Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from February, 2020

carbonado: Word of the day for February 28, 2020

carbonado , n : (dated) Meat or fish that has been scored and broiled. […] A dark, non-transparent, impure form of polycrystalline diamond (also containing graphite and amorphous carbon) used in drilling. Today is Día de Andalucía, which commemorates the day in 1980 when a referendum led to Andalusia becoming an autonomous community of Spain.

pronoia: Word of the day for February 27, 2020

pronoia , n : (philosophy, theology) Divine providence, foreknowledge, foresight. (historical, Byzantine Empire) An imperial grant to an individual of temporary fiscal rights in the form of land, incomes or taxes from land, fishing rights, etc., sometimes carrying with it an obligation of military service. […] (psychology) A belief (sometimes regarded as irrational) that people conspire to do one good.

haul: Word of the day for February 26, 2020

haul , v : (transitive) To transport by drawing or pulling, as with horses or oxen, or a motor vehicle. (transitive) To draw or pull something heavy. (transitive) To carry or transport something, with a connotation that the item is heavy or otherwise difficult to move. (transitive, figuratively) To drag, to pull, to tug. (transitive, figuratively) Followed by up: to summon to be disciplined or held answerable for something. (intransitive) To pull apart, as oxen sometimes do when yoked. (transitive, intransitive, nautical) To steer (a vessel) closer to the wind. (intransitive, nautical) Of the wind: to shift fore (more towards the bow).

stance: Word of the day for February 25, 2020

stance , n : The manner, pose, or posture in which one stands. One's opinion or point of view. A place to stand; a position, a site, a station. (specifically, climbing) A foothold or ledge on which to set up a belay. (Scotland) A place for buses or taxis to await passengers; a bus stop, a taxi rank. (Scotland) A place where a fair or market is held; a location where a street trader can carry on business. (obsolete, rare) A stanza.

vamp: Word of the day for February 22, 2020

vamp , v : (transitive) To patch, repair, or refurbish. (transitive) Often as vamp up: to fabricate or put together (something) from existing material, or by adding new material to something existing. (transitive) To cobble together, to extemporize, to improvise. (transitive, intransitive, music, specifically) To perform a vamp (“a repeated, often improvised accompaniment, for example, under dialogue or while waiting for a soloist to be ready”). (transitive, shoemaking) To attach a vamp (to footwear). (transitive, intransitive, now dialectal) To travel by foot; to walk. (intransitive) To delay or stall for time, as for an audience. […] (transitive) To seduce or exploit someone.

womannap: Word of the day for February 20, 2020

womannap , v : (transitive, informal) To abduct or kidnap a woman. Patty Hearst, a granddaughter of the American publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, was born on this day in 1954. In 1974 she was abducted by a left-wing terrorist group, the Symbionese Liberation Army, but later convicted of serious crimes committed with members of the group. She denied willingly participating in those activities, and was subsequently granted a presidential pardon.

rainmaker: Word of the day for February 19, 2020

rainmaker , n : Someone or something that causes or attempts to cause rain to fall. An African or Native American medicine man who seeks to induce rain through performing rituals. A person who seeks to induce rainfall through scientific methods, such as cloud seeding. (originally Canada, US, figuratively, informal) A person having the ability to generate business, raise funds, or otherwise engineer success for a company, organization, etc. (baseball, informal) A batted ball that is hit very high into the air.

husbandry: Word of the day for February 18, 2020

husbandry , n : The occupation or work of a husbandman or farmer; the cultivation of crops and the raising of livestock; agriculture. The prudent management or conservation of resources. (now chiefly nautical) Administration or management of day-to-day matters. (obsolete) Agricultural or cultivated land. Today, the third Monday of February in 2019, is celebrated as Family Day in some parts of Canada.

shock stall: Word of the day for February 13, 2020

shock stall , n : (aviation) A stall (“sudden loss of efficiency”) caused when the airflow over an aircraft's wings is disturbed by shock waves that occurs at a specific Mach number when the aircraft is accelerating to transonic speeds. Former United States Air Force officer and test pilot Chuck Yeager, who on 14 October 1947 became the first pilot confirmed to have exceeded the speed of sound in level flight, was born on this day in 1923.

living fossil: Word of the day for February 12, 2020

living fossil , n : (evolutionary theory) Any species discovered first as a fossil and believed extinct, but which is later found living; an organism that has remained unchanged over geological periods. (evolutionary theory) Any living species which very closely resembles fossil relatives in most anatomical details. English biologist, geologist, and naturalist Charles Darwin, who coined the term and who is best known for his contributions towards the science of evolution, was born on this day 210 years ago in 1809.

radium: Word of the day for February 11, 2020

radium , n : The chemical element (symbol Ra) with an atomic number of 88. It is a soft, shiny and silvery radioactive alkaline earth metal. (textiles, dated) A type of cloth woven from silk or synthetic yarn, often with a shiny appearance. Today is designated by the United Nations as the International Day of Women and Girls in Science to recognize the critical role that women and girls play in science and technology communities. Radium was discovered by Marie Skłodowska Curie and her husband Pierre in 1898. In 1903 she became the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize; she, Pierre Curie, and Henri Becquerel received the Nobel Prize in Physics for their research into radiation.

gassy: Word of the day for February 9, 2020

gassy , adj : Having the nature of, or containing, gas. (specifically) Of a beverage: containing dissolved gas (usually carbon dioxide); fizzy. (specifically) Of a person: tending to burp; burpy. (specifically) Of a person: tending to release flatus; flatulent. Of food or drink: tending to cause flatulence. (figuratively, informal) Tending to be long-winded or wordy, especially in a boastful and vain manner.

pipe: Word of the day for February 8, 2020

pipe , n : (music) A wind instrument consisting of a tube, often lined with holes to allow for adjustment in pitch, sounded by blowing into the tube. […] A rigid tube that transports water, steam, or other fluid, as used in plumbing and numerous other applications. […] (Australia, colloquial, now historical) An anonymous satire or essay, insulting and frequently libellous, written on a piece of paper which was rolled up and left somewhere public where it could be found and thus spread, to embarrass the author's enemies.

finesse: Word of the day for February 7, 2020

finesse , v : (transitive, chiefly Canada, US, politics) To evade (a problem, situation, etc.) by using some clever argument or strategem. (transitive, card games) To play (a card) as a finesse. (transitive, intransitive) To handle or manage carefully or skilfully; to manipulate in a crafty way. (intransitive, card games) To attempt to win a trick by finessing. (intransitive, croquet, obsolete) To play a ball out of the way of an opponent.

flare: Word of the day for February 3, 2020

flare , v : (transitive) To cause to burn. (transitive) To cause inflammation; to inflame. (transitive, intransitive) To open outward in shape. (transitive, intransitive, aviation) To (operate an aircraft to) transition from downward flight to level flight just before landing. (intransitive) To blaze brightly. (intransitive) To shine out with a sudden and unsteady light; to emit a dazzling or painfully bright light. (intransitive, figuratively) To shine out with gaudy colours; to be offensively bright or showy. (intransitive, figuratively) To suddenly happen or intensify. (intransitive, figuratively) To suddenly erupt in anger. (intransitive, obsolete) To be exposed to too much light.