yokel

1812, possibly from dialectal German Jokel, diminutive of Jakob, cf. Yankee (“little John”) and jacquerie (“peasant uprising”). Alternatively, from dialectal English yokel (“woodpecker”).

They love the scenery near their summer home, but have no desire to mix with the local yokels.

“[…] my opinion at once is […] that this [robbery] wasn’t done by a yokel―eh, Duff?”
“Certainly not,” replied Duff.
“And, translating the word yokel, for the benefit of the ladies, I apprehend your meaning to be that this attempt was not made by a countryman?” said Mr. Losberne with a smile.

1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], “Involves a Critical Position”, in Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 181:

[…] and yokels looking up at the tinselled dancers and poor old rouged tumblers, while the light-fingered folk are operating upon their pockets behind.

1848 June 28, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Before the Curtain”, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], →OCLC, page vii:

He eyed the story-teller with unspeakable wonder. His mouth was agape in yokel fashion.

1895 October, Stephen Crane, chapter VIII, in The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 88:

"God damn and blast all you hamfisted yokels!" he was saying. "And you, sir, down there. Take that grin off your face and be more careful, or I'll have you clapped under hatches to sail with us today. Easy, there, easy! Christ, rum at seven guineas an anker isn't meant to be dropped like pig iron!"

1938 April, C[ecil] S[cott] Forester [pseudonym; Cecil Louis Troughton Smith], chapter V, in A Ship of the Line, Greenwich edition, London: Michael Joseph, published 1951 (February 1962 printing), →OCLC, pages 40–41:

I went to New York and bought myself a secondhand stretch limousine twenty-eight feet long, calculated to reduce the most blasé country-club sophisticates to bug-eyed yokels.

1985, Peter De Vries, chapter 6, in The Prick of Noon, Penguin, page 119:

You may think that because you live in Brahmpur you have seen the world―or more of the world than we poor yokels see. But some of us yokels have also seen the world―and not just the world of Brahmpur, but of Bombay. […]

1993, Vikram Seth, chapter 8.6, in A Suitable Boy, London: Phoenix, published 1994, page 560:

Some folk'll never eat a skunk, but then again some folk'll, like Cletus, the slack-jawed yokel.

1996, Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel (song), in: The Simpsons, 22 Short Films about Springfield (S07E21), first aired April 14, 1996

(derogatory) A person from or living in the countryside, viewed as being unsophisticated or naive.

taujà

a person from or living in the countryside, viewed as being unsophisticated and/or naive


broomstick

Witches of all ages attended these lively gatherings by flying away on their broomsticks[.]

1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 106:

She really was a witch now. No one but a witch could fly a broomstick.

Harry ripped the parcel open and gasped as a magnificent, gleaming broomstick rolled out onto his bedspread. [...] It was a Firebolt, identical to the dream broom Harry had gone to see every day in Diagon Alley.

1999, J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, →ISBN:

Greebo, hiccuping occasionally, oozed into his accustomed place among the bristles of Nanny’s broomstick. As they rose above the forest a thin plume of smoke also rose from the castle.

2002, Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad, page 97:

Most people are familiar with the age-old superstition that witches fly on broomsticks to their covens (though they were formerly also reputed to use shovels, cleft sticks, eggshells, ANIMALS and other means of flight).

2003, David Pickering, Cassell's Dictionary of Superstitions:

A broom imbued with magic, enabling one to fly astride the handle.

(military slang) A controlstick of an airplane.

Gangdem known for the shootings, go ask Ramz – got whooshed with a broomstick.

2020 January 19, Sin Squad & Mloose (lyrics and music), “Don't Ride Back”:


broomstick

en-verb

broomstick (third-person singular simple present broomsticks, present participle broomsticking, simple past and past participle broomsticked)

broomsticks (present singular third-person)
broomsticking (participle present)
broomsticked (participle past)
broomsticked (past)

BATTY: But, Mother Witch, I want to go broomsticking, too.

1955, Grade Teacher, volume 73, page 14:

Cynthia the Witch, whenever she broomsticked back into town would not even be given the chance to lay eyes on my machine or my clothes.

2006, Brandi Scollins-Mantha, Floaters, page 75:

(intransitive) To fly on a broomstick, as witches are said to.


flan

Borrowed around 1846 from French flan (“cheesecake, custard tart, flan”), or in some uses (in reference to Spanish/Latin American flans) later from Spanish flan (itself from the French), both from Old French flaon (whence also Middle English flaon, flaun (“pie; cake”)), from Late Latin fladō (“flat cake”), from Frankish *flaþō (“flat cake”), from Proto-Indo-European *pleth₂- (“broad, flat”); compare German Fladen. Akin to Old High German flado (“flat cake, offering cake”). Doublet of flathe.
Although the -n is generally believed to derive from the Late Latin accusative form (fladonem) of fladō (“flat cake”), it might alternatively derive from an inflected form of the Frankish word (such as the Frankish accusative *flaþan, or the like). For a similar case, see garden.

cog

(numismatics) A coin die. (Compare planchet.)


mugglare

mugglare (indefinite nominative singular)
mugglares (genitive indefinite singular)
mugglaren (definite nominative singular)
mugglarens (definite genitive singular)
mugglare (indefinite nominative plural)
mugglares (genitive indefinite plural)
mugglarna (definite nominative plural)
mugglarnas (definite genitive plural)


klonken

klonkarna (plural)
klonken (definite nominative singular)
klonkarna (definite nominative plural)


bludger

A ball used in the sports of Quidditch and Muggle Quidditch.


gryps

la-noun

grȳps m (genitive grȳpis); third declension

grȳps (canonical masculine)
grȳpis (genitive)
grȳps (nominative singular)
grȳpēs (nominative plural)
grȳpes (nominative plural)
grȳpis (genitive singular)
grȳpium (genitive plural)
grȳpī (dative singular)
grȳpibus (dative plural)
grȳpem (accusative singular)
grȳpēs (accusative plural)
grȳpīs (accusative plural)
grypas (accusative plural)
grȳpe (ablative singular)
grȳpibus (ablative plural)
grȳps (singular vocative)
grȳpēs (plural vocative)
grȳpes (plural vocative)

Asturian: grifu

Catalan: griu, grif, grifó

Danish: grib

Italian: grifone, grifo

Norwegian: gribb

desctree

Old French: griffon, gripun, gripoun
Middle English: griffoun, griphon, grefoun, gryffoun, gryffone, gryffon, grifown, griphonne, gryffyn, griffone, grefyne
English: griffin, griffon, gryphon
French: griffon

Old High German: grifo
Middle High German: grīfe
German: Greif

Old Irish: gríb
Irish: gríobh
Manx: greeu
Scottish Gaelic: grib

Portuguese: grifo

Spanish: grifo


draconic

en-adj

draconic (comparative more draconic, superlative most draconic)

more draconic (comparative)
most draconic (superlative)

From Latin Dracō (stem Dracōn-) + -ic, after the Athenian lawmaker Draco, known for making harsh laws.

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-draconic.wav

[…] they no land / Doomed to bewail the blasphemy of laws / Making kings' rights divine, by some Draconic clause.

1818, Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto 3, Stanza 64:

The sexual instinct can hardly be changed by prescriptions; I doubt whether all laws against homosexual intercourse, even the most draconic, have ever been able to extinguish the peculiar desire of anybody born with homosexual tendencies.

1932, Edvard Westermarck, chapter VIII, in Ethical Relativity, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co, page 248:

In the first months after the October Revolution Lenin was already demanding "the most decisive, draconic measures to tighten up discipline."

1974, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by Thomas P. Whitney, The Gulag Archipelago, Harper & Row, published 1973, Vol. 2, Part III, pp. 9-10:

(rare, dated) Very severe or strict; draconian.


seeker

From Middle English sekar, sekere (also sechar, sechere), equivalent to seek + -er. Compare Saterland Frisian Säiker (“seeker”), West Frisian syker (“seeker”), Dutch zoeker (“seeker”), German Low German Söker (“seeker”), German Sucher (“seeker”).

In Quidditch or Muggle quidditch, the player who is supposed to to catch the snitch.


hippocentaurus

la-noun

hippocentaurus m (genitive hippocentaurī); second declension

hippocentaurī (genitive)
hippocentaurus (nominative singular)
hippocentaurī (nominative plural)
hippocentaurī (genitive singular)
hippocentaurōrum (genitive plural)
hippocentaurō (dative singular)
hippocentaurīs (dative plural)
hippocentaurum (accusative singular)
hippocentaurōs (accusative plural)
hippocentaurō (ablative singular)
hippocentaurīs (ablative plural)
hippocentaure (singular vocative)
hippocentaurī (plural vocative)

→ English: hippocentaur

→ French: hippocentaure

[hɪpːɔkɛn̪ˈt̪äu̯rʊs̠]

From Ancient Greek ἱπποκένταυρος (hippokéntauros).

der

ἱπποκένταυρος


Frankenstein

en-proper noun

Frankenstein (countable and uncountable, plural Frankensteins)

From German Frankenstein, various places named for Franken (“Franks, Frankish”) + Stein (“stone”). The use of referencing mad scientists derives from Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus, where Victor Frankenstein assembles a man from pieces of various corpses and brings him to life with electricity. Use of the reference to the monster itself is an ellipsis of the earlier Frankenstein's monster, with the monster's usual modern appearance derived from Boris Karloff's performance in the 1931 film Frankenstein.

In the same year, a kiln of the same size was built in Frankenstein in the Silesian region, but the purpose of this kiln was to treat low-grade nickel ore, and it had a capacity for treating 80,000 tons a year.

1998, Akira Kudō, chapter 5, in J.A.A. Stockwin, editor, Japanese-German Business Relations: Co-operation and Rivalry in the Interwar Period, London: Routledge, published 2001, →ISBN, page 90:

Ząbkowice Śląskie
Ząbkowice Śląskie#English

Lower Silesian Voivodeship
Lower Silesian Voivodeship#English

(historical) A former name of Ząbkowice Śląskie, a town in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Poland.

(fiction) Victor Frankenstein, a fictional character and the main protagonist and title character in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.

(fiction, sometimes proscribed) The unnamed monster created by Victor Frankenstein: a fictional character who first appeared in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus as the main antagonist.


Frankenstein

de:Frankenstein
de:Frankenstein (Familienname)
de:Frankenstein (Pfalz)

de-proper noun

Frankenstein m or f (proper noun, surname, masculine genitive Frankensteins or (with an article) Frankenstein, feminine genitive Frankenstein, plural Frankensteins)

Frankensteins (genitive masculine)
Frankenstein (genitive masculine)
Frankenstein (feminine genitive)
Frankensteins (plural)
Frankenstein (masculine nominative singular)
Frankenstein (feminine nominative singular)
Frankensteins (definite nominative plural)
Frankensteins (genitive masculine singular)
Frankenstein (genitive masculine singular)
Frankenstein (feminine genitive singular)
Frankensteins (definite genitive plural)
Frankenstein (dative masculine singular)
Frankenstein (dative feminine singular)
Frankensteins (dative definite plural)
Frankenstein (accusative masculine singular)
Frankenstein (accusative feminine singular)
Frankensteins (accusative definite plural)

English: Frankenstein

French: Frankenstein

Occitan: Franquenstein

Spanish: Frankenstein

[ˈfʁaŋkŋ̩ˌʃtaɪ̯n]

Literally meaning "stone of the franks," from Franken + Stein.


keeper

From Middle English kepere, equivalent to keep + -er.

England should have capitalised on their growing momentum to win, but Darren Bent failed to reproduce the finishing touches that have brought him goals in three successive appearances. He was blocked by Diego Benaglio when he was played in by Wilshere then blazed over the top of an open goal late on after Young's shot was saved by Switzerland's keeper.

2011 June 4, Phil McNulty, “England 2 - 2 Switzerland”, in BBC:

(sports) The player charged with guarding a goal or wicket. Short form of goalkeeper, wicketkeeper. In quidditch (both Muggle quidditch and the game in the original Harry Potter series), this is someone responsible for guarding the three goalposts.


wyvern

Alteration of Middle English wyver (“viper”), borrowed from Old Northern French wivre, from Latin vīpera (“viper; snake, serpent”). Doublet of weever and viper.

The jargon of heraldry, its griffins, its moldwarps, its wyverns, and its dragons.

1814 July 7, [Walter Scott], Waverley; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC:

Notions of freedom are tied up in drink / Our ideal life contains a tavern / Where man may sit and talk of or just think / All without fear of the nighted wyvern, / Or yet another tavern where it appears.

1940-54 The Collected Poetry of Malcolm Lowry, "WE SIT UNHACKLED DRUNK AND MAD TO EDIT", UBC Press,1992, p.222

(heraldry, mythology, fantasy) A draconian creature possessing wings, only two legs and usually a barbed tail.


beater

From Middle English beter, betere, bettere, from Old English bēatere (“a beater; boxer, fighter; champion”), equivalent to beat + -er. Related to beetle (“a type of mallet”).

inh

In the sport of Quidditch or Muggle quidditch, a player who attempts to hit the opposing team's players with bludgers and to block the bludgers from hitting their own team's players.


deus ex machina

en-noun

deus ex machina (plural dei ex machina or dei ex machinis or deus ex machinas)

dei ex machina (plural)
dei ex machinis (plural)
deus ex machinas (plural)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-deus ex machina.wav

Unadapted borrowing from Latin deus ex māchinā (literally “god from a machine, i.e., a device, a scaffolding, an artifice”), from Ancient Greek.

ubor

The women who merge in the final pages leave me unsettled and depressed. Their future is grim. There is no deus ex machina to save them.

1975 December 13, Regina Kahney, “Sister Gin (review)”, in Gay Community News, volume 3, number 24, page 13:

The repeated tactic of deus ex machina (without a deus) has a deplorable effect on both the plot and the dialogue.

2007 August 12, Christopher Hitchens, “Harry Potter: The Boy Who Lived”, in New York Times:

Despite the government shutdown, at the end of the last season Knope is able to put on a children's concert in the abandoned lot she's been trying to turn into a park due to a quick deus ex machina.

2011 January 20, Dave Thier, “‘Parks and Recreation’: Comedy Imitates Life (Sort Of)”, in The Atlantic:

Compared to that, the season-four finale “Server Error” felt comparatively tame, focusing mostly on Richard’s maniacal efforts to create a new kind of internet, which were helped along by a confusing deus ex machina.

2017 June 26, David Sims, “How Will ‘Silicon Valley’ Work Without T.J. Miller?”, in The Atlantic:

suspension of disbelief
suspension of disbelief

(authorship) Any resolution to a story that does not pay due regard to the story's internal logic and that is so unlikely that it challenges suspension of disbelief, and presumably allows the author, director, or developer to end the story in the way that they desired.

I was going to wait for Monsieur Hyppolyte and, like a craven, hand the whole thing over to him. Let the deus ex machina fly in out of the clouds...

1959, Mary Stewart, chapter XVII, in Nine Coaches Waiting, M. S. Mill Company, page 268:

(historical, literary) A deity in Greek and Roman drama who was brought in by stage machinery to intervene in a difficult situation (i.e., to resolve a crisis, or untangle issues surrounding it, a character logically expected to do so).

(historical) A machine used to bring an actor playing a god onto the stage, either up through a trapdoor or (e.g. by crane) from above.


deus ex machina

Unadapted borrowing from Latin deus ex māchinā, itself a calque of Ancient Greek ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός (apò mēkhanês theós).

der

ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός

(Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, drama, historical, literary) deus ex machina (deity in Greek and Roman drama who was brought in by stage machinery to intervene in a difficult situation)


chaser

Inherited from Middle English chaser, chacer, chasour, borrowed from Old French chaceür, chaceor, from chacier (“to chase, hunt”); later senses from or influenced by chase (“pursue”) + -er. Doublet of chasseur.

преследва́ч

person or thing (ship, plane, car, etc.) who chases

(fiction, Harry Potter) In the sport of Quidditch or Muggle quidditch, a player responsible for passing the quaffle and scoring goals with it.


vampire

desc

ভ্যাম্পায়ার

→ Bengali: ভ্যাম্পায়ার (bhêmpaẏar)

→ Irish: vaimpír

→ Japanese: ヴァンパイア (vanpaia), バンパイア (banpaia)

→ Marathi: व्हॅम्पायर (vhĕmpāyar)

→ Thai: แวมไพร์ (wɛm-paai)

→ Scottish Gaelic: bhampair

→ Swahili: vampiri

→ Turkish: vampir

→ Welsh: fampir

From French vampire, from German Vampir, via Hungarian from a Slavic word, probably Serbo-Croatian вампир (vàmpīr), proposed to be a variant of unattested *upir, from Proto-Slavic *ǫpyrь, q.v. Compare Russian упы́рь (upýrʹ), Polish upiór, Polish wąpierz, etc. Doublet of oupire.

(colloquial) A person with the medical condition Porphyria cutanea tarda, colloquially known as vampirism, with effects such as photosensitivity and brownish-red stained teeth.

(figurative, derogatory) A person who drains one's time, energy, money, etc.


vampire

→ Armenian: վամպիր (vampir)

→ Asturian: vampiru

→ Belarusian: вампір (vampir)

→ Catalan: vampir

→ Czech: vampýr

→ English: vampire (see there for further descendants)

→ Galician: vampiro

→ Georgian: ვამპირი (vamṗiri)

→ Greek: βαμπίρ (vampír)

→ Italian: vampiro

→ Malagasy: vampira

→ Occitan: vampire

→ Romanian: vampir

→ Russian: вампир (vampir) (see there for further descendants)

→ Slovak: vampír

→ Spanish: vampiro, vampira

→ Basque: banpiro

→ Cebuano: bampira

→ Tagalog: bampira

→ Waray-Waray: bampira

→ Ottoman Turkish: وامپیر (vampir)

Turkish: vampir

→ Ukrainian: вампір (vampir)


olim

For ōle, olle, ōlus, ollus, archaic forms of ille, with locative ending -im, = illō tempore.

† Turned conjunction with original meaning somewhat dissimulated° Rare‡only used as a conjunction


hippocampus

en-noun

hippocampus (plural hippocampi or hippocampuses)

hippocampi (plural)
hippocampuses (plural)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-hippocampus.wav

From Late Latin hippocampus, from Ancient Greek ἱππόκαμπος (hippókampos, from ῐ̔́ππος (híppos, “horse”) + κάμπος (kámpos, “sea-monster”)). The anatomy sense is so named from its resemblance to the seahorse.

der

(mythology) A mythological creature with the front head and forelimbs of a horse and the rear of a dolphin.


snitch

Origin uncertain. Perhaps an alteration of Middle English snacche (“a trap, snare”), snacchen (“to seize (prey)”, whence modern English snatch). Compare also Middle English snik snak (“a sudden blow, snap”). Alternatively, perhaps from a dialectal variant of sneak, from Middle English sniken, from Old English snīcan (“to creep; crawl”). More at sneak.

cog

A ball used in the sport of Quidditch: the Golden Snitch.


faster-than-light

en-adj

faster-than-light (comparative form only)

Faster-than-light drives use element zero cores to reduce the mass of a ship, allowing higher rates of acceleration. This effectively raises the speed of light within the mass effect field, allowing high speed travel with negligible relativistic time dilation effects.

2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: FTL Drive Codex entry:

(physics) Faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, the theoretical speed limit for travel within the universe.


World War III

One time ago a crazy dream came to me / I dreamt I was walking into World War Three

1963, Bob Dylan (lyrics and music), “Talkin' World War III Blues”, in The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan:

And I also wanted to be sure to keep Chiang Kai-shek, who had some notion of starting a World War Number Three, from going into China and doing just that.

1964, Harry S. Truman, 2:16 from the start, in MP2002-410 Several Cuts of Former President Truman Talking about Wars and Korea, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives Identifier: 595162:

The WOPR [War Operations Planning Response] has already fought World War III as a game time and time again.

1983, Lawrence Lasker, Walter F. Parkes, WarGames, spoken by Paul Richter:

A hypothetical world war following World War II.

اَلْحَرْبُ اَلْعَالَمِيَّةُ اَلثَّالِثَة


lycanthrope

From Ancient Greek λυκάνθρωπος (lukánthrōpos).

der

More generally, any sort of werecreature.


lycanthrope

fr-noun

lycanthrope m or f by sense (plural lycanthropes)

From Ancient Greek λυκάνθρωπος (lukánthrōpos, “human-wolf”).


time travel

(chiefly science fiction) Travel to the past or to the future, typically by means of a time machine or a wormhole.

пътуване във времето

hypothetical or fictional travel to the past or future


versipellis

la-noun

versipellis m (genitive versipellis); third declension

versipellis (genitive)
versipellis (nominative singular)
versipellēs (nominative plural)
versipellis (genitive singular)
versipellium (genitive plural)
versipellī (dative singular)
versipellibus (dative plural)
versipellem (accusative singular)
versipellēs (accusative plural)
versipellīs (accusative plural)
versipelle (ablative singular)
versipellibus (ablative plural)
versipellis (singular vocative)
versipellēs (plural vocative)

→ Italian: versipelle (learned)

[u̯ɛrs̠ɪˈpɛlːʲɪs̠]

From vertō (“turn”) + pellis (“skin, hide”).

(fantasy, mythology) a werewolf, lycanthrope


embiggen

en-verb

embiggen (third-person singular simple present embiggens, present participle embiggening, simple past and past participle embiggened)

embiggens (present singular third-person)
embiggening (participle present)
embiggened (participle past)
embiggened (past)

David X. Cohen
Lisa the Iconoclast
Notes and Queries
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The Simpsons

From em- + biggen or big + em- -en, possibly analogous to belittle. The morphology parallels that of enlarge (en- + large) or embolden (em- + bold + -en).
The verb's first recorded use is in an 1884 edition of the British journal Notes and Queries: A Medium of Intercommunication for Literary Men, General Readers, Etc. by C. A. Ward (see quotation below).
The word’s current popularity follows its deployment as an intentionally ungainly form by television writer David X. Cohen for The Simpsons episode “Lisa the Iconoclast” in 1996.

Are there not, however, barbarous verbs in all languages? ἀλλ’ ἐμεγάλυνεν αυτοὺς ὁ λαός, but the people magnified them, to make great or embiggen, if we may invent an English parallel as ugly. After all, use is nearly everything.

1884, C.A. Ward, “New Verbs”, in Notes and Queries: A Medium of Intercommunication for Literary Men, General Readers, Etc, volume 10, page 135:

A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.

1996, “Lisa the Iconoclast”, in The Simpsons, season 7, episode 3F13, spoken by Jebediah Springfield (Harry Shearer):

As I joyfully embiggen myself into the vague silhouette of Chewbacca, I have time to reflect on just what it is about big hair that I find so elementally appealing.

2012 4 Feb, Caitlin Moran, “Hair: a big issue”, in The Times:

Train stations: how busy is yours? Victoria Station in 1927. Click image to embiggen.

2013 May 19, “Every train station in Britain listed and mapped: find out how busy each one is”, in The Guardian, picture caption:

You can hide enemies, stack them up high, embiggen them with a Super Mushroom, hide coins in pipes, and so much more!

2019, 1:24 from the start, in Super Mario Maker 2 Direct 5.15.2019 (Nintendo Direct), Nintendo:

(nonstandard, now humorous, transitive) To enlarge; to make bigger.


tachyon

Formed as: tachy- + -on, from ταχύς (takhús, “swift”, “rapid”).
Coined by American physicist Gerald Feinberg in 1967.

coin

(physics) A hypothetical particle that travels faster than the speed of light.


time machine

H. G. Wells
The Time Machine
Time Machine

Coined by H. G. Wells in his novel The Time Machine (1895).

If I had a time machine / And if life was a movie scene / I'd rewind, and I'd tell me / "Ru-u-u-u-u-u-u-un"

2014, Ingrid Michaelson, Trent Dabbs, busbee (lyrics and music), “Time Machine”, in Lights Out, performed by Ingrid Michaelson:

(chiefly science fiction) A hypothetical device used to travel into the past or the future.


elixir of life

(alchemy) A substance which when drunk brings immortality: eternal life, eternal youth.


monster

→ German: Monster

→ Japanese: モンスター (monsutā)

→ Korean: 몬스터 (monseuteo)

From Middle English monstre, from Old French monstre, mostre, moustre, from Latin mōnstrum.

non-player character
non-player character

(gaming) A non-player character that player(s) fight against in role-playing games; a mob


tesseract

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-tesseract.wav

From tessara- (“four-”) + Ancient Greek ἀκτίς (aktís, “ray”).

af

"I shall just sit down for a moment and pop on my boots and then I'll be on my way. Speaking of ways, pet, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract."

1962, Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time, published 2019, unnumbered page:

(science fiction) Any of various fictional mechanisms that explain extradimensional, superluminal, or time travel outside the geometry of the physical universe.


Trekker

(fandom slang) A fan of the TV science fiction series Star Trek.


werewolf

From Middle English werwolf, from Old English werewulf, from Proto-West Germanic *werawulf, from Proto-West Germanic *wer (“man”) + *wulf (“wolf”). By surface analysis, were- + wolf. Cognate with Dutch weerwolf, Low German Warwulf, German Werwolf, Danish varulv, Swedish varulv, and even possibly Finnish vironsusi.
Compare also French garou, in loup-garou, French dialectal gairou, varou (“werewolf”), Medieval Latin gerulphus, garulphus (“werewolf”), all from Germanic, probably Frankish *werawulf.

Near-synonym: dogman

(mythology) A person who is transformed or can transform into a wolf or a wolflike human, often said to do so during a full moon.


tribble

Probably invented for alliteration with trouble; the creatures first appeared in an episode called "The Trouble with Tribbles".

Scales have proliferated like tribbles in quadra-triticale: just intonations, equal temperaments, scales based on overtones, scales generated from a single interval or pair of intervals, scales without octaves, scales arising from arcane mathematical formulas, scales that reflect cosmological or religious structures, scales that "come from the heart."

1998, William A. Sethares, Tuning, Timbre, Spectrum, Scale, page 49:

The Hyper-Producing Playwrights of Edmondton: Or Why Alberta’s Capital Breeds New Plays Like Tribbles.

2008, Robin C. Whittaker, editor, Hot Thespian Action!, page 569:

They were like tribbles, multiplying by the dozens, cackling, giggling their maniacal joy at the game.

2010, Dakota Cassidy, chapter 19, in Accidentally Demonic:

They breed like tribbles, but at least they’re not terrestrial.

2015, Zanzibar 7. Schwarzenegger, Veneri Verbum, page 19:

A fictional alien creature in Star Trek, a fast-breeding, cooing ball of fur.


wormhole

1590s. From worm + hole. In the scientific sense, introduced by John Archibald Wheeler in 1957.

[…]where there is a net flux of lines of force, through what topologists would call "a handle" of the multiply-connected space, and what physicists might perhaps be excused for more vividly terming a "wormhole".

1957 December, Charles W. Misner, John Archibald Wheeler, “Classical Physics as Geometry”, in Annals of Physics, volume 2, number 6, pages 525–603:

Wormhole distortion has overloaded main power systems!

1979, Alan Dean Foster, Harold Livingston, directed by Robert Wise, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, spoken by Commander Willard Decker (Stephen Collins):

I think the wormhole that we used to travel here passed directly through this planet's sun.

2001, Ron Wilkerson, “Red Sky”, in Martin Wood, director, Stargate SG-1, season 5, episode 5, spoken by Captain Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping):

(relativity) A hypothetical shortcut between two points in spacetime, permitting faster-than-light travel and sometimes time travel.

ثَقْب دُودِيّ

a shortcut between distant parts of space


ouroboros

en-noun

ouroboros (plural ouroboroi or ouroboroses)

From Ancient Greek οὐροβόρος (ourobóros, “tail-devouring”, a compound of οὐρά (ourá, “tail”) + -βόρος (-bóros, “-devouring”, which is derived from the verb βιβρώσκω (bibrṓskō, “to eat up”))).

af

which is derived from the verb <i class="Polyt mention" lang="grc">βιβρώσκω</i> (bibrṓskō, “to eat up”)

bor

The alchemists were fond of picturing their opus as a circulatory process, as a circular distillation or as the uroboros, the snake biting its own tail, and they made innumerable pictures of this process.

1968 [1951], R. F. C. Hull, transl., Aion […] (The Collected Works of C. G. Jung), 2nd edition, volume 9.2, Princeton University Press, translation of original by C. G. Jung, →ISBN, page 264:

Khepera eating his own seed is a model of Romantic creativity, where the self is isolated and sexually dual. Khepera bent over himself is a uroboros, the serpent eating its own tail, a magic circle of regeneration and rebirth. The uroboros is the prehistoric track of natural cycle, from which Judaism and Hellenism make a conceptual break.

1990, Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae, Yale University Press, →ISBN, page 41:

One myth speaks of Ouroboros, a serpent-like creature that survived and regenerated itself by eating only its own tail. By neither taking from nor adding to its environment, this creature was said to be completely environmentally benign and self-sufficient.

2004, Adrian Bejan et al., Porous and Complex Flow Structures in Modern Technologies, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN, page 121:

First, the snake has not caught its tail—the ouroboros figure is uncompleted. Blake executed fully formed ouroboros figures for the verso of this Night Thoughts page and for a later passage (6:690-92), and was familiar with numerous full ouroboros figures from contemporary and earlier sources […]

2013, Jackie DiSalvo, G. A. Rosso, Christopher Z. Hobson eds., Blake, Politics, and History, Routledge, →ISBN:

(mythology) A serpent, dragon or worm that eats its own tail, a representation of the continuous cycle of life and death.

أوربوروس

a serpent, dragon or worm that eats its own tail


alba

alba (nominative singular)
alby (nominative plural)
alby (genitive singular)
alb (genitive plural)
albie (dative singular)
albom (dative plural)
albę (accusative singular)
alby (accusative plural)
albą (instrumental singular)
albami (instrumental plural)
albie (locative singular)
albach (locative plural)
albo (singular vocative)
alby (plural vocative)

Borrowed from Occitan alba. First attested in the 20th century.

ref

Witold Doroszewski, editor (1958–1969), “alba”, in Słownik języka polskiego (in Polish), Warszawa: PWN

(historical, poetry) alba (genre of Old Occitan lyric poetry)


adamantine

en-adj

adamantine (comparative more adamantine, superlative most adamantine)

more adamantine (comparative)
most adamantine (superlative)

From Middle English adamantine, from Latin adamantinus, equivalent to adamant + -ine.

adamantine bonds

adamantine chains

Him the Almighty Power
Hurld headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Skie
With hideous ruine and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire,
Who durst defie th' Omnipotent to Arms.

1667, John Milton, “Book III”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 44–49:

Snatch, snatch those gentle forms from war's alarms,
And throw your adamantine shield around their shrinking charms.

1827, Lydia Sigourney, Poems, Missolonghi, page 187:

For two hours they stand; Bouillé's sword glittering in his hand, adamantine resolution clouding his brows[.]

1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (please specify the book or page number):

1984, Gayle Rubin, "Thinking Sex" in Carole S. Vance, Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul), 267-319.
Sex law is the most adamantine instrument of sexual stratification and erotic persecution.

Made of adamant, or having the qualities of adamant; incapable of being broken, dissolved, or penetrated.


scientist

→ Cebuano: sayantist, sayantis

→ Malay: saintis

→ Portuguese: cientista

Coined by English philosopher and historian of science William Whewell in March 1834 in an anonymous review of Mary Somerville's book On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences in the Quarterly Review as a suggested replacement for, and later seriously introduced by him in 1840 (see the quotation) as a more precise substitute for, the terms natural philosopher and man of science. Modeled after artist, from the Latin stem scientia (“knowledge”) + -ist.

coin

As we cannot use physician for a cultivator of physics, I have called him a physicist. We need very much a name to describe a cultivator of science in general. I should incline to call him a Scientist. Thus we might say, that as an Artist is a Musician, Painter, or Poet, a Scientist is a Mathematician, Physicist, or Naturalist.

1840, William Whewell, “Aphorisms Concerning the Language of Science. Aphorism XVI. In the Composition and Inflexion of Technical Terms, Philological Analogies are to be Preserved if Possible, but Modified According to Scientific Convenience.”, in The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded upon Their History. […], volume I, London: John W[illiam] Parker, […]; Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: J. and J. J. Deighton, →OCLC, paragraph 4(3), page cxiii:

Becoming more aware of the progress that scientists have made on behavioral fronts can reduce the risk that other natural scientists will resort to mystical agential accounts when they exceed the limits of their own disciplinary training.

2012 January, Stephen Ledoux, “Behaviorism at 100”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, United States: Sigma Xi, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 60:

The US supreme court has ruled unanimously that natural human genes cannot be patented, a decision that scientists and civil rights campaigners said removed a major barrier to patient care and medical innovation.

2013 June 21, Karen McVeigh, “US Rules Human Genes Can’t Be Patented”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 2, →ISSN, page 10:

One whose activities make use of the scientific method to answer questions regarding the measurable universe. A scientist may be involved in original research, or make use of the results of the research of others.

wetenskaplike

one whose activities make use of the scientific method

Appendix:Roget MICRA thesaurus/Class IV § 463. Experiment

Appendix:Roget MICRA thesaurus/Class IV § 476. Reasoning

Appendix:Roget MICRA thesaurus/Class IV § 492. Scholar


undead

LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-undead.wav

From Middle English undede, equivalent to un- + dead. The first attestation is from around 1400. Usage as a noun is attested from the early 20th century onwards.

Pertaining to a corpse, though having qualities of life.

When Anna and John finally break out of their self-centered bubbles to the shock that they must battle to the death an undead neighbor in a giant snowman costume, it plays like a poignant comment on movie teenagers' tendency to indulge their inner lives, ignorant of the world around them.

2018 November 27, April Wolfe, “Anna And The Apocalypse is a Holiday-horror Cocktail of Singing, Maiming, and Clichés”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 2019-11-04:

(horror fiction) Being animate, though non-living.


undead

In the zombie movie, an army of the undead accosted some unsuspecting teenagers.

"Were another of the Un-Dead, like him, to try to do what he has done, perhaps not all the centuries of the world that have been, or that will be, could aid him."

1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula, New York: Doubleday & McClure, published 1899, page xxiv. 319:

Harley got devoured by the undead / Lurking down in some old wizard's tomb / You can say there's no such thing as zombies / But that's how Harley Warren met his doom

2006, The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, “Harley Got Devoured by the Undead”, in An Even Scarier Solstice:

It’s an episode of characters returning to their own pasts as different people. They can retrench like Cersei, back on her bullshit, I mean, warpath. Or they can adapt, like The Hound. Neither way necessarily ensures success, but we know the archmaester isn’t unequivocally right. We’ve seen dragons reborn and armies of the undead. I wouldn’t be so sure that Wall will stand forever.

2017 July 16, Brandon Nowalk, “Chickens and dragons come home to roost on Game Of Thrones (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club:

(horror fiction) Those creatures which are undead; that is, dead yet still animate.

nemrtvý

those creatures which are dead but still animate


undead

en-noun

undead (plural undead or (rare) undeads)

"You will do me a service," the undead said to him.

Innocent VIII lent credibility to the actual existence of undeads, an action that perpetuated, and even stimulated, vampire hysteria.

1997, Carol Margaret Davison, Paul Simpson-Housley, Bram Stoker's Dracula: sucking through the century, 1897-1997:

(horror fiction) A creature that is undead; that is, dead but still animate.


tren

trenowy (adjective)
tren (nominative singular)
treny (nominative plural)
trenu (genitive singular)
trenów (genitive plural)
trenowi (dative singular)
trenom (dative plural)
tren (accusative singular)
treny (accusative plural)
trenem (instrumental singular)
trenami (instrumental plural)
trenie (locative singular)
trenach (locative plural)
trenie (singular vocative)
treny (plural vocative)

(poetry) threnody (poem of lamentation or mourning for a dead person; a dirge; an elegy)


avenger

From Middle English avengere; equivalent to avenge + -er.

an avenger of blood

intiqamçı

one who avenges or vindicates; as, an avenger of blood


haunted

en-adj

haunted (comparative more haunted, superlative most haunted or hauntedest)

more haunted (comparative)
most haunted (superlative)
hauntedest (superlative)

The hotel was haunted by a disembodied spirit.

Of a location, frequented by a ghost or ghosts.


stunner

March holstered his pistol, reached into his coat, and drew out his own neural stunner, shifting the weapon to his right hand.

2018, Jonathan Moeller, Silent Order: Omnibus One:

(science fiction) A pistol firing a beam capable of stunning an enemy.


kitsune

(Japanese mythology) A Japanese fox spirit, often but not exclusively female, said to have powers such as shape-shifting, and whose power is symbolized by increase in number of tails.


tanuki

Borrowed from Japanese 狸(たぬき) (tanuki, “raccoon dog”).

(Japanese mythology) A folkloric figure in the form of a tanuki, regarded as a shapeshifter and renowned for its enormous scrotum and testicles.


phase

en-verb

phase (third-person singular simple present phases, present participle phasing, simple past and past participle phased)

phases (present singular third-person)
phasing (participle present)
phased (participle past)
phased (past)

From New Latin phasis, from Ancient Greek φάσις (phásis, “an appearance”), from φάω (pháō, “to shine”); compare phantasm and see face.


lycanthropy

en-noun

lycanthropy (usually uncountable, plural lycanthropies)

From Ancient Greek λυκανθρωπία (lukanthrōpía), from λυκάνθρωπος (lukánthrōpos, “wolfman”). By surface analysis, lycanthrope + -y.

uder

(mythology) The state of being a lycanthrope (or werewolf), a person who can shapeshift between the form of a human being and a wolf, often said to happen involuntarily during a full moon; werewolfdom.


specter

From Middle French spectre, from Latin spectrum (“appearance, apparition”). Doublet of spectrum.

der

A specter haunted the cemetery at the old Vasquez manor.

Nevertheleſſe, they which ſhould ſee thoſe Iſles thus to moove in this manner, not knowing before that the ſame were naturall: they would entertaine many and diverſe apprehenſions in their fantaſie, & would imagine that they ſawe a thing very ſtrange and prodigious, and ſuch as did very neere approach to the nature of ſome Specter [translating spectre] and viſion.

1605, Peter de Loier [i.e., Pierre Le Loyer], translated by [Zachary Jones], “The many things being meerely Naturall are taken by the Sight or Hearing being deceived, for Specters and things prodigious”, in A Treatise of Specters or Straunge Sights, Visions and Apparitions Appearing Sensibly vnto Men. […], London: […] Val[entine] S[immes] for Mathew Lownes, →OCLC, folio 62, verso:

A ghostly apparition, a phantom. [from 17th c.]


magic wand

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-magic wand.wav

A wand, usually made of wood, that is used to perform magic.


mese

mesék (plural)
mese (nominative singular)
mesék (nominative plural)
mesét (accusative singular)
meséket (accusative plural)
mesének (dative singular)
meséknek (dative plural)
mesével (instrumental singular)
mesékkel (instrumental plural)
meséért (causal-final singular)
mesékért (causal-final plural)
mesévé (singular translative)
mesékké (plural translative)
meséig (singular terminative)
mesékig (plural terminative)
meseként (essive-formal singular)
mesékként (essive-formal plural)
mesében (inessive singular)
mesékben (inessive plural)
mesén (singular superessive)
meséken (plural superessive)
mesénél (adessive singular)
meséknél (adessive plural)
mesébe (illative singular)
mesékbe (illative plural)
mesére (singular sublative)
mesékre (plural sublative)
meséhez (allative singular)
mesékhez (allative plural)
meséből (elative singular)
mesékből (elative plural)
meséről (delative singular)
mesékről (delative plural)
mesétől (ablative singular)
meséktől (ablative plural)
meséé (possessed-single possessive predicative singular)
meséké (plural possessed-single possessive predicative)
mesééi (possessed-single possessive predicative singular)
mesékéi (plural possessed-single possessive predicative)
mesém (first-person possessed-single possessive singular)
meséim (first-person possessed-many possessive singular)
meséd (possessed-single possessive second-person singular)
meséid (possessed-many possessive second-person singular)
meséje (possessed-single possessive singular third-person)
meséi (possessed-many possessive singular third-person)
mesénk (first-person plural possessed-single possessive)
meséink (first-person plural possessed-many possessive)
mesétek (plural possessed-single possessive second-person)
meséitek (plural possessed-many possessive second-person)
meséjük (plural possessed-single possessive third-person)
meséik (plural possessed-many possessive third-person)

From Proto-Ugric *mańćɜ, *maćɜ (“tale; to tell (tale, story)”).


professor

→ Chickasaw: pofessa'

→ Fijian: parofesa

→ Hawaiian: polopeka

→ Hindi: प्रोफ़ेसर (profesar)

→ Malay: profesor

→ Niuean: palōfesa

→ Samoan: polofesa

→ Swahili: profesa

→ Tok Pisin: profesa

→ Tongan: palofesa

→ Urdu: پروفیسر (profesar)

Derived from Anglo-Norman proffessur, from Latin professor (“declarer, person who claims knowledge”), from the past participle stem of profiteor (“profess”).

Professor is what you become after teaching for twenty to thirty years.

2014 November 22, Michel Clasquin-Johnson, “What is the difference between a research professor and a professor”, in Quora:

The most senior rank for an academic at a university or similar institution.

(US, Philippines, informal) A teacher or faculty member at a college or university regardless of formal rank.

professor

higher ranking for a teacher or faculty member at a college or university

dosent

teacher or faculty member at a college or university, regardless of formal rank

As for Religion, I have not said, much lesse meant irreverently of it, or of the Professors thereof.

1660, William Petty, Reflections upon some Persons and Things in Ireland, p. 170/1:

This period in which Abraham the Jew lived was one in which Magic was almost universally believed in, and in which its Professors were held in honour;

1897, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers (transl.) The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, Introduction, p. v

(archaic) One who professes something, such as a religious doctrine.

The puppeteer who performs a Punch and Judy show; a Punchman.


geek

Started as carnival slang, likely from the British dialectal term geck (“a fool, dupe, simpleton”) (1510s), apparently from Dutch gek or Low German geck, from an imitative verb found in North Sea Germanic and Scandinavian meaning "to croak, cackle," and also "to mock, cheat" (Dutch gekken, German gecken, Danish gække, Norwegian gakke, Swedish gäcka). The root still survives in the Dutch adjective noun gek (“crazy" or "crazy person”). Compare gink and also Old Norse gikkr (“a pert, rude person; jester; fool”).

cog

I was a complete computer geek in high school, but I get out a lot more now.

Most famous actors are really theater geeks at heart.

(colloquial) A person who is intensely interested in a particular field or hobby and often having limited or nonstandard social skills. Often used with an attributive noun.

geek

person intensely interested in a particular field or hobby


bookworm

Any of various insects that infest books.

“This,” remarked the sedate observer beside me, “is a bookworm,—one of those men who are born to gnaw dead thoughts. His clothes, you see, are covered with the dust of libraries.

1846, Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Earth's Holocaust”, in Mosses from an Old Manse:


metaverse

From meta- + (uni)verse. Analyzable as meta- + -verse. In the sci-fi sense coined by American science fiction writer Neal Stephenson in 1992.

coin

It is closer, in other words, to another science fiction vision, the “metaverse” Neal Stephenson envisioned in his 1992 Snow Crash. That particular moniker has not caught on, but many of Stephenson's ideas about what the on-line world can look like are driving a new generation of entrepreneurs to try to match it.

1997 July 7, Zina Moukheiber, “The geeks have inherited the earth”, in Forbes, →ISSN, pages 354–356:

But now, with 350 million players who are used to hanging out in a vibrant, ridiculous online world filled with dancing bananas and cartoon skirmishes, Party Royale could be the experience that finally realises the idea of a playful, mass participation online metaverse.

2020 May 15, Keith Stuart, “Fortnite Party Royale is the most fun you can have in the metaverse”, in The Guardian:

Video games like Roblox and Fortnite and Animal Crossing: New Horizons, in which players can build their own worlds, have metaverse tendencies, as does most social media. If you own a non-fungible token or even just some crypto, you’re part of the metaversal experience. Virtual and augmented reality are, at a minimum, metaverse adjacent.

2021 July 10, John Herrman, Kellen Browning, “Are We in the Metaverse Yet?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

In the world of Snow Crash, the metaverse is not viewed as particularly cool—it is necessary, because the real world has become so unbearable.

2021 July 30, Brian Merchant, “The Metaverse Has Always Been a Dystopian Idea”, in VICE:

The metaverse is the convergence of two ideas that have been around for many years: virtual reality and a digital second life.

2022 January 18, Brian X. Chen, “What’s All the Hype About the Metaverse?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(science fiction, Internet) A hypothetical future (counterpart or continuation of the) Internet, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and physically persistent virtual space.


mucha

pl-noun

mucha f (diminutive muszka, augmentative muszysko, related adjective muszy)

muszka (diminutive)
muszysko (augmentative)
muszy (adjective)
mucha (nominative singular)
muchy (nominative plural)
muchy (genitive singular)
much (genitive plural)
musze (dative singular)
muchom (dative plural)
muchę (accusative singular)
muchy (accusative plural)
muchą (instrumental singular)
muchami (instrumental plural)
musze (locative singular)
muchach (locative plural)
mucho (singular vocative)
muchy (plural vocative)


mag

mag (nominative singular)
magowie (nominative plural)
magi (derogatory nominative plural)
maga (genitive singular)
magów (genitive plural)
magowi (dative singular)
magom (dative plural)
maga (accusative singular)
magów (accusative plural)
magiem (instrumental singular)
magami (instrumental plural)
magu (locative singular)
magach (locative plural)
magu (singular vocative)
magowie (plural vocative)
magi (derogatory plural vocative)

(folklore, fantasy) magician, wizard, sorcerer, conjurer, mage, magus (person who plays with or practices allegedly supernatural magic)


mathematician

From Middle English mathematicion, from Middle French mathematicien, from mathematique f sg (“mathematics”) (from Latin mathēmatica, feminine of mathēmaticus, from Ancient Greek μαθηματικός (mathēmatikós, “fond of learning”), from μάθημα (máthēma, “knowledge, learning”) + -ικός (-ikós)) + Middle French -ien (from Latin -iānus). Displaced native Old English rīmcræftiga. By surface analysis, mathematic + -ian.

der

I suspect that in their hearts most working mathematicians are Platonists, in that they take it as a matter of unassailable if unprovable fact that mathematical reality stands apart from the world, and is at least as real as the world, and possibly gives shape to the world, as Plato suggested. Most mathematicians would probably agree that the ratio of the circle to its diameter exists brilliantly in the nature beyond nature, and would exist even if the human mind was not aware of it, and might exist even if God had not bothered to create it.

1992 March 2, Richard Preston, “The Mountains of Pi”, in The New Yorker:

An expert on mathematics; someone who studies mathematics.


autobiography

en-noun

autobiography (countable and uncountable, plural autobiographies)

Autobiography […] inevitably consists mainly of extinctions of the truth, shirkings of the truth, partial revealments of the truth, with hardly an instance of plain straight truth […]

1904, Mark Twain, “To W. D. Howells, in New York: Villa di Quarto, Florence, March 14, ’04”, in Albert Bigelow Paine, editor, Mark Twain's Letters, volume 2, published 1917, page 751:

Here I was interrupted, as I'm so often interrupted when giving my views on the Yeoman's Wedding Song, by her saying that she was dying to hear all about it but would rather wait till she could get it in my autobiography.

1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter XI:

(countable) A self-written biography; the story of one's own life.


ET

ET (countable and uncountable, plural ETs)

(uncountable) Initialism of Eastern Time (-5 hours to GMT).


ET

(ufology) Abbreviation of extraterrestre.


godfather

From Middle English godfader, from Old English godfæder (“godfather”), equivalent to god- + father. Cognate with Old Saxon godfadar (“godfather”), Middle Dutch godvader (“godfather”), Danish gudfader, gudfar (“godfather”), Swedish gudfader, gudfar (“godfather”), Icelandic guðfaðir (“godfather”).

A small post which is used in repairing a fence. For instance attached to and supporting an existing broken fence post.


Brer Rabbit

Mr. Smith, the Brer Rabbit of House of Commons Leaders, "lay low and said nuffin."

1892, Henry Lucy, A Diary of the Salisbury Parliament, 1886-1892, page 34:

He was the "Br'er Rabbit" of politics — he lay low so that the hunters of the other side could not see him to point their guns at him.

1914, William Edgar Sackett, Modern Battles of Politics, volume 2, page 308:

It was the combination of a super-smooth shooting dog of radiant style and talent, and a Br'er Rabbit handler that stayed one bounce ahead of the fox.

2006, Mike Gaddis, Zip Zap, →ISBN, page 180:

Any trickster, or unusually quick and clever, figure.


Count Dracula

The fictional vampire in the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker.

काउंट ड्रॅक्यूला

kāuṇṭa ḍrĕkyūlā


Big Brother

Big Brother
George Orwell
Nineteen Eighty-Four

After the nominal leader of Oceania in George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, at the height of public concern over the emergence of a Big Brother society, privacy activism shared features in common with some of the hard-line environmental campaigns of the 1990s.

1999, Rebecca A. Grant, Colin John Bennett, Visions of privacy: policy choices for the digital age, page 244

When the agencies of the federal government spied on the political activities of US citizens, they moved into the grey area between concern with national security and a Big Brother system that violated constitutional protections.

2003, Rodney Carlisle, Rodney P. Carlisle, Complete idiot's guide to spies and espionage, page 195

Any omnipresent figurehead representing oppressive control

老大哥

a figurehead representing oppressive control


giant

/ˈd͡ʒʌɪ.ənt/

[ˈd͡ʒəɪ̯(ə)nt]

From Middle English geaunt, geant, from Old French geant, gaiant (Modern French géant) from Vulgar Latin *gagās, gagant-, from Latin gigās, gigant-, from Ancient Greek γίγας (gígas, “giant”) Cognate to giga- (“1,000,000,000”). Displaced native Old English ent. Compare Modern English ent (“giant tree-man”).

Any of the gigantes, the race of giants in the Greek mythology.

(mythology, fantasy) Specifically:
A jotun.

(astronomy) A star that is considerably more luminous than a main sequence star of the same temperature (e.g. red giant, blue giant).


seaman

From Middle English seeman, seman, from Old English sǣmann. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Seemon (“seaman, sailor”), West Frisian seeman (“seaman, sailor”), Dutch zeeman (“seaman, sailor”), German Low German Seemann (“seaman, sailor”), German Seemann (“seaman, sailor”), Swedish sjöman (“seaman, sailor”), Norwegian sjømann (“seaman, sailor”). Equivalent to sea + -man.

cog

petty officer third class
petty officer third class

(US, Navy) An enlisted rate in the United States Navy and United States Coast Guard, ranking below petty officer third class and above seaman apprentice.


biography

en-noun

biography (countable and uncountable, plural biographies)

/baɪˈɒɡɹəfi/

/baɪˈɑɡɹəfi/

From New Latin biographia, formed from Ancient Greek βίος (bíos, “life”) + γράφω (gráphō, “write”).

There are many biographies of Benjamin Franklin.

A person's life story, especially one published.


kraken

Borrowed from Norwegian kraken (Bokmål entry; Nynorsk entry), definite singular of krake (“sea monster”) (Bokmål entry; Nynorsk entry), both from Old Norse kraki (“sea monster”, literally “something twisted”), from Proto-Germanic *krankaz (“crooked”).


kraken

kraken (nominative singular)
krakena (genitive singular)
krakenowi (dative singular)
krakena (accusative singular)
krakenem (instrumental singular)
krakenie (locative singular)
krakenie (singular vocative)


Juliet

/ˈd͡ʒuːlɪɛt/

Borrowed from Italian Giulietta, diminutive of Giulia, from Latin Iūlia, feminine of Iūlius, a Roman family name. Cognate with French Juliette.

For never was a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii]:

One of the main characters of William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet.


Juliet

From English Juliet, from Italian Giulietta, diminutive form of Giulia (“Julia”), from Julius, a Roman family name.

one of the main characters of William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet


James Bond

Ian Fleming
James Bond
James Bond (ornithologist)

The fictional character was named after ornithologist James Bond (Ian Fleming was an avid birdwatcher).

He understood the threat. But the capability of the C.I.A.’s Directorate of Operations was far less than advertised. The Directorate of Operations would like people to think it’s a great James Bond operation, but for years it essentially assigned officers undercover as diplomats to attend cocktail parties.

A fictional British spy in the novels of Ian Fleming and the motion pictures based on these novels, famous for his suavity, ingenuity, ruthlessness and supply of gadgets.


James Bond

A secret agent of similar ability to the fictional James Bond.


puck

→ Danish: puck

→ German: Puck

→ Swedish: puck

From or influenced by Irish poc (“stroke in hurling, bag”). Compare poke (1861).

(computing) A pointing device with a crosshair.


present

en-verb

present (third-person singular simple present presents, present participle presenting, simple past and past participle presented)

presents (present singular third-person)
presenting (participle present)
presented (participle past)
presented (past)

From Middle English presenten, from Old French presenter, from Latin praesentāre (“to show”), from praesent-, praesens, present participle of praeesse (“be in front of”).

Sherlock’s gender performance itself remains unchanged, with the exception of the hormonal changes he goes through after presenting as an omega.

2018, Ninna Ilias, "Reimagining Sherlock Holmes: A Study in Gender Performativity", thesis submitted to Radboud University, page 59

People “present” their secondary genders during puberty, so girls and boys are raised without knowing if they will be alphas, betas, or omegas.

2019, Tessa Baron, "Just Go Find Yourself a Nice Alpha: Gender and Consent in Supernatural Fandom's Alpha/Beta/Omega Universe", thesis submitted to Oregon State University, page 17

Deans kräftige Statur und Größe kommen eher dem stereotypischen Körperbau eines Alphas nahe als dem eines Omegas, was die große Enttäuschung seines Vaters verursachte, der erwartete, dass er als Alpha präsentiert.

2020, Goldmann, Julia Elena, “Wie schreibt man Haus... Mpreg Fan Fiction und Konzepte von Körpern, Geschlecht und Familie [How to Write House… Mpreg Fan Fiction and Concepts of Bodies, Gender and Family]”, in Hausbacher, Eva, Herbst, Liesa, Ostwald, Julia, Thiele, Martina, editors, geschlecht_transkulturell: Aktuelle Forschungsperspektiven [gender_transcultural: current research perspectives], 1st edition, Wiesbaden: Springer VS, published 2020, →DOI, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 262:

Dean’s strong build and height come closer to the stereotypical build of an Alpha than to an Omega, which caused the huge disappointment for his father, who expected him to present as an Alpha.

(fandom slang) In omegaverse fiction, to have one's secondary sex (alpha, omega, or beta) become apparent, typically at puberty.


Alice

From Middle English Alice, from Old French Alys, Alice, from Old High German Adalheidis, proposed to derive from Proto-Germanic *aþalaz (“noble”) + *haiduz (“character”). Doublet of Adelaide.

af

"My name is Alice, but—"
"It's a stupid name enough!" Humpty Dumpty interrupted impatiently. "What does it mean?"
"Must a name mean something?" Alice asked doubtfully.
"Of course it must," Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh, "my name means the shape I am—and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost."

1871, Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There, Chapter 6:

She was heavenly to look at, and graceful, both in and out of water. She was a sculptress. She was christened 'Alice', but she used to deny that she was really an Alice. I agreed. Everybody agreed. Sometime in a dream maybe I will find out what her real name was.

1968, Kurt Vonnegut, Welcome to the Monkey House, Delacorte Press, page xiv:

A female given name from the Germanic languages popular in England since the Middle Ages.

At that point in my second visit to the Alice, I'd been there only a day.[…] they're doing Australia in two weeks, with a few days each for Sydney, the Alice and the Rock, Kakadu and Cairns.

2002, Sylvia Lawson, “Budgerigars, and Positions of Ignorance”, in How Simone de Beauvoir died in Australia: stories and essays, page 17:

In 1892 my Chinese grandfather lived in Alice.

2003, Janet Judy McIntyre-Mills, quoting Olive Veverbrants, Critical systemic praxis for social and environmental justice, page 27:

"Don't waste yer time in The Alice, get out and see the country — that's what yer 'ere for."

2004, Larry Habegger, Travelers' Tales Australia: True Stories, page 7:

(Australia, slang, often with "the") The city of Alice Springs, Australia.

Jim Wells County
Jim Wells County#English

A city, the county seat of Jim Wells County, Texas.


Alice

From English Alice, from Old French Alis, Alice, from Old High German Adalheidis, from adal (“noble”) + heit (“kind, sort”).


Dracula

Dracula
Order of the Dragon
Vlad II Dracul
Vlad the Impaler

From the name Vlad III Dracula (also known as Vlad Țepeș (“Vlad the Impaler”)), from the name of his father Vlad II Dracul, who was given the name Dracul by the Order of the Dragon. Dracul (literally “the Devil”) comes from the Romanian drac (“devil”), itself deriving from the Latin dracō (“dragon”).

(fiction) The fictional vampire in the novel of the same name by Bram Stoker.


Drache

de-proper noun

Drache m (proper noun, weak, genitive Drachen)

From Middle High German trache, from Old High German trahho, from Proto-West Germanic *drakō, borrowed from Latin dracō. The modern initial d- is influenced by the original Latin, reinforced by dialectal German forms.


yoink

Coined by writer George Meyer for the TV show The Simpsons; perhaps from yank, or imitative of the sound effect (a quick upward slide on a violin) that accompanies something being snatched in classic comedies.

Marge: But you look better, you don't sweat when you eat any more, and look – [holds up a wad of cash] You've saved more than a hundred dollars. I found it in your pants.
Homer: [snatches money] Yoink!

1993, “Duffless”, episode of the Simpsons [television]

Yoink! He snatched Granny Glee's frilly pink hat with his little feet.

2012, John Sazaklis, Candy Store Caper, →ISBN, page 24:

The way I've always done this stunt is to grab my partner and jump us over together. It's absolute hell on my knees. I lean toward Brando and raise my eyebrows. “Yoink.” “Definite yoink,” he replies, equally inspired.

2014, G. T. Almasi, Hammer of Angels: A Novel of Shadowstorm, →ISBN:

YOINK! Coach Pittman snatched the puck out of midair.

2015, Marty McKnight, Jim Nasium Is a Hockey Hazard, →ISBN, page 42:

2021 (November 13) "Olivia & Yunan" (Amphibia s3e7b) Yunan grabbing a crossbow
Ooh, ominous. After you, milady. Yoink!

(colloquial) Onomatopoeic, accompanying or describing a yank, swipe, or snatch.


orc

From Middle French orque, Italian orca, and their source, Latin orca (“type of whale”). Doublet of orca.

(archaic) Any of several large, ferocious sea creatures, now especially the killer whale.


orc

→ Catalan: orc

→ Czech: ork

→ Danish: ork

→ Dutch: ork

→ Estonian: örk

→ Finnish: örkki

→ French: orc

→ Georgian: ორკი (orḳi)

→ Greek: ορκ (ork)

→ Hungarian: ork

→ Icelandic: orki

→ Japanese: オーク (ōku)

→ Korean: 오크 (okeu)

→ Latvian: orks

→ Lithuanian: orkas

→ Marathi: ऑर्क (ŏrka)

→ Norwegian: ork, orc

→ Polish: ork

→ Portuguese: orc

→ Romanian: orc

→ Russian: орк (ork)

→ Serbo-Croatian: ork / орк

→ Swedish: ork

→ Ukrainian: орк (ork)

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
J. R. R. Tolkien
orc

Probably from Italian orco (“man-eating giant”); later revived by J. R. R. Tolkien, partly after Old English orc, which he took to mean "demon". Both are from Latin Orcus (“the underworld; the god Pluto”). Doublet of ogre and Orcus.
Sense 2 is a semantic loan from Ukrainian орк (ork, “evil monstrous humanoid creature; orc”) or Russian орк (ork), both from the English word and possibly under the influence of Russian у́рка (úrka, “criminal”, prison slang). Popularized in English in 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

m+

Who at one stroke didst pare away three heads from off the shoulders of an Orke, begotten by an Incubus.

1656, Samuel Holland, Don Zara del Fogo, I.1:

The chief exploit of the hero, Beowulf the Great, is the destruction of the two monsters Grendel and his mother; both like most of the evil beings in the old times, dwellers in the fens and the waters; and both, moreover, as some Christian bard has taken care to inform us, of "Cain's kin," as were also the eotens, and the elves, and the orcs (eótenas, and ylfe, and orcneas).

1834, "The National Fairy Mythology of England" in Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country, Vol. 10, p. 53

There was a flash like flame and the helm burst asunder. The orc fell with cloven head.

1954, JRR Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring:

(fantasy, mythology) A mythical evil monstrous humanoid creature, usually quite aggressive and often green.

Ukrainians themselves, including those on the right, preferred to call the events the 'Revolution of Dignity', depicted not in terms of ethnicity or class, but in simple civic black and white – a revolution of the people against Yanukovych's 'Mordor' and his 'Orcs'.

2015, Andrew Wilson, The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation, page 354:

And now we must watch the old world go up in flames, in the mad spectacle of Putin’s orcs descending upon Kyiv to execute his macabre plan.

2022 March 1, Bruno Maçães, “Europe’s Illusion of Peace Has Been Irrevocably Shattered”, in Time:

Plenty of Belarusian exiles have gone to Europe, but if you run West, then the Orcs [a Ukrainian slang term for "Russian soldiers"] will just follow you there. It's better to risk your life as a free person than to keep running.

2022 July 25, Michael Wasiura, “Belarusian Exiles Join Ukrainians in Taking Up Arms Against Russia”, in Newsweek, retrieved 2022-07-25:

(slang, derogatory) A Russian soldier or gangster.


orc

Unadapted borrowing from English orc. Doublet of ogro and orco.

(fantasy) orc (evil, monstrous humanoid creature)


Grim Reaper

/ˈɡɹɪm ˈɹiː.pə/

/ˈɡɹɪm ˈɹi.pɚ/

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Grim Reaper.wav

From grim + reaper, first attested 1847. The word grim previously had a stronger meaning ("fierce, angry, sinister") and had more of an association with ghostliness (compare Old English grima (“specter, apparition”), English grim (n.)). The association between grim and death dates back to at least the late 16th century (the line "grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image" appears in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew around 1590). The reaper element comes from the personification of Death as a reaper (harvester) of souls in connection to to the popular depiction of Death wielding a scythe. The symbol of the scythe itself comes from a partially unintentional conflation of Cronus (the Titan associated with the harvest, said to have used his scythe to castrate his father Uranus) and Chronos (the personification of Father Time).

cog

Her husband was dead, and Werper fancied that he could replace in the girl’s heart the position which had been vacated by the act of the grim reaper.

1916, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar:

"Golly, I feel like the devil!" muttered Anthony dispassionately. Relaxing, he tumbled back upon his pillow. "Bring on your grim reaper!"

1922, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, book 2, page 220:

Mary, will you be mine? Shall we go round together? Will you fix up a match with me on the links of life which shall end only when the Grim Reaper lays us both a stymie?

1922, P. G. Wodehouse, The Clicking of Cuthbert:

On the one hand, we had a scenario where, effectively, the American admiral just went "You know what, all the destroyers attack", at which point they mowed through the Japanese destroyers like a Grim Reaper through a harvest of very, very dead gorn, especially with the Brooklyns in support.

2019 March 6, Drachinifel, 25:58 from the start, in The Battle of Samar (Alternate History) - Bring on the Battleships!, archived from the original on 2022-07-04:

But that is the likely outcome if the railway waits for Treasury's grim reaper to come a-calling.

2021 January 13, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Make freight an equal priority”, in Rail, page 3:

A personification of Death as an old man, or a skeleton, carrying a scythe, taking souls to the afterlife.

Chronos
Cronus
The Taming of the Shrew
Uranus_(mythology)

стару́ха с косо́й f (starúxa s kosój, literally “old woman with scythe”)


Force

Coined by American filmmaker George Lucas

coin

(Star Wars) force (always proceeded with la), the invisible omnipresent energy that the Jedi and the Sith wield in Star Wars


Romeo

From Italian Romeo, from Ancient Greek Ῥωμαῖος (Rhōmaîos, “Roman”).

der

(fiction) One of the main characters of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: the ardent lover of Juliet.


Romeo

Romeo (nominative singular)
Romeowie (nominative plural)
Romea (genitive singular)
Romeów (genitive plural)
Romeowi (dative singular)
Romeom (dative plural)
Romea (accusative singular)
Romeów (accusative plural)
Romeem (instrumental singular)
Romeami (instrumental plural)
Romeo (locative singular)
Romeach (locative plural)
Romeo (singular vocative)
Romeowie (plural vocative)

(uncountable) Romeo (one of the main characters of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: the ardent lover of Juliet)


Medusa

Borrowed from Ancient Greek Μέδουσα (Médousa), from μέδω (médō, “rule over”).


Tigger

From the initials of The Independent Group + -er.

Nor is there any sign that Corbyn is at present willing to make any overtures to the eight Tiggers and those who may be contemplating joining them.

2019 February 25, John Crace, “The Independent Group may have secured another Tory government. That's not an accident”, in British GQ:

For one Tigger in particular, Chuka Umunna, 2019 was quite a rollercoaster. Over the course of the year, he was an MP for Labour, an MP for The Independent Group, an MP for the Lib Dems, and then an MP for no one.

2020 January 31, Michael Deacon, “The 20 funniest moments of Brexit”, in The Telegraph:

In fact, Joan Ryan MP (the first Labour MP to jump ship to the Tiggers/Change UK) said, after I'd confessed to her about the dog shampoo, ‘Well, I think your coat looks very nice.’

2020 March 19, Rachel Johnson, Rake's Progress: My Political Midlife Crisis, →ISBN:

(informal, UK politics, historical) A member of The Independent Group for Change, a pro-European British political party that existed in 2019.


Curved single quotation marks and apostrophes

Straight single quotation mark and apostrophe

I hope D—ds—y will look to theſe literal Errors, he being the only one of the Trade I can venture to truſt.

1748, a Lady, in a Letter to her Friend in the Country, A Free Comment on the Late Mr. W—g—n’s Apology for His Conduct; Which Clears Up the Obscurities of That Celebrated Posthumous Work, and Dissipates the Clouds in Which the Author Has Thought Proper to Envelope His Meaning (in English), London: […] W. Webb, page 15:

(dated, fiction) Used to replace part or all of a person's name, a place name, a date, or so forth.


ingenue

Borrowed from French ingénue, the feminine form of ingénu (“guileless”), originally from the Latin ingenuus (“ingenuous”).

She was seen as a gifted pop-country ingenue when, in a now infamous moment, Kanye West interrupted Swift onstage at the 2009 VMAs while she was accepting an award. The incident set in motion a chain of events that would shape the next decade of both artists’ lives.

2023 December 6, Sam Lansky, “Person of Year 2023 : Taylor Swift”, in Time:

An innocent, unsophisticated, naïve, wholesome girl or young woman.


brownie

en-noun

brownie (countable and uncountable, plural brownies)

→ Belarusian: бра́ўні (bráŭni)

→ Chinese: 布朗尼 (bùlǎngní)

→ French: brownie

→ German: Brownie

→ Hungarian: brownie

→ Irish: donnóg (calque)

→ Italian: brownie

→ Japanese: ブラウニー (buraunī)

→ Lithuanian: braunis

→ Norwegian Nynorsk: brownie

→ Polish: brownie

→ Portuguese: brownie

→ Russian: бра́уни (bráuni)

→ Kazakh: брауни (brauni)

→ Spanish: brownie

→ Thai: บราวนี (bpraao-níi)

→ Turkish: brownie, browni, brovni

→ Welsh: browni

From brown + -ie (diminutive suffix). In folkloric sense, originally Scots.

It was an amusing sight to see the three of us, each with a huge hunch of “browny” (bread sweetened with brown sugar and currants) in one hand, and a lump of ice in the other, for there was no water within reach.

1883, James Edge Partington, “A Race Meeting in the Bush—A Graphic Though Ungallant Picture—Life on an Australian Stock Farm—[…]” (chapter VII), in Random Rot. A Journal of Three Years’ Wanderings about the World., Altrincham: […] [T]he Guardian Office, page 312:

They rode quietly along to the stockman’s hut, gave their message, rested their horses for half-an-hour, and had some tea without milk, and a piece of cake made of flour, fat, and sugar, commonly known as [“]browny.”

1890, E[lphinstone] Davenport Cleland, “‘The Shaking’ Mallee Tree”, in The White Kangaroo. A Tale of Colonial Life. Founded on Fact., London: Wells Gardner, Darton, & Co., […], page 57:

Four o’clock, “Smoke O!” again, and more tea and “brownie” (a bread sweetened with sugar and currants).

1890 September 20, M. Hirst Browne, “Shearing-Time in the Riverine”, in The Argus, number 13,804, Melbourne, Vic., page 13, column 6:

Roast mutton and brownie are given us to eat, and with a billy of tea beside us we are comfortable enough, prisoners and all.

1892, Gilbert Parker, “Glimpses of Australian Life: In Time of Drought”, in Round the Compass in Australia, Melbourne, Vic., […]: E[dward] W[illiam] Cole, […], part I, page 36:

Pile of “brownie” on the bare black boards at the end of the table.

1900, Henry Lawson, “‘A Rough Shed’”, in On the Track, Sydney, N.S.W.: Angus and Robertson, […], page 129:

Undoubtedly our Christmas dinner was a huge success—from a black fellow’s point of view it was the most sensible thing we Whites had ever organised; for half the Vealer, another huge pudding, several yards of sweet currant “brownie,” a new pipe apiece, and a few pounds of tobacco had found their way to the “humpy”; […]

[1908], Jeannie Gunn, chapter XXIII, in We of the Never-Never, London: Hutchinson & Co. […], page 251:

As he spoke I tossed some tea into a billy-can of boiling water and as we sipped at our pannikin of tea and ate at a slice of brownie, old Mirawong told me the story of Manbuk and the seven sisters of the heavens.

1959, W[illiam] E[dward] (Bill) Harney, “Of crocodiles and stars”, in Tales from the Aborigines, London: Robert Hale Limited, […], part one (Tales of Fantasy), page 40:

However, a couple of days later, I was passing near Old Jim’s camp and he called us over for a mug of tea and a hunk of brownie.

1959, H[arold] P[ercival] ‘Duke’ Tritton, Time Means Tucker, Arncliffe, N.S.W.: Akron Press, published 1984, →ISBN, pages 58–59:

Edward E[llis] Morris
w:Edward Ellis Morris

Macmillan and Co. Limited
w:Macmillan Publishers

Benjamin E[li] Smith
w:Benjamin Eli Smith

The Century Dictionary
w:Century Dictionary

C[harles] T[albut] Onions
w:Charles Talbut Onions

(uncountable, cooking, Australia and New Zealand) A sweet bread with brown sugar and currants.

Thus, offer Brownie a piece of bread, a cup of drink, or a new coat and hood, and he flouted at it, and perhaps, in his huff, quitted the place for ever ; but leave a nice bowl of cream, and some fresh honeycomb, in a snug private corner, and they soon disappeared, though Brownie, it was to be supposed, never knew any thing of them.

1828, Thomas Keightley, Fairy Mythology, volume II, page 169:

"Oh, auntie, do you know what Stine says?" cried a little brown-eyed beauty; "she says I shall go with her into the hayloft to-night and give the brownie his Christmas porridge."

1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 5:

1908, Dinah Craik, The Adventures of A Brownie:

Stories were told of a brownie riding horseback to fetch the midwife at childbirth or helping his master to win at checkers.

1985, The Encyclopedia Americana, volume 1, page 636:

There are no brownies in my house, though. I know because there's always a pile of dishes in the sink.

2004, Justin Hocking, Jeffrey Knutson, Jared Jacang Maher, editors, Life and Limb: Skateboarders Write from the Deep End, page 37:

(folklore) A mythical creature, a helpful elf who would secretly do people's housework for them.

He rose and jingled in his pockets for change and drew out two brownies. He went and set one on each of Monroe’s eyes[.]

1997, Charles Frazier, chapter 2, in Cold Mountain, London: Hodder and Stoughton, page 36:

A copper coin, brown in colour; a penny, halfpenny, or cent.

Alternative letter-case form of Brownie (“a girl in the first level of Girl Guides (US: Girl Scouts)”).

Brownie

(Australia, New Zealand, colloquial) A tall, long-necked beer bottle, made from brown coloured glass.


Shakespearean

en-adj

Shakespearean (comparative more Shakespearean, superlative most Shakespearean)

more Shakespearean (comparative)
most Shakespearean (superlative)

Derivative of Shakespeare's works or authorship.


Cinderella

/ˌsɪndəˈɹɛlə/

From cinder + -ella, as in little cinder girl. Compare French Cendrillon.

A popular fairy tale embodying a classic folk tale myth-element of unjust oppression and triumphant reward.

The girls look like Southern belles or Cinderellas. The prom’s theme is Cinderellian: “Until Midnight.” Little, clear slippers sit on the 30 cloth- and candle-covered tables on the tarp-covered gymnasium floor.

1988 May 16, Melissa Merlie, “Dancing the night away”, in Chillicothe Gazette, volume 189, number 39, Chillicothe, Ohio, page 1B, column 2:

Womanly duties, as Joan thought of them, were fine for girls who imagined themselves as Cinderellas or Sleeping Beauties, good girls rewarded for menial housework and, in the case of Sleeping Beauty, a passivity so profound it was deaf, dumb, blind, and comatose.

2014, Kathryn Harrison, Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured, Doubleday, →ISBN:

All the miniature Cinderellas, Belles, and Ariels who fill the streets every Halloween are essentially paying homage to characters that will slowly and inevitably chip away at their sense of worth in years to come.

2018, Jen Kim, Love and…: Bad Boys, “The One” & Other Fun Ways to Sabotage Your Relationship, Skyhorse Publishing, →ISBN:

The main character in this story, a mistreated and impoverished girl.

சின்டெரெல்லா என்னும் கதையில் வரும் நாயகி

gurtimpunōcukōni oka vyakti yokka lēka vastuvuyokka prajña lēka andaṁ

గుర్తింపునోచుకోని ఒక వ్యక్తి యొక్క లేక వస్తువుయొక్క ప్రజ్ఞ లేక అందం


übermensch

Untermensch

antonym(s) of “figure in Nietzschean philosophy”

Unadapted borrowing from German Übermensch.

ubor

What does he mean when he speaks of the value of one type of man as greater than that of another? Nietzsche himself has remarked elsewhere that one can never too carefully consider the question “value for what?” And in these terms one might try to explain what he says about the value of certain men. Perhaps he means that the contribution they make to life in general — by their optimism and fearlessness for instance — makes them valuable to us all. Or perhaps he is judging their value by the contribution they make to the future. Are they not a bridge to the superior man who may come in the future — to the Übermensch? Neither suggestion tells the whole story, and the second simply shifts the problem. If the “Overman” or “Superman” is the one who gives some men value, this must be because he has value himself.

1973, Philippa Foot, “Nietzsche: The Revaluation of Values”, in Robert C. Solomon, Garden City, New York, editors, Nietzsche: A Collection of Critical Essays, Anchor Books, →ISBN, pages 162–163:

(in Nietzschean philosophy) An overman (“higher” man) who has overcome (transcended) his (mere) humanity. (There is no consensus regarding the exact nature of the figure of the übermensch in Nietzsche’s philosophy.)

(Nazism and white supremacy) A member of the proposed Aryan super race.


zombie

First attested in 1871.
From a Bantu language. Compare Kongo nzambi (“god”), zumbi (“fetish”), and Kimbundu nzumbi (“ghost”) (see Portuguese zumbi), and Caribbean folklore's jumbee (“a spirit or demon”).
Origin from Spanish sombra (“shadow, phantom”) has also been suggested.
May have come through Louisiana Creole [Term?]. See also French zombi (1832).

Betsy Connell: I don't know about zombies, doctor. Just what is a zombie? / Dr. Maxwell: A ghost. A living dead. It's also a drink.

1943, Curt Siodmak, Ardel Wray, I Walked with a Zombie (motion picture):

The zombies were having fun
The party had just begun
The guests included Wolf-Man, Dracula, and his son.

1962, “Monster Mash”, Bobby "Boris" Pickett and Lenny Capizzi (lyrics), performed by Bobby (Boris) Pickett and The Crypt-Kickers:

Ashley: Dad passed on a few years back. He's probably still watching, though.
Shepard: He's not a zombie, is he?

2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: SSV Normandy:

The zombies first show up 20 minutes in, after Melanie volunteers herself as the next child to mysteriously disappear in the middle of the night. That’s when we learn that Melanie and her classmates are all “hungries,” or people infected with a toxic fungus that turns them into mindless flesh-eating animals.

2017 February 23, Katie Rife, “The Girl With All The Gifts tries to put a fresh spin on overripe zombie clichés”, in The Onion AV Club:

(voodoo, horror) A person, usually undead, animated by unnatural forces (such as magic), with no soul or will of his or her own.

An information worker who has signed a nondisclosure agreement.

She takes the taxi to the good hotel / Bon marché as far as she can tell / She drinks the zombie from the cocoa shell

1976, Walter Becker, Donald Fagen (lyrics and music), “Haitian Divorce”, in The Royal Scam, performed by Steely Dan:

The maitre d’ introduced us and I had a zombie with him. Those zombies are wicked.
[…]
I watched Mario and drank zombies out of a thermos.

1976, Harvard Advocate CX:ii, pages 8 and 380

1944, "Time for Decision," Time (US edition), 6 Nov.,
Had the time come to order Canada's home defense draftees—some 70,000 zombies idling at home—to battle overseas?

(Canada, historical, derogatory) A conscripted member of the Canadian military during World War II who was assigned to home defence rather than to combat in Europe.

Traveling in a fried-out Kombi / On a hippie trail, head full of zombie

1980, Colin Hay, Ron Strykert (lyrics and music), “Down Under”, performed by Men at Work:

(Australia, slang) Marijuana, or similar drugs.


zombie

Unadapted borrowing from English zombie.

(fiction) zombie (deceased person who becomes reanimate to attack the living)


קווידיץ׳

he-noun

קְווִידִיץ׳ • (kwidich) m

קְווִידִיץ׳ (canonical)
kwidich (romanization)


הוגוורטס

he-proper noun

הוֹגווֹרטְס • (Hogworts) m

הוֹגווֹרטְס (canonical)
Hogworts (romanization)


unobtanium

en-noun

unobtanium (countable and uncountable, plural unobtaniums)

Thus the invention of high temperature fuels will enable us to consider cores which are radiation cooled; such cores would be surrounded by large tanks (cooled by water) which in turn would be penetrated by beam holes. The beam holes themselves would probably have to be made of "unobtanium". (This "unobtanium" is a word coined at Atomics International to describe the material needed to make reactor projects feasible.) In between the radiation cooled reactors and the water cooled reactors is a regime suitable for liquid metal (including boiling liquid) cooled reactors. Once again "unobtanium" is needed.

1962, Charles N. Kelber, “Research Reactors”, in Earl W. Phelan, editor, Current Trends in Nuclear Power: A Symposium Sponsored by the University of Arizona in Cooperation with Argonne National Laboratory: Tucson, Arizona, February 26 – March 12, 1962, Argonne, Ill.: Argonne National Laboratory, →OCLC, page 17, column 2:

As early as 1969, during the initial Phase A studies, Lockheed had taken the initiative in proposing a two-stage fully-reusable design with both stages built of aluminum and using silica tiles for thermal protection. [...] Though that company indeed was in the forefront in developing such tiles, they were items for laboratory research. A design that specified their use had no more intrinsic credibility than one that proposed to use the miracle metals Unobtanium and Wishalloy.

1999, T[homas] A. Heppenheimer, “A Shuttle to Fit the Budget”, in The Space Shuttle Decision: NASA’s Search for a Reusable Space Vehicle (The NASA History Series; NASA SP-4221), Washington, D.C.: Office of Policy and Plans, NASA History Office, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, →OCLC, page 331:

It was this blend of genuine, authentic Bentley parts with his recreations of the unobtanium bits that had Patrick thinking that this ruse would actually work.

2011, Kevin Gosselin, chapter 27, in Hunt for the Blower Bentley, London: MX Publishing, →ISBN:

We might recognize, here, the blind pursuit of our own unobtaniums and the ways in which our ancestors forged ahead without care for the consequences of their actions to native peoples or to their environs.

2012, Ellen Grabiner, “Did You See That?”, in Donald E. Palumbo, C. W. Sullivan III, editors, I See You: The Shifting Paradigms of James Cameron’s Avatar (Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy; 34), Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, →ISBN, page 22:

[D]oes our device require any technologies that we're not likely to be able to develop, buy, or otherwise obtain? This unobtainable content is sometimes called unobtanium, and can take various forms: [...] Things that exist, but don't exist for us. If Acer needs a beautiful custom 15″ LCD panel that costs less than $50, they can get it, because they'll buy millions and millions of them. But for the vast majority of us, asking an LCD panel vendor for such a thing will yield little more than a chuckle.

2015 August 10, Alan Cohen, “Preliminary Planning: Can This be a Success?”, in Mike Loukides, Meghan Blanchette, editors, Prototype to Product: A Practical Guide for Getting to Market, Sebastopol, Calif.: O’Reilly Media, →ISBN, page 110:

People who think about space end up thinking about bullshit like Star Wars and Star Trek. [...] They have to invent unobtaniums, magic crystals that, for some reason, can't just be printed out by their transporter beams, or there's no story.

2017 April, Cory Doctorow, edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Walkaway: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Tor Books, →ISBN, section V, pages 186–187:


grip

Gripen


ala

Ala je bilo lijepo!

Ala lažeš!

(used for emphasis, or as an intensifier) expression of awe, surprise, dismay, etc.


ala

sh-noun

ála or àla or ȁla f (Cyrillic spelling а́ла or а̀ла or а̏ла)

ála (canonical)
àla (canonical)
ȁla (canonical feminine)
а́ла (Cyrillic)
а̀ла (Cyrillic)
а̏ла (Cyrillic)

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *xala, unless borrowed from Ottoman Turkish آلا (ala, “spotted, variegated”), euphemistic for a snake.

bor

dragon, type of mythical creature similar to dragon


flapper

In this case, slide the collar of the flapper over the overflow tube until it seats against the bottom of the flush valve.

2004, David Day, Albert Jackson, Popular Mechanics Complete Home How-to, page 356:


fen

From fan, by analogy with men as the plural of man.

Sad to relate, some of the European delegates were probably insurgents rather than true fen. […] But the Europeans could be counted on to take the long view, and many of them would probably turn out to be real fen and fenne after all.

1951 May 21, Winthrop Sargeant, “Through the Interstellar Looking Glass”, in Life, volume 30, number 21, page 127:

So I’m glad the attached hotel block is entirely reserved for disabled fen! Traveling on mass transit is tiring even when everything’s up to code.

2016 September 3, lurkertype, “Worldcon 75 Chair Responds”, in File 770, Comments:

(fandom slang) a plural of fan used by enthusiasts of science fiction, fantasy, and anime, partly from whimsy and partly to distinguish themselves from fans of sport, etc.


狒々

狒々 (canonical)
狒々 (canonical)
hihi (romanization)

(Japanese mythology, folklore) a hihi (Japanese monkey-like yokai)


foil

en-noun

foil (countable and uncountable, plural foils)

From Middle English foyle, from Middle French fueille, from Old French fueille (“plant leaf”), from Late Latin folia, the plural of folium, mistaken as a singular feminine.
The literary sense is from the practice of backing a gem with metal foil to make it shine more brilliantly.
Doublet of folio and folium, distantly also with phyllo and phyllon.

As Puss comes to realize his legendary status is not a substitute for interpersonal connection, his interactions with Kitty and the therapy dog start to take on a surprising amount of weight, while Goldilocks serves as a well-realized foil who has more in common with Puss that is at first apparent.

2022 December 20, Leigh Monson, “Puss In Boots: The Last Wish review: Antonio Banderas leads the best film yet in the Shrek franchise”, in AV Club:

(authorship, figuratively) In literature, theatre/theater, etc., a character who helps emphasize the traits of the main character and who usually acts as an opponent or antagonist, but can also serve as the sidekick of the protagonist.

contrastfiguur

character who helps emphasise the traits of the main character

As she a black silk cap on him begun / To set, for foil of his milk-white to serve.

a. 1587, Philippe Sidnei [i.e., Philip Sidney], “(please specify the folio)”, in [Fulke Greville; Matthew Gwinne; John Florio], editors, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia [The New Arcadia], London: […] [John Windet] for William Ponsonbie, published 1590, →OCLC:

1725-1726, William Broome, The Odyssey
Hector has also a foil to set regard

(figuratively) Anything that acts by contrast to emphasise the characteristics of something.

baggrund

anything that acts to emphasise the characteristics of something

I personally would collect all the foils from Base Set before this one, but the market is what the market is.

2016, Pojo's Unofficial Big Book of Pokémon, Triumph Books:

A premium trading card with a glossy finish.


đũa

head

đũa • (箸, 筷, 杜, 𥮊)

vi-noun

(classifier chiếc, cây) đũa • (箸, 筷, 杜, 𥮊)

chiếc (classifier)
cây (classifier)
箸 (CJK)
筷 (CJK)
杜 (CJK)
𥮊 (CJK)

Non-Sino-Vietnamese reading of Chinese 箸 (“chopstick”, SV: trợ).

der

SV: <i class="Latn mention" lang="vi">trợ</i>

đũa cả

large flat chopstick used to serve rice from a pot

(by extension, folklore, fantasy) a wand


realm

From Middle English rewme, realme, reaume, from Old French reaume, realme (“kingdom”), of unclear origins. A postulated *rēgālimen (“domain, kingdom”), Late Latin or Vulgar Latin cross of regimen with rēgālis is usually cited.

And, of this island realm, he and his companion were the undisputed sovereigns.

1874, Horatio Alger, “Chapter XXXI”, in Brave and Bold:

1913, Leslie Alexander Toke, Catholic Encyclopedia, "St. Dunstan",
Then seeing his life was threatened he fled the realm and crossed over to Flanders, […]

(formal or law) A territory or state, as ruled by a specific power, especially by a king.

(fantasy, roleplaying games) An otherworldly dimension or domain — magical, ethereal, or otherwise — usually ruled or created by a mystical character.


狒狒

/feɪ̯⁵¹⁻⁵³ feɪ̯⁵¹/

/feɪ̯⁵¹ feɪ̯¹/

/fɐt̚⁵ fɐt̚⁵/

/fɐi̯²² fɐi̯²²/

/fɐi̯³³ fɐi̯³³/

/feɪ̯⁵¹⁻⁵³ feɪ̯⁵¹/

/feɪ̯⁵¹ feɪ̯¹/

/fɐt̚⁵ fɐt̚⁵/

/fɐi̯²² fɐi̯²²/

/fɐi̯³³ fɐi̯³³/

(archaic, Chinese mythology) name of a monster mentioned in the Erya (爾雅)


shade

en-noun

shade (countable and uncountable, plural shades)

From Middle English schade, from Old English sċeadu, sċadu (“shadow; shade”), from Proto-West Germanic *skadu, from Proto-Germanic *skadwaz (“shadow; shade”). More at shadow.

inh

Too long have I been haunted by that shade.

The adventurer was attacked by a shade.

Swift as thought the flitting shade / Thro' air his momentary journey made.

1700, [John] Dryden, “Ceyx and Alcyone”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:

Still, Birch House (a sop to the shade of the murdered Perak Resident) had no more than its normal share of flagellation[.]

1956, Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 39:

(chiefly literary and fantasy) A ghost or specter; a spirit.


immortality

en-noun

immortality (countable and uncountable, plural immortalities)

/ˌɪmɔːˈtæləti/

/ˌɪmɔːɹˈtæləti/

From Middle English immortalitee, immortalite, from Old French immortalité, from Latin immortālitās.
Morphologically immortal + -ity

خُلُود

condition of not being susceptible to death

In Greek mythology, Tithonus was granted immortality but not eternal youth.

In the little, as in the great things of life, are to be found the type and sign of our immortality. Every hope that looks forward is pledge of the hereafter to which it refers. Who rests content with the present? None. We have all deep within us a craving for the future.

1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “The Marriage Morning”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 201:

His one desire was to become the father of a man like himself, and it held him with a grip he only partially understood, for it was the first great desire, the first great passion of his life. Falling in love was a mere physical triviality, like warm sun or cool water, beside this divine hope of immortality: "I continue."

1905, E. M. Forster, Where Angels Fear to Tread, chapter 4

(religion, mythology, biology) The condition of being immortal.

The condition of being immortal.
Never dying

You have to salute Gerrard's bravery in accepting the challenge of trying to turn Rangers around given that he has zero experience in senior management. Immortality beckons if he does it.

2018 May 4, Tom English, “Steven Gerrard: A 'seriously clever or recklessly stupid' Rangers appointment”, in BBC Sport:

The condition of being immortal.
Being remembered forever


saga

la-noun

sāga f (genitive sāgae); first declension

sāga (canonical feminine)
sāgae (genitive)
sāga (nominative singular)
sāgae (nominative plural)
sāgae (genitive singular)
sāgārum (genitive plural)
sāgae (dative singular)
sāgīs (dative plural)
sāgam (accusative singular)
sāgās (accusative plural)
sāgā (ablative singular)
sāgīs (ablative plural)
sāga (singular vocative)
sāgae (plural vocative)

Italian: saga

→ Translingual: Saga

Substantivisation of the female form of sāgus (“soothsaying”).

a female soothsayer, diviner, fortune-teller, prophetess, witch


saga

sagowy (adjective)
saga (nominative singular)
sagi (nominative plural)
sagi (genitive singular)
sag (genitive plural)
sadze (dative singular)
sagom (dative plural)
sagę (accusative singular)
sagi (accusative plural)
sagą (instrumental singular)
sagami (instrumental plural)
sadze (locative singular)
sagach (locative plural)
sago (singular vocative)
sagi (plural vocative)


מוגל

he-noun

מוּגְל • (mugl) m (plural indefinite מוּגְלְגִים)

מוּגְל (canonical)
mugl (romanization)
מוּגְלְגִים (indefinite plural)


麒麟

Ming Dynasty
Phono-semantic matching
Song Dynasty
Zheng He

CJKV/code

Sino-Xenic (麒麟):
* → Japanese: 麒(き)麟(りん) (kirin)
* → Korean: 기린(麒麟) (girin)
* → Vietnamese: kì lân (麒麟)

→ Thai: กิเลน (gì-leen)

→ Zhuang: geizlaenz, gizlinz

/t͡ɕʰi³⁵ lin³⁵/

/kʰei̯²¹ lɵn²¹/

/kʰei̯²¹ lɵn²¹⁻³⁵/

/kʰi²⁴⁻¹¹ lin²⁴/

/ki⁵³⁻³³ l̃iŋ⁵³/

/ki²⁴⁻²² lin²⁴/

/ki²⁴⁻¹¹ lin²⁴/

/ki¹³⁻²² lin¹³/

/ki²³⁻³³ lin²³/

/t͡ɕʰi³⁵ lin³⁵/

/kʰei̯²¹ lɵn²¹/

/kʰei̯²¹ lɵn²¹⁻³⁵/

/kʰi²⁴⁻¹¹ lin²⁴/

/ki⁵³⁻³³ l̃iŋ⁵³/

/ki²⁴⁻²² lin²⁴/

/ki²⁴⁻¹¹ lin²⁴/

/ki¹³⁻²² lin¹³/

/ki²³⁻³³ lin²³/

Old Chinese pronunciation for this word was *g(ɯ)-rin (Zhengzhang), and in pre-Qin times the beast was also referred to as
* 麟 (OC *rin),
* 麐 (OC *m·rin, *m·rins),
* 𪊓, or
* 蔽 (OC *peds),
the last two having been attested in the oracle bone script already.
There is much debate as to what animal the qilin beast was; some maintain that the qilin was a beast only found in mythology, even though it may have been based on some animal in pre-historic times, and some argue that the qilin was in reality the river deer, the ox or cow, or the Indian rhinoceros (Wang, 2009).
Janhunen (2011) tentatively compares 麒麟 (OC *ɡɯ rin) to a Northeast Asian etymon *kalimV, which denotes either "whale" or "mammoth"; however, he cautiously remarks that "[t]he formal and semantic similarity between *kilin < *gilin ~ *gïlin 'unicorn' and *kalimV 'whale' (but also Samoyedic *kalay- 'mammoth') is sufficient to support, though perhaps not confirm, the hypothesis of an etymological connection". He also notes a possible connection between Old Chinese and Mongolian (*)kers ~ (*)keris ~ (*)kiris "rhinoceros" (> Khalkha Mongolian хирс (xirs)).

Is it only among men that it is so? There is the Qilin among quadrupeds, the Fenghuang (phoenix) among birds, the Tai mountain among mounds and ant-hills, and rivers and seas among rain-pools. Though different in degree, they are the same in kind.

Qǐ wéi mín zāi? Qílín zhī yú zǒushòu, fènghuáng zhī yú fēiniǎo, Tàishān zhī yú qiūdié, hé hǎi zhī yú xíngliáo, lèi yě.

豈惟民哉？麒麟之於走獸，鳳凰之於飛鳥，太山之於丘垤，河海之於行潦，類也。

岂惟民哉？麒麟之于走兽，凤凰之于飞鸟，太山之于丘垤，河海之于行潦，类也。

(Chinese mythology) qilin (propitious mythological beast) (Classifier: 隻／只 m c mn)