG

something of varying quality, part good and part bad

The edition of the English humorous magazine Punch dated 9 November 1895 carried a cartoon by George du Maurier, appropriately titled 'True Humility', showing  timid curate eating a bad egg at the home of his bishop and bravely assuring his host that parts of it are excellent. The cartoon so appealed to the public that phrases such as good in parts and part of it are excellent were soon in common use and curate's egg came to denote something that is poor but has its good points. Logically, of course, a bad egg is a bad through and through and so a curate's egg ought to be a diplomatic way of saying that something is dreadful. But logic is not always the way with idiomatic phrases (see NONSENSICAL IDIOMS, page 124).

The latest in Weidenfeld's series of short biographies is a bit of a curate's egg. At its best it is a thoughtful and incisive essay, but at its worst it is a prosecution brief, with all the distortion and special pleading that implies.

THE INDEPENDENT, 5 AUGUST 2002

from a Dictionary of Idioms and Their Origins by Linda & Roger Flavell

MISOMANIA

The only thing more disappointing than having a book you ordered come in the mail AFTER you went to work is having a cover that you didn't expect. Though I kind of just figured that it wouldn't be the owl-centric one featured on the listing because the world is a crooked hotel full of rumors. Of course, I also ordered the book from a seller called MOTOR CITY THRIFT with the assumption that they were a Detroit organization (they have thousands of titles with Detroit or Michigan in the titles) and the book would arrive in a couple of days. Nope. It shipped from Las Vegas and took 10 days. I won't even mention the jacket art that has a cinder block weighing down a stack of books from a suspension bridge. Well, at least it was a free book. Plus, I'll come across this book in the wild soon enough. But enough of my warbling on.

MISOMANIA

Hatred of everything



The Insomniac's Dictionary: The Last Word on the Odd Word by Paul Hellweg

NON OMNIS MORIAR

French, blah! Often lyrical but too pretentious overall. Spanish, well... this gringo couldn't be bothered to learn it despite taking it several times in college. I always thought that if I was to learn a new language it should be Latin. Although it sounds ridiculous it intones official business as if the person speaking it were in a secret cabal of sorts. Hell, they usually are, too. But I didn't and so here we are.

NON OMNIS MORIAR

nohn AWM-nihs MAW-ree-ahr

I shall not wholly die This was Horace's way, in the Odes, of telling the world that his works would live forever. Not a bad call.



Amo, Amas, Amat and More: How to Use Latin to Your Own Advantage and to the Astonishment of Others by Eugene Ehrlich

ENIGMATOLOGY

ENIGMATOLOGY

study and construction of puzzles.

Factlet for cruciverbalists (crossword puzzle fans): Will Shortz, crossword puzzle editor of The New York Times, is the world's only academically certified enigmatolgist*.



from There's A Word For It!: A Grandiloquent Guide to Life by Charles Harrington Elster


*at the time of the printing of the book in 1996

BASTINADO

BASTINADO

(noun)

A punishment, of oriental origin, in which the soles of the feet are beaten. The term is useful for waiters who wish to preserve their dignity in dealing with female American tourist. When she palpates and rejects the third avocado you have offered her and in so doing casts hyperaudible aspersions upon your integrity, you smile imperturbably and say: "Would Madam perhaps prefer the Bastinado?" Alternatively, you might invoke the strappado-a torture inflicted by hoisting the victim by his tied hands and then dropping him so that his fall is cut short by the taut rope before he reaches the ground.



from The Superior Person's Book of Words by Peter Bowler

THE JUMPING-OFF PLACE

THE JUMPING-OFF PLACE

Originally, this imaginary place was the edge of the earth, the ultima Thule. From there, one could proceed no farther, other than to leap straight into hell. At least, such appears to have been the thought of our American pioneering forebears in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century when this description was first applied. Perhaps it was an adaptation from some Indian belief, but, of course, by the early nineteenth century it was applied figuratively to any place, as a God-forsaken town, a desolate waste, any hopeless out-of-the-way spot, which one might deem to be literally next door to hell.



from A Hog on Ice & Other Curious Expressions by Charles Earle Funk

DEFALCATE

DEFALCATE

In its original sense defalcate meant "to cut off by a sickle." Its Latin source, defalco, was formed from the preposition de, off, and falx, sickle, and that was the literal sense in which the word was employed in Medieval Latin. After its introduction into English speech, however-possibly from the notion that grasses cut with a sickle are then to be taken away-defalcate was used in the extended sense, "to take away." This has become its usual meaning, chiefly applied to the embezzlement of money.



from Thereby Hangs a Tale: Stories of Curious Word Origins by Charles Earle Funk

ALDIBORONTIPHOSCOPHORNIO

ALDIBORONTIPHOSCOPHORNIO

A pompous person, not in words of one syllable but in a word of 10 syllables. This is what you call a long word. And why shouldn't there be an unduly long word, or sesquipedalian, for an individual who is unduly self-inflated and pretentious? From an old English burlesque with a title just as hard to pronounce, and later used by Sir Walter Scott to tag somebody he considered worthy of the name.



from Dimboxes, Epopts, and Other Quidams: Words to Describe Life's Indescribable People by David Grambs

PIGEON-PAIR

Finding word books isn't all that difficult but locating an interesting one is another matter. Significantly harder is coming across a palatable mass market paperback. This is one of the few that I've ever come across. While most of the categories listed on the cover are below the topic at hand it's not limited to such banalities. This selection is proof of that sentiment.

PIGEON-PAIR 

twins of the opposite sex. 

[British, 1800s, Farmer and Henley]

from Slang and Euphemism ed. by Richard A. Spears

DE MORTUIS NIL NISI BONUM

DE MORTUIS NIL NISI BONUM 

(day MOR too-is nill NEE see BOE num)

"Say nothing but good of the dead." Neat way to imply that something good to say would be hard to find. Especially useful in discussing one's family.



from The Phrase-Dropper's Handbook by John T. Beaudouin & Everett Mattlin

COVERSLUT

Since I am equipped with dozens of alternative dictionaries of obscure, forgotten and slang words I might as well utilize them to attract the brainier elements of the interwebs.

To generalize the content of the book is quite easy: it's airy, light-hearted and chock full of Old, Middle and Modern English words that have gone out of style. It is a bit silly, purposely so with accompanying whimsical illustrations, and the writing is a tad Dr. Suessian in that the protocol is generally for several archaic words to be slapped into a paragraph or two of amalgamated and clashing styles though the method varies.

This word group consists of golilla, barilla, muckender, coverslut, penistone, barthlomew-pig, spittle and slibber-sauce. Though I'm only going to cover one at present.

COVERSLUT

A coverslut is an apron or any garment intended to conceal slovenliness. Yorkshiremen wore pensitone coversluts.



Poplollies and Bellibones: A Celebration of Lost Words by Susan Kelz Sperling

HENRY, HARRY & LOUIS

HENRY

(noun British)

1 Heroin. A personification used by addicts in the 1970s, perhaps influenced by the use of the name 'Henry the Horse' in the song 'For the Benefit of Mr. Kite' on the Beatles' 1967 LP, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts' Club Band.

See also HARRY*.

2 An eighth of an ounce (of cannabis). A drug dealer and user's jargon term of the later 1980s inspired by King Henry VIII. (A LOUIS** is one-sixteenth of an ounce.)

*HARRY

(noun British) heroin. An addict's term from the 1960s, personifying the drug in the same way as CHARLIE for cocaine.

**LOUIS OR LOUIE

(noun British) 1 one-sixteenth of an ounce (of cannabis). This is the smallest quantity of the drug that can normally be bought by weight in Britain. The term was first heard in the late 1980s and is derived from Louis XVI, the king overthrown in the French revolution, in the same way as HENRY for an eighth of an ounce.

'OK, make it a louie.'



from The Dictionary of Contemporary Slang by Tony Thorne

RAREBIT

A "Dover Thrift Editions" of Ambrose Bierce's classic "The Devil's Dictionary" is the moral equivalent of a signed first edition of any Susan Polis Schutz book of poetry. The alternative was a $175 copy in the rare book room at John King Books in Detroit but I had no intention of spending more than $5. So here we are. I generally go with a word from the first page that I randomly open to but the definition of "Koran" wasn't offensive enough for me so I went with levity. At least I think I did. I'll have to look up several words and phrases unfamiliar to me before making a final determination. 

RAREBIT

n. A Welsh rabbit, in the speech of the humorless, who point out that it is not a rabbit. To whom it may be solemnly explained that the comestible known as toad-in-a-hole is really not a toad, and that ris de veau à la financière is not the smile of a calf prepared after the recipe of a she banker.

I still don't know what the hell he was talking about but it's very prosaic.



from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

VERONICA

Well...this book just showed up in the mail from Boston, Mass. on the cheap in a mylar bag. Which is hardly the proper mode of shipping a 4-pound hardcover book but so mote it be. Anyway, I noticed the name VERONICA on the cover while searching out the corner damage from the improper shipping and had to check to see if the name was contained within. Obviously, it is. Seeing that my clone child has that very name it's a no-brainer that I'd include it here. I knew the origins of the name but didn't realize that it had a secondary and third meaning as well. It is as follows:

VERONICA

(vuh RON uh kuh) n. Veronica is not only the name of a plant and a girl's name, but also, as every aficionado of bullfighting knows, a classic movement with the cape, where the matador stands stock still and slowly swings the cape away from the charging bull. The original Veronica was a woman of Jerusalem who wiped Jesus's forehead with a kerchief while He was on His way to Calvary. It was found to bear His likeness and was called the "Vera Icon" (True Image) and the woman later became Saint Veronica. The kerchief is kept as a relic at St. Peter's in Rome. The matador's pass is called the veronica because the cape slowly swung before the face of the charging bull is like the kerchief of St. Veronica wiping Christ's brow.



from 2000 Most Challenging And Obscure Words by Norman W. Schur