Orwellian

en-adj

Orwellian (comparative more Orwellian, superlative most Orwellian)

more Orwellian (comparative)
most Orwellian (superlative)

“But they soon find out that an enforced equality, without free individualism to temper it, becomes an Orwellian nightmare-version of the workers' paradise, in which ‘all are equal, but some are more equal than others.’”

1950, Peter Viereck, Public Affairs volume 13, p. 22, published by the Institute of Public Affairs, Dalhousie University (later republished in 1953 in Shame and Glory of the Intellectuals: Babbitt Jr. Vs. the Rediscovery of Values by the Beacon Press p. 204)

“The Orwellian slogan that ‘War is Peace’ was, consciously or unconsciously, from the beginning adopted by both conflicting groups within the U.N.”

1954, Sisley Huddleston, Popular Diplomacy and War:

Largely invisible much of the year, China’s non-Communist parties are thrust to the fore each March for a display of what the official news media calls China’s system of “multiparty cooperation and political consultation.”
The news conference, held in a gilded meeting room in the Great Hall of the People, is an Orwellian affair, with party leaders referring to the wonders of “democratic centralization,” heaping praise on the Communist Party and then answering fawning questions from the state media.

2013 March 12, Andrew Jacobs, Patrick Zuo, Shi Da, “Non-Communist Parties Lend China an Air of Pluralism, Without the Mess”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2013-03-15, Asia Pacific:

In this metropolis that had a prewar population of almost a million, but where the city center now feels like an Orwellian ghost town of propaganda posters and armed patrols, perhaps no one feels more alone than those who still harbor pro-Ukrainian sentiments.

2014 September 25, Anthony Faiola, “An Orwellian nightmare for pro-Ukrainians in rebel-held east”, in The Washington Post, Nash Holdings, LLC, retrieved 2014-09-25:

Just as the Bush administration and the U.S. media re-labelled ‘torture’ with the Orwellian euphemism ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ to make it more palatable, the governments and media of the Five Eyes surveillance alliance are now attempting to re-brand ‘mass surveillance’ as ‘bulk collection’ in order to make it less menacing (and less illegal)... just as it was stunning to watch media outlets refuse to use the term ‘torture’ because the U.S. Government demanded that it be called something else – this Orwellian switch in surveillance language is now predictably (and mindlessly) being adopted by those nations’ most state-loyal media outlets.

2015 March 13, Glenn Greenwald, “The Orwellian Re-Branding of ‘Mass Surveillance’ as Merely ‘Bulk Collection’”, in First Look, The Intercept, archived from the original on 2015-03-14:

To spend several days watching news broadcasts on the main state channels, as well as surveying state-controlled newspapers, is to witness the extent of the Kremlin’s efforts to sanitize its war with the Orwellian term “special military operation” — and to make all news coverage align with that message.

2022 March 8, Neil MacFarquhar, “Two Days of Russian News Coverage: An Alternate Reality of War”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

Resembling the totalitarian political methods decried in the works of writer George Orwell, particularly in the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four; characterized by use of misleading terminology, propaganda, censorship, surveillance and repression.

أَرْوَلِيٌّ

of or relating to Orwell, especially his dystopian novels


rock and roll

/ˈɹɒk ən(d)ˈɹəʊl/

From rock (move back and forth) + and + roll; originally a verb phrase common among African Americans, meaning "to have sexual intercourse"; it was a euphemism that appeared in song titles since at least 1914 (Trixie Smith's "My Man Rocks Me With One Steady Roll").
As a name for a specific style of popular music from the early 1950s, popularized by disc jockey Alan Freed in reference to the euphemistic use in song titles.

(music) A genre of popular music that evolved in the 1950s from a combination of rhythm and blues and country music, characterized by electric guitars, strong rhythms, and youth-oriented lyrics.


rock and roll

rock and roll (nominative singular)
rock and rolla (genitive singular)
rock and rollowi (dative singular)
rock and rolla (accusative singular)
rock and rollem (instrumental singular)
rock and rollu (locative singular)
rock and rollu (singular vocative)

Unadapted borrowing from English rock and roll.

ubor

rock and roll (style of vigorous dancing associated with this genre of music)


rock and roll

/ˈʁɔ.kẽj̃ ˈʁow/

[ˈhɔ.kẽɪ̯̃ ˈhoʊ̯]

/ˈʁɔ.kẽj̃ ˈʁow/

[ˈhɔ.kẽɪ̯̃ ˈhoʊ̯]

/ˈʁɔ.kẽj̃ ˈʁow/

[ˈχɔ.kẽɪ̯̃ ˈχoʊ̯]


slithy

Blend of lithe + slimy, coined by Lewis Carroll in 1871.

The squid wrapped its slithy tentacles around its prey.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.

She wanted to wear these slithy, snaky gowns you see in the pictures in the hallways of the $3 photographers.

1906, Good Housekeeping, volume 43, page 130:

Such a carriage is known as “an araba,” or alternatively as an yaili—a name which is probably onomatopœic, for it is about the “slithiest” thing that runs on wheels.

1914, Edgar Thomas Ainger Wigram, The Cradle of Mankind: Life in Eastern Kurdistan:

Falling roof, hidden shafts, slithiest snakes could not have stopped me after that. I arrived in the sparkling area.

1917, Gertrude Singleton Mathews, Treasure, page 126:

He sweeps down; a frog is pinioned / Swift arrives his faithful soul-mate / True-loves share their slithy dinner.

2013, Jane Wilson-Howarth, A Glimpse of Eternal Snows:

The Beast, slithier even than the Jabberwock and certainly a deal more manxsome as a foe, grips in its claws a dreaded P45 from Piers marking the end of employment at Gussage Court.

2014, Timothy Edward, Lessons in Humiliation, page 157:

Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There


Martian

From Latin Mārtius (“of or relating to the planet Mars”) + -an (adjective-forming suffix). The word is cognate with Middle English marcien, marcyan, mercien (“subject to the influence or power of the planet Mars; relating to the god Mars, that is, warlike”), Middle French martien (“Martian”) (modern French martien), French Martien (“imaginary inhabitant of Mars; any extraterrestrial”), Italian marziano, Latin Mārtiānus (“Martian”), Portuguese marciano, Spanish marciano.

cog

The direct heat of the sun, shining through so thin an atmosphere, must be considerable wherever the sun is at a sufficient elevation; and of course the very tenuity of the air renders vaporization so much the easier, for the boiling point (and consequently all temperatures of evaporation at given rates) would be correspondingly lowered. Accordingly, during the greater part of the Martian day, the hoar frost and whatever light snow might have fallen on the preceding evening would be completely dissolved away, and thus the ruddy earth or the greenish ice-masses of the so-called oceans would be revealed to the terrestral observer.

1873 July, “The Planet Mars: An Essay by a Whewellite”, in The Cornhill Magazine, volume XXVIII, number 163, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC, pages 96–97:

Prof. Percival Lowell, the eminent Martian astronomer, said in a recent interview in New York: "The Martian canals are not Panama canals. The word 'canals' you know, really means 'lines.' [...]"

1910 September, H[enry] H[aven] Windsor, editor, Popular Mechanics, volume 14, number 3, Chicago, Ill.: Popular Mechanics Co., →OCLC, page 456, column 1:

Not wishing to lose this great opportunity of being the first to receive Martian signals, we 'phoned to the manager to come over immediately and verify our "startling" discovery. [...] A day later a lineman in the employ of a stock quotation ticker agency happened to be working on the roof. [...] [H]e suggested that we might possibly be troubled with induction from these wires, and that our lead-in would perhaps be better if it ran along the outside of the building. Troubled with induction! In truth, that was the very thing which we had mistaken for Martian signals.

1920 October, Austin C. Lescarboura, “Wireless Fakes and Fakers”, in H[ugo] Gernsback, editor, Radio World, volume 2, number 4, New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing Co., →OCLC, page 217, columns 2–3:

She [Catherine Elise Muller] claimed her astral body was transported to the planet, so she was able to draw detailed Martian landscapes and to speak and write its language.

2004 January 8, Mark Pilkington, “Martian spoken here”, in The Guardian, London, archived from the original on 2014-09-12:

Martian meteorites (Fig. 1.3) are pieces of Mars that have been blasted off the surface, hurtled through space, and delivered to Earth [...]. We know they are from Mars because the noble gases, carbon, and nitrogen measured in shock melt pockets in certain meteorites have the same relative elemental abundances and similar isotopic ratios as the Martian atmosphere—a unique fingerprint [...].

2019, Justin Filiberto, Susanne P. Schwenzer, “Introduction to Volatiles in the Martian Crust”, in Justin Filiberto, Susanne P. Schwenzer, editors, Volatiles in the Martian Crust, Amsterdam, Kidlington, Oxford: Elsevier, →ISBN, section 1.1.1 (Martian Meteorites), page 4:

Of or relating to the planet Mars, or (science fiction) its imagined inhabitants.


Martian

Amazing Stories
Frank R. Paul
H. G. Wells
Hubble Space Telescope
The War of the Worlds

Thus she [one of the moons of Mars] has a disc, always on this assumption be it remembered, equal to about a quarter of our moon's; and being illuminated by the sun, like the other moon, with a light varying from one-half to one-third that which he pours on the earth, it follows that the light she reflects to Martians, or would reflect to them if there were any such beings, varies from one-eighth to one-twelfth of that which we receive from the full moon.

1877 October, Wentworth Erck, “The Moons of Mars”, in The Cornhill Magazine, volume XXXVI, number 214, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC, page 424:

Those who have never seen a living Martian can scarcely imagine the strange horror of their appearance. The peculiar V-shaped mouth with its pointed upper lip, the absence of brow ridges, the absence of a chin beneath the wedge-like lower lip, the incessant quivering of this mouth, the Gorgon groups of tentacles, [...]

1895–1897, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “The Cylinder Unscrews”, in The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, published 1898, →OCLC, book I (The Coming of the Martians), page 28:

[...] M. le Coultre, the distinguished astronomer of Geneva, has once more declared that the Martians are trying to signal to us. [...] How long M. le Coultre's suggestion will stand before it goes the way of other similar conjectures now exploded, no one can say.

1913 November 8, “Signals from Mars”, in The North-China Herald and Supreme Court & Consular Gazette: The Weekly Edition of the North-China Daily News, volume CIX (New Series), number 2413, Shanghai: Printed and published at the offices of the North-China Daily News & Herald, Ld., →OCLC, page 399, column 2:

If the Martian understood and could analyze the character of men and women, he would find in shops, factories, mills, schools, offices, in business, in the professions and arts, multitudes of men and women in the unhappy position of the fish out of water. Floundering hopelessly in vocations for which they have no aptitude, unless some merciful wave carry them to their native element, the place for which nature especially equipped them, their lives will be wrecked.

1921 May, Orison Swett Marden, “Are You a Fish Out of Water?”, in Orison Swett Marden, editor, The New Success: Marden’s Magazine, volume V, number 5, New York, N.Y.: The Lowrey-Marden Corporation, →OCLC, page 54:

Like a philosopher, or rather the hermit crab, he [Hoo Keng Tuck] lives in complete retirement, looking out occasionally from his coign of vantage upon his luckless compatriots who are struggling to make this world a better place to live in for themselves and their children, pretty much as a Martian might watch the social activities of the earth's inhabitants.

1923, Song Ong Siang, “The Third Decade (1839–49)”, in One Hundred Years’ History of the Chinese in Singapore: […], London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 57:

However, despite a declared interest in Mexico's Indian past, he feels that his country's uneducated and mostly Indian citizens are like creatures of another species. To then, "we are like Martians," Javier says, "We don't speak as they do or think as they do … If we do see them, it's like the zoo … We are their enemies and they know it" [...].

1982, Malva E. Filer, “A Change of Skin and the Shaping of a Mexican Time”, in Robert Brody, Charles Rossman, editors, Carlos Fuentes: A Critical View (Texas Pan American Series), Austin, Tx.: University of Texas Press, →ISBN, page 128:

A Martian who landed in Britain in the past few weeks—assuming he managed to get a visa—would take it for a place that dislikes visitors. [...] And yet, if he lingered, the Martian might find himself being asked how health care was organised on his planet, or how its retailers were coping with the internet.

2013 August 24, “Bagehot” [pseudonym], “Go away, we need you: In Britain, xenophilia runs almost as deep as xenophobia”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8850, archived from the original on 2013-08-22:

(chiefly science fiction) An inhabitant of the planet Mars.

Coordinate term: Martianess

An inhabitant of the planet Mars.
A male Martian.


Martian

Although impressed by [Catherine Elise] Muller as a person, [Théodore] Flournoy regarded her experiences as a marvel of psychology rather than spiritualism. One of his key findings was that, while Muller's Martian had a consistent 23 letter alphabet, grammar and syntax, it was in fact a twisted variant of French.

Suvi: Between the Remnant city, Meridian, and however the Scourge fits in... pardon my Martian, but it's all weird as shit.

2017, BioWare, Mass Effect: Andromeda (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Tempest:

(science fiction) A hypothetical language spoken on Mars.


counterfactual

Just as counterfactuals employ too much imagination to qualify as historical works, alternate history often labors under too great a load of artificial "facts" to take flight as fiction.

2004 September 5, Laura Miller, “Imagine”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

We can spin out complicated counterfactuals that justify the Iraq invasion, and complicated counterfactuals that make it look even worse.

2010 September 1, Ross Douthat, “Iraq in the Long Run”, in New York Times, retrieved 2021-07-15:

The implicit counterfactual — that these members would support gun control if not for the $1,000 they received from the NRA — seems unlikely to me.

2015 December 3, Lee Drutman, “Here's the real reason we don't have gun reform”, in Vox:

Roese also says counterfactuals can serve emotional purposes. You can think about how things could have been worse, and so feel better about yourself, and grateful for where you are.

2016 February 11, Noah Berlatsky, quoting Neal Roese, “'What if?': Why we can't get enough of counterfactual shows”, in The Guardian:

Imagine a counterfactual in which we started relaxing restrictions at an even earlier time, just as the cases began to trend downward.

2021 May 14, Dashiell Young-Saver, “The Math of Ending the Pandemic: Exponential Growth and Decay”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

A hypothetical state of the world, used to assess the impact of an action.


torpedo

* Borrowed from Latin torpēdō (“a torpedo fish; numbness, torpidity, electric ray”), from torpeō (“I am stiff, numb, torpid; I am astounded; I am inactive”) + -ēdō (noun suffix), from Proto-Indo-European *ster- (“stiff”). In the military sense coined by Robert Fulton in 1805. Cognate with Old English steorfan (“to die”), Ancient Greek στερεός (stereós, “solid”), Lithuanian tirpstu (“to become rigid”), Old Church Slavonic трупети (trupeti).
* (type of car): From 1908, after "the Torpedo", a car designed by Captain Theo Masui.

cog

(military) A cylindrical explosive projectile that can travel underwater and is used as a weapon.

(science fiction) A similar projectile that can travel through space.


brujo

es-noun

brujo m (plural brujos, feminine bruja, feminine plural brujas)

brujos (plural)
bruja (feminine)
brujas (feminine plural)


sorcery

en-noun

sorcery (countable and uncountable, plural sorceries)

From Middle English sorcery, borrowed from Middle French sorcerie, ultimately derived from Latin sors (“fate”), from Proto-Indo-European *ser- (“to bind”). Cognate with serō, seriēs, sermō. Compare also French sorcier.

Sorcery in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)


Area 51

→ German: Area 51

desc

→ Mandarin: 51區／51区 (Wǔshíyī qū) (calque)

Unclear, but perhaps from a grid numbering system of the area by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). While Area 51 is not part of this system, it is adjacent to Area 15.

Nevada Test and Training Range
w:Nevada Test and Training Range

(science fiction or ufology, informal) A secret military facility, airport, and airbase in Nevada Test and Training Range, Nevada, United States.

Atomic Energy Commission
en:Area 51
en:Area 51 (disambiguation)


Area 51

de-prop

Area 51 f (proper noun, genitive Area 51)

Area 51 (genitive)
Area 51 (nominative singular)
Area 51 (genitive singular)
Area 51 (dative singular)
Area 51 (accusative singular)

Unadapted borrowing from English Area 51.

ubor

(science fiction or ufology, informal) Area 51 (a secret military facility, airport, and airbase in Nevada Test and Training Range, Nevada, United States)


Americana

/əˌmɛɹɪˈkænə/

/əˌmɛɹɪˈkɑːnə/

/əˌmɛɹɪˈkeɪnə/

The music that became Americana crossed racial lines very early, becoming one of the major integrating forces in America. The chapter shows how artists such as Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers were creating and playing Americana long before we had a name for what they were doing.

2017, Michael Scott Cain, The Americana Revolution, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page xxx:

A quarter-century later, the Band’s music provided a key template for the acts first labeled Americana, including Son Volt, Wilco and Lucinda Williams, as well as for their sonic heirs.

[2023 August 9, “Robbie Robertson, 80, Dies; Canadian Songwriter Captured American Spirit”, in The New York Times:

(music) An amalgam of roots musics formed by the confluence of the shared and varied traditions that make up the American musical ethos; specifically those sounds that are merged from folk, country, blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and other external influential styles.


coco

Borrowed from Portuguese côco (“bogeyman, grinning face”), probably from Latin coccum (“kernel, seed”).

bor+

Duérmete niño, duérmete ya… que viene el coco y te comerá.

Sleep child, sleep now… lest the bogeyman come and eat you.


filk

Originally "filk music" was a typo for "folk music" in a never-published essay on the influence of Science Fiction and Fantasy on folk music. Its first known deliberate use was by Karen Kruse Anderson in Die Zeitschrift für Vollständigen Unsinn (The Journal for Utter Nonsense) #774 (June 1953), for a song written by science-fiction author Poul Anderson.

The blame/credit (choose one) for the first filk song is a little dubious. Like the man who tried to sit on two stools, it falls in the middle, between Poul Anderson who wrote a filk song called Barbarous Allen and Karen Anderson who egged him on and published it in Zed #774.

1955 June, Karen Anderson, Poul Anderson (writing as "Petronius Arbiter Kingsley"), “Filk Song”, in Die Zeitschrift für Vollständigen Unsinn (aka The Zed), number 780, page 13:

And the permanent exhibit area offers a filk performance on a small stage so that neophytes can sample more esoteric interests.

2000, Camille Bacon-Smith, Science Fiction Culture, University of Pennsylvania Press, →ISBN, page 38:

2006, Robert T. Balder, quoted in Attitude 3: The New Subversive Online Cartoonists, Nantier Beall Minoustchine Publishing, →ISBN, page 97,
I’m also involved in what is called filk music. This is music for and by fans of Fantasy and Science Fiction. […] Filk is nearly as big a part of my creative life as comics, and I have similarly made many friends among the creative people in that community.

Music can be very important in fan texts and activities. Fans write and perform songs at gatherings about characters from television shows, not unlike the way that folk songs are sung in folk clubs. This can be seen in the name of this fan form: filk song. According to Jenkins [in Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture], filk songs take their cue from commercial culture. They are about the characters from commercial television series, but ‘Filk turns commercial culture back into folk culture, existing as a mediator between two musical traditions. Its raw materials come from commercial culture; its logic is from folk culture’ (1992: 270).

2007, Brian Longhurst, Popular Music and Society, Polity, →ISBN, page 236:

(music) About or inspired by science fiction, fantasy, horror, science, and/or subjects of interest to fans of speculative fiction; frequently, being a song whose lyrics have been altered to refer to science fiction; parodying. (However, much filk music is original rather than parodic.)


beamer

From beam (“project, transmit”) + -er (agent noun suffix), or, for the ball, + -er (patient suffix).

suf

For several days he went about his charge with disgust, trying everything he could to avoid the stench of rotting vegetation and of human feces, which was overpowering even as it all burned under the plasma from his beamer.

2013, Paul Alcorn, The Rhoedraegon Chronicles: Book Two:

(science fiction) A device that projects or transmits matter, information, or energy.


stun

en-noun

stun (countable and uncountable, plural stuns)

From Middle English stunien, stonien, stounien, from Old English stunian (“to crash, make a loud sound, resound, roar, strike with a loud sound, dash, impinge, knock, confound, astonish, stupefy”), from Proto-West Germanic *stunōn, from Proto-Germanic *stunōną, *stunjaną (“to sound, crash, bang, groan”), from Proto-Germanic *stenaną (“to moan, shout”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tona-, *(s)tena- (“to thunder, roar, groan”) (compare thunder). Cognate with Middle Low German stonen (“to groan”), Middle High German stunen, stunden (“to drive, push, knock, strike”), Swedish stöna (“to moan, groan”), Danish stønne (“to moan, groan”), Icelandic stynja (“to moan”). Related also to Dutch steunen (“to groan; support”), German stöhnen (“to groan, moan”), German staunen (“to be astonished, be amazed, marvel at”), Russian стонать (stonatʹ), стена́ть (stenátʹ, “to moan, groan”). See also Occitan estonar, Old French estoner, English astonish.

cog

Captain James Kirk: "Set your phaser on one quarter. I'll leave mine on stun."

1966 September 8, George Clayton Johnson, The Man Trap (Star Trek), season 1, episode 1:

(science fiction, uncountable) A low-range setting for an energy weapon that will stun its target but not injure or kill it.


organic

From Middle English organic, organik, from Old French organique, from Latin organicus.

(science fiction) A living organism, as opposed to a robot or hologram.


boogie

(informal, US) A piece of solid or semisolid mucus in or removed from the nostril cavity.


boogie

Come on girls, let's get on the dancefloor and have a boogie!

(informal) Any relatively energetic dance to pop or rock music.

(skydiving, informal) A large, organised skydiving event.


terminator

[ˈtɜː.mɪ.næɪ.ɾə]

* Partly from post-classical Latin terminator (5th century), from Latin terminō; partly from terminate + -or.
* (android that kills humans): After the 1984 film The Terminator.

(science fiction) An intelligent android created to destroy humans.


draig

draige (genitive singular)
draig
dhraig
ndraig

From Old Irish draic, from Proto-Brythonic *drėg, earlier Proto-Celtic *drakū, from Latin dracō.


draig

dreigiau (plural)
draig
ddraig (soft)
nraig

From Middle Welsh dreic, from Proto-Brythonic *drėg, earlier *drakū, from Latin dracō.


horror

en-noun

horror (countable and uncountable, plural horrors)

hoar (some rhotic American accents with the horse–hoarse merger)

From Middle English horer, horrour, from Old French horror, from Latin horror (“a bristling, a shaking, trembling as with cold or fear, terror”), from horrere (“to bristle, shake, be terrified”). Displaced native Old English ōga.

der

Those who enjoy horror, stories overflowing with blood and black mystery, will be grateful to Richard Marsh for writing ‘The Beetle.’

1917 February 11, New York Times, Book reviews, page 52:

(uncountable) A genre of fiction designed to evoke a feeling of fear and suspense.

A well-received Johnny Fuller R & B horror called "Haunted House."

1990, Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, →ISBN, page 156:

[…] there were hastily produced B movies, such as the peplums, the spaghetti westerns, the detective stories, the horrors.

(countable) An individual work in this genre.

`My belief is that he had the horrors without knowin' it.'

1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1965, →OCLC, page 53:

Delirium tremens
delirium tremens#English

(in the plural, informal) Delirium tremens.


horror

horror (nominative singular)
horrory (nominative plural)
horroru (genitive singular)
horrorów (genitive plural)
horrorowi (dative singular)
horrorom (dative plural)
horror (accusative singular)
horrory (accusative plural)
horrorem (instrumental singular)
horrorami (instrumental plural)
horrorze (locative singular)
horrorach (locative plural)
horrorze (singular vocative)
horrory (plural vocative)


horror

Borrowed from Latin horrorem.
Cf. also the popular Old Spanish horrura, inherited from a derivative of the Latin or with a change of suffix, and taking on the meaning of "dirtiness, filth, impurity, scum"; comparable to derivatives of horridus in other Romance languages, like Italian ordo, Old French ord, French ordure, Old Catalan hòrreu, horresa, Old Occitan orre, orrezeza, Romanian urdoare.


dedicate

From Latin dēdicātus, past participle of dēdicō (“I dedicate, proclaim”).

Glancing at the crowd of onlookers, she said, “I know that service at the dining hall will be over soon”—instantly a few dedicates and all of the novices hurried away—“and some of us here would like to prepare our own meal.” […] Out of sight of the dedicates, she climbed over the short fence and escaped to Winding Circle's biggest library.

2011 September 1, Tamora Pierce, Circle of Magic #1: Sandry's Book, Scholastic Inc., →ISBN:

Initiation—When a dedicate is seen on all levels to be learning and doing more as they participate in the circle and aids with rituals and/or divination, an initiation is decided on with the priest or priestess and dedicate.

2015 April 8, Dracaena Paxx, The Sacred Spiral: Unlocking Ones Infinite Potential, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN:

Through this rune of compassion, feelings of pain are transferred from the dedicates to Fallion. Lord Despair then proceeds to torture the dedicates so that Fallion would feel the pain of the tortures without being physically harmed[…]

2019 November 14, Charul Palmer-Patel, The Shape of Fantasy: Investigating the Structure of American Heroic Epic Fantasy, Routledge, →ISBN:

Rowan Cortak stood with the rest of the dedicates.

2022 September 27, Chad Corrie, The Wizard King Trilogy Boxed Set, Dark Horse Books, →ISBN, page 24:

(chiefly fantasy and paganism) One who dedicates themselves, or who is dedicated, to the service of some leader, religion, etc.


skiffle

A type of folk music, with jazz and blues influences, using homemade or improvised instruments.


twee pop

This belatedness is reflected in Kaya Oakes's suggestion that twee pop begins in the early 1990s, post-Nirvana[…]

2016, Pete Dale, Anyone Can Do It: Empowerment, Tradition and the Punk Underground, Routledge, →ISBN:

(music) A subgenre of indie pop music with simple melodies and lyrics, usually about love.


trance

en-noun

trance (countable and uncountable, plural trances)

→ French: trance

From Middle English traunce, from Anglo-Norman transe (“fear of coming evil; passage from life to death”), from transir (“to be numb with fear; to die, pass on”), from Latin trānseō (“to cross over”).

der

electronic dance music
electronic dance music

(uncountable, music) Short for trance music (“genre of electronic dance music”).


trance

trance (nominative singular)
trancet (nominative plural)
trance (accusative nominative singular)
trancet (accusative nominative plural)
trancen (accusative genitive singular)
trancet (accusative genitive plural)
trancen (genitive singular)
trancejen (genitive plural)
trancein (genitive plural rare)
trancea (partitive singular)
tranceja (partitive plural)
trancessa (inessive singular)
tranceissa (inessive plural)
trancesta (elative singular)
tranceista (elative plural)
tranceen (illative singular)
tranceihin (illative plural)
trancella (adessive singular)
tranceilla (adessive plural)
trancelta (ablative singular)
tranceilta (ablative plural)
trancelle (allative singular)
tranceille (allative plural)
trancena (essive singular)
tranceina (essive plural)
tranceksi (singular translative)
tranceiksi (plural translative)
trancetta (abessive singular)
tranceitta (abessive plural)
trancein (instructive plural)
See the possessive forms below. (comitative)
tranceni (nominative singular)
tranceni (nominative plural)
tranceni (accusative nominative singular)
tranceni (accusative nominative plural)
tranceni (accusative genitive singular)
tranceni (accusative genitive plural)
tranceni (genitive singular)
trancejeni (genitive plural)
tranceini (genitive plural rare)
tranceani (partitive singular)
trancejani (partitive plural)
trancessani (inessive singular)
tranceissani (inessive plural)
trancestani (elative singular)
tranceistani (elative plural)
tranceeni (illative singular)
tranceihini (illative plural)
trancellani (adessive singular)
tranceillani (adessive plural)
tranceltani (ablative singular)
tranceiltani (ablative plural)
trancelleni (allative singular)
tranceilleni (allative plural)
trancenani (essive singular)
tranceinani (essive plural)
trancekseni (singular translative)
tranceikseni (plural translative)
trancettani (abessive singular)
tranceittani (abessive plural)
tranceineni (comitative plural)
trancesi (nominative singular)
trancesi (nominative plural)
trancesi (accusative nominative singular)
trancesi (accusative nominative plural)
trancesi (accusative genitive singular)
trancesi (accusative genitive plural)
trancesi (genitive singular)
trancejesi (genitive plural)
tranceisi (genitive plural rare)
tranceasi (partitive singular)
trancejasi (partitive plural)
trancessasi (inessive singular)
tranceissasi (inessive plural)
trancestasi (elative singular)
tranceistasi (elative plural)
tranceesi (illative singular)
tranceihisi (illative plural)
trancellasi (adessive singular)
tranceillasi (adessive plural)
tranceltasi (ablative singular)
tranceiltasi (ablative plural)
trancellesi (allative singular)
tranceillesi (allative plural)
trancenasi (essive singular)
tranceinasi (essive plural)
tranceksesi (singular translative)
tranceiksesi (plural translative)
trancettasi (abessive singular)
tranceittasi (abessive plural)
tranceinesi (comitative plural)
trancemme (nominative singular)
trancemme (nominative plural)
trancemme (accusative nominative singular)
trancemme (accusative nominative plural)
trancemme (accusative genitive singular)
trancemme (accusative genitive plural)
trancemme (genitive singular)
trancejemme (genitive plural)
tranceimme (genitive plural rare)
tranceamme (partitive singular)
trancejamme (partitive plural)
trancessamme (inessive singular)
tranceissamme (inessive plural)
trancestamme (elative singular)
tranceistamme (elative plural)
tranceemme (illative singular)
tranceihimme (illative plural)
trancellamme (adessive singular)
tranceillamme (adessive plural)
tranceltamme (ablative singular)
tranceiltamme (ablative plural)
trancellemme (allative singular)
tranceillemme (allative plural)
trancenamme (essive singular)
tranceinamme (essive plural)
tranceksemme (singular translative)
tranceiksemme (plural translative)
trancettamme (abessive singular)
tranceittamme (abessive plural)
tranceinemme (comitative plural)
trancenne (nominative singular)
trancenne (nominative plural)
trancenne (accusative nominative singular)
trancenne (accusative nominative plural)
trancenne (accusative genitive singular)
trancenne (accusative genitive plural)
trancenne (genitive singular)
trancejenne (genitive plural)
tranceinne (genitive plural rare)
tranceanne (partitive singular)
trancejanne (partitive plural)
trancessanne (inessive singular)
tranceissanne (inessive plural)
trancestanne (elative singular)
tranceistanne (elative plural)
tranceenne (illative singular)
tranceihinne (illative plural)
trancellanne (adessive singular)
tranceillanne (adessive plural)
tranceltanne (ablative singular)
tranceiltanne (ablative plural)
trancellenne (allative singular)
tranceillenne (allative plural)
trancenanne (essive singular)
tranceinanne (essive plural)
tranceksenne (singular translative)
tranceiksenne (plural translative)
trancettanne (abessive singular)
tranceittanne (abessive plural)
tranceinenne (comitative plural)
trancensa (nominative singular)
trancensa (nominative plural)
trancensa (accusative nominative singular)
trancensa (accusative nominative plural)
trancensa (accusative genitive singular)
trancensa (accusative genitive plural)
trancensa (genitive singular)
trancejensa (genitive plural)
tranceinsa (genitive plural rare)
tranceaan (partitive singular)
tranceansa (partitive singular)
trancejaan (partitive plural)
trancejansa (partitive plural)
trancessaan (inessive singular)
trancessansa (inessive singular)
tranceissaan (inessive plural)
tranceissansa (inessive plural)
trancestaan (elative singular)
trancestansa (elative singular)
tranceistaan (elative plural)
tranceistansa (elative plural)
tranceensa (illative singular)
tranceihinsa (illative plural)
trancellaan (adessive singular)
trancellansa (adessive singular)
tranceillaan (adessive plural)
tranceillansa (adessive plural)
tranceltaan (ablative singular)
tranceltansa (ablative singular)
tranceiltaan (ablative plural)
tranceiltansa (ablative plural)
trancelleen (allative singular)
trancellensa (allative singular)
tranceilleen (allative plural)
tranceillensa (allative plural)
trancenaan (essive singular)
trancenansa (essive singular)
tranceinaan (essive plural)
tranceinansa (essive plural)
trancekseen (singular translative)
tranceksensa (singular translative)
tranceikseen (plural translative)
tranceiksensa (plural translative)
trancettaan (abessive singular)
trancettansa (abessive singular)
tranceittaan (abessive plural)
tranceittansa (abessive plural)
tranceineen (comitative plural)
tranceinensa (comitative plural)

trance (genre of electronic dance music)


trance

trance (nominative singular)
trance'u (genitive singular)
trance'owi (dative singular)
trance (accusative singular)
trance'em (instrumental singular)
transie (locative singular)
transie (singular vocative)


dip

From Andalusian Arabic ديب (ḏíb), from Arabic ذِئْب (ḏiʔb).

(mythology) A black vampiric hellhound associated with the town of Pratdip in the Camp de Tarragona.


pixie

Uncertain; 17thC, originally in the folklore of southwest England; perhaps diminutive of Swedish pysk (“fairy”); perhaps Puck + -sy; see Wikipedia.

Then she saw pixies — dozens and dozens of pixies — dancing and singing.

2005, Dan Keding, “The Pixies’ Bed”, in Dan Keding, Amy Douglas, editors, English Folktales, page 98:

When she looked around, Mary saw four pixies flying toward her. She had to jump out of the way to avoid being hit. Then the pixies turned around and attacked again.

2005, Kathryn Reyes, Mystery Door Manor and the Dragon Realm, page 72:

The servant that had raised him, an elderly pixie called Rolog, had died. On his deathbed he had called the young Captain to his side. Seeing the pixie dying had had no effect on him.

2007, Jeremy Phillips, The Wizardon Star, page 165:

Tiffy froze as the two pixies looked directly into each other's eyes.
Then Tiffy raised her hand and said, “Hi, I'm Tiffy the Tooth Fairy.” Even though the other pixie lifted her hand too, she didn't answer.

2010, Sandra A. Filbin, The Enchanted World: A Tooth Fairy's Tale, page 49:

(mythology, fantasy literature, fairy tales) A playful sprite or elflike or fairy-like creature.


raga

en-noun

raga (countable and uncountable, plural ragas)

Borrowed from Sanskrit राग (rāga, “dye, colour”).

Coordinate term: ragini

‘The song is composed in a raga appropriate to the present hour, which is the evening.’

1924, EM Forster, A Passage to India, Penguin, published 2005, page 72:

(countable, music) Any of various melodic forms used in Indian classical music, or a piece of music composed in such a form.

রাগ

melodic mode used in Indian classical music


western

From Middle English westerne, from Old English westerne, from Proto-Germanic *westrōnijaz.
Morphologically west + -ern.

Coordinate term: northern

(film) A film, or some other dramatic work, set in, the historic (c. 1850–1910) American West (west of the Mississippi river) focusing on conflict between whites and Indians, lawmen and outlaws, ranchers and farmers, or industry (railroads, mining) and agriculture.


western

pl-noun

western m inan (related adjective westernowy)

westernowy (adjective)
western (nominative singular)
westerny (nominative plural)
westernu (genitive singular)
westernów (genitive plural)
westernowi (dative singular)
westernom (dative plural)
western (accusative singular)
westerny (accusative plural)
westernem (instrumental singular)
westernami (instrumental plural)
westernie (locative singular)
westernach (locative plural)
westernie (singular vocative)
westerny (plural vocative)

Unadapted borrowing from English western.

ubor

western (adventure film set in the Wild West in the 19th century)


numen

la-noun

nūmen n (genitive nūminis); third declension

nūmen (canonical neuter)
nūminis (genitive)
nūmen (nominative singular)
nūmina (nominative plural)
nūminis (genitive singular)
nūminum (genitive plural)
nūminī (dative singular)
nūminibus (dative plural)
nūmen (accusative singular)
nūmina (accusative plural)
nūmine (ablative singular)
nūminibus (ablative plural)
nūmen (singular vocative)
nūmina (plural vocative)

→ English: numen, numinous

→ Italian: nume

→ Portuguese: nume, númen

→ Spanish: numen

* Could be simply an action noun of *nuō, for *nuimen, from *nuō + -men, thus meaning "a nodding with the head", "a nod", "command", "will" (as nūtus), with the particular meaning of "the divine will", "the will or power of the gods", "divine sway".
* Others suggest the Ancient Greek word νοούμενον (nooúmenon) ("an influence perceptible by mind but not by senses"), from νοέω (noéō), was borrowed into Early Latin as the word noumen, whose spelling changed to numen in Classical Latin.

divinity (Georges Dumézil argues this is a modern meaning and not one from the Classical period, where it was either attributed to particular gods or other entities, such as in numen Cereris or numen dei, or wrongly interpreted)


fanfiction

en-noun

fanfiction (countable and uncountable, plural fanfictions)

(fandom slang) Alternative spelling of fan fiction


siren

From Middle English siren, from Old French sereine and Latin Sīrēn, Sīrēna, from Ancient Greek Σειρήν (Seirḗn). The mammalian sense was first attested in French in Dominique Bouhours, Les entretiens d'Ariste et d'Eugène, in 1671. The aquatic salamander sense was originally introduced by Linnaeus in 1766, for a genus of his reptiles. Doublet of serin.

Now give ear to what I'm about to say to you , and a god himself will bring it before your mind . First , you will come to the Sirens . These beings enthrall all men who arrive before them . Whoever draws near without knowledge and ...

2008 October 7, Homer, The Odyssey, North Atlantic Books, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 278:

(Greek mythology) One of a group of nymphs who lured mariners to their death on the rocks.

(music) A musical instrument, one of the few aerophones in the percussion section of the symphony orchestra (patented as Acme Siren in 1895).

An instrument for demonstrating the laws of beats and combination tones.


gul

gul (nominative singular)
gule (nominative plural)
gula (genitive singular)
gulów (genitive plural)
gulowi (dative singular)
gulom (dative plural)
gula (accusative singular)
gule (accusative plural)
gulem (instrumental singular)
gulami (instrumental plural)
gulu (locative singular)
gulach (locative plural)
gulu (singular vocative)
gule (plural vocative)


idle

From Middle English idel, ydel, from Old English īdel (“idleness”), from the adjective (see above).


cyberpunk

cyberpunk (countable and uncountable, plural cyberpunks)

From cyber- + -punk, coined by American writer and software developer Bruce Bethke as the title of a 1983 short story, and later popularized by Gardner Dozois.

coin

But by 1987, cyberpunk had become a cliche. Other writers had turned the form into formula: implant wetware (biological computer chips), government by multinational corporations, street-wise, leather-jacketed, amphetamine-loving protagonists and decayed orbital colonies.

1991 January 7, Lewis Shiner, “Confessions of an Ex-Cyberpunk”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

Cyberpunk stories are set in a futuristic, dystopic environment—the opposite of utopian—in which computer technology plays an important role. […] The protagonists of cyberpunk stories are technologically proficient, lonely adventurers struggling with issues of identity and forced to use computer skills to fight menacing forces of domination.

2015, Abby H. P. Werlock, Encyclopedia of the American Short Story, Infobase Learning, →ISBN:

information technology
information technology

(science fiction, uncountable) A subgenre of science fiction which focuses on computer or information technology and virtual reality juxtaposed with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order.

A more technologically elaborate current of microtonal music can be found at M.I.T and Berklee College of Music, where R. Boulanger works in exotic equal temperaments and non-octave scales (E₆₀ and the 13th root of 3, i.e. the Bohlen-Pierce scale) using the CSOUND acoustic compiler, the Mathews radio drum and various MIDI synthesizers; nearby, E. Mullen performs cyberpunk music in E₁₉ and the 13th root of 3.

2003, Jan Haluska, The Mathematical Theory of Tone Systems, →ISBN, page 109:

At Meredith we stayed up all night listening to doof doof cyberpunk music and I saw you cry for the first time, at four in the morning bottle of ice tea and vodka in hand I saw your real face and something changed.

2014, Gemma White, Furniture is Disappearing, →ISBN, page 41:

Indeed, 'Mindphaser' (and Tactical Neural Implant more generally) represents a high point of cyberpunk in the industrial music scene.

2017, Tristanne Connolly, Tomoyuki Iino, Canadian Music and American Culture: Get Away From Me, →ISBN, page 182:

(music, uncountable) A musical genre related to the punk movement that makes use of electronic sounds such as synthesizers.


cyberpunk

cyberpunk (nominative singular)
cyberpunku (genitive singular)
cyberpunkowi (dative singular)
cyberpunk (accusative singular)
cyberpunkiem (instrumental singular)
cyberpunku (locative singular)
cyberpunku (singular vocative)

Unadapted borrowing from English cyberpunk.

ubor

(film, science fiction) cyberpunk (sci-fi subgenre)


cyberpunk

cyberpunk (nominative singular)
cyberpunki (nominative plural)
cyberpunka (genitive singular)
cyberpunków (genitive plural)
cyberpunkowi (dative singular)
cyberpunkom (dative plural)
cyberpunka (accusative singular)
cyberpunków (accusative plural)
cyberpunkiem (instrumental singular)
cyberpunkami (instrumental plural)
cyberpunku (locative singular)
cyberpunkach (locative plural)
cyberpunku (singular vocative)
cyberpunki (plural vocative)

(film, science fiction) cyberpunk (cyberpunk character, a hacker punk, a high-tech low life)


cyberpunk

cyberpunk (indefinite nominative singular)

(science fiction, uncountable) cyberpunk


mutant

From Latin mūtāns, present participle of mūtō. By surface analysis, muta- + -ant.


catalyst

(fantasy) An object that facilitates the casting of a spell (such as a magic wand).


summa

summa (nominative singular)
summy (nominative plural)
summy (genitive singular)
summ (genitive plural)
summie (dative singular)
summom (dative plural)
summę (accusative singular)
summy (accusative plural)
summą (instrumental singular)
summami (instrumental plural)
summie (locative singular)
summach (locative plural)
summo (singular vocative)
summy (plural vocative)

(historical) summa (medieval didactics literary genre written in Latin, born during the 12th century, and popularized in 13th century Europe)


vibe

en-verb

vibe (third-person singular simple present vibes, present participle vibing, simple past and past participle vibed)

vibes (present singular third-person)
vibing (participle present)
vibed (participle past)
vibed (past)

Apocopic form of vibration, vibrator, etc.

(transitive, colloquial, jazz) To treat (a fellow performer) in a condescending or insulting manner, typically during a performance or jam session, to signal to them that they are unsatisfactory.


telekinesis

en-noun

telekinesis (countable and uncountable, plural telekineses)

Telekinetic energy, which has been variously designated as psychic force (Sir William Crookes), ectenic force (Professor Thury), and telekinesis (Professor Cowes), is demonstrably a power or faculty of the subjective mind.

1899, Thomson Jay Hudson, The Divine Pedigree of Man, page 154:

And this brings me to a consideration of how the phenomena of telekinesis may conceivably be produced — granting that the phenomena are ever genuine at all.

1920, Hereward Carrington, The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism, page 367:

He leant tensely against the corridor wall and frowned like a man trying to unbend a corkscrew by telekinesis.

1982, Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything, page 61:

'Venison' he declared, mentally lifting the animal through the air toward him without a second thought to the act, though telekinesis was a spell that hadn't been in the considerable repertoire of Morkai the Red.

1988, Robert Salvatore, The Crystal Shard, page 39:

She regards telekinesis as impossible and claims for it as generally fraudulent. For two years she worked in a university laboratory testing telekinesis,

2000, Fred M. Frohock, Lives of the Psychics: The Shared Worlds of Science and Mysticism, page 29:

Perhaps the most famous demonstrations of telekinesis came in the 1970s when a young psychic from Russia named Uri Geller came to prominence for his ability to bend spoons and other metal objects without any physical contact.

2002, Rita Berkowtiz with Deborah S. Romaine, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Communicating with Spirits, page 187:

And if voice-activated control isn't enough, we could someday use telekinesis to control lights with our thoughts.

2006, Richard Cadena, Automated Lighting, page 434:

(uncountable) The ability to move objects with the power of one's mind.

telecinesi

ability to move objects with the power of one's thoughts


bugbear

From obsolete meaning of bug (“something terrifying”) + bear. See Middle English bugge, modern bogey.

Ha, ha: alas poore wretch: a poore Chipochia, haſt not ſlept to night? would he not (a naughty man) let it ſleepe: a bug-beare take him.

c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]:

“How could you lie so glaringly as to affirm I hated the ‘poor child’? and invent bugbear stories to terrify her from my door-stones?[…]”

1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], chapter XXII, in Wuthering Heights: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLC:

"My young friends," quietly replied Jason, "I do not wonder that you think the dragon very terrible. You have grown up from infancy in the fear of this monster, and therefore still regard him with the awe that children feel for the bugbears and hobgoblins which their nurses have talked to them about.[…]"

1853, Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Golden Fleece”, in Tanglewood Tales:

The partisans of the Administration object to the word “imperialism,” calling it a mere bugbear having no real existence.

1900, Carl Schurz, For Truth, Justice and Liberty:

(folklore, fantasy) A generic creature, often described as a large goblin, meant to inspire fear in children.


cred

cred (countable and uncountable, plural creds)

And you're getting well paid, of course, but that's nothing to them, is it? They could double your salary, Gertler—pay you two million creds a year —and it'd still be peanuts to these people […]

2021, Michael Carroll, Laurel Sills, Matthew Smith, Judge Dredd Year Three:

(science fiction, slang) A credit (currency unit).


phantasm

A learned variant of phantom; from Middle English fantosme, from Old French fantosme, fantasme, from Latin phantasma, from Ancient Greek φάντασμα (phántasma). Doublet of phantom.

But night comes in with a more genial spirit: we have done our worst and our bitterest; and we need a small space to indulge any little bit of cordiality that may be left in us. A thousand gay phantasms float in on the sunny south, which has left the far-off vineyards of its birth.

1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Success”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 75:

He declares that there seems to be no justification for regarding the phantasms of dreams as pure hallucinations; most dream-images are probably in fact illusions, since they arise from faint sense-impressions, which never cease during sleep.

1900, Sigmund Freud, translated by James Strachey, The Interpretation of Dreams: Avon Books, page 74:

Something seen but having no physical reality; a phantom or apparition.


erotica

erotica (countable and uncountable, plural eroticas)

From neuter plural of Latin eroticus (“amatory”), from Ancient Greek ἐρωτικός (erōtikós). By surface analysis, erotic + -ica.

There's a fine line between erotica and pornography.

In fact, eighteenth-century British erotica has been the subject of unremitting attention for the last two decades.

2011, Patrick Spedding, James Lambert, “Fanny Hill, Lord Fanny, and the Myth of Metonymy”, in Studies in Philology, volume 108, number 1, page 114:

(uncountable) Erotic literature, art, decoration, or other such work.

Rather a principal avenue of traffic and distribution of eroticas is the social network of age-peers ([…]).

1970 September, The Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, page 224:

Some films advertised as minor eroticas are so much in demand by the paying public and these have overshadowed the value of a few seminars which seem to draw only the scholars and the film theorists.

1977, Link: Indian Newsmagazine, volume 19, page 5:

Tilson carries work by the late John Lennon, including lithographs, a few signed eroticas and republished drawings.

1993, Milwaukee Magazine, volume 18, page 66:

Though the poetic work of Bhikṣu Padmaśrī, Nāgarasarvasva is an erotica, the writer has not followed Vätsyāyana in his work, rather, he has followed Bharata Muni.

2001, Sumati Mutatkar, Suṣamā-kalāśrīḥ: Gems of Literature & Arts, Eastern Book Linkers, page 262:

His costume dramas (including eroticas) are all imprinted with the hallmark of this spectacular and lyrical “dream factory” of classical China.

2019, Mia Yinxing Liu, “Introduction”, in Literati Lenses: Wenren Landscape in Chinese Cinema of the Mao Era, Honolulu, Haw.: University of Hawaiʻi Press, →ISBN, page 17:


satyr

From French satyre, from Latin satyrus, from Ancient Greek σάτυρος (sáturos).


satyr

satyr (nominative singular)
satyrowie (nominative plural)
satyra (genitive singular)
satyrów (genitive plural)
satyrowi (dative singular)
satyrom (dative plural)
satyra (accusative singular)
satyrów (accusative plural)
satyrem (instrumental singular)
satyrami (instrumental plural)
satyrze (locative singular)
satyrach (locative plural)
satyrze (singular vocative)
satyrowie (plural vocative)

Borrowed from French satyre, from Latin satyrus, from Ancient Greek σάτυρος (sáturos).


calypso

calypso (countable and uncountable, plural calypsos or calypsoes)

Originally Trinidad English, an alteration of kaiso, perhaps ultimately of African origin; Allsopp 1996 suggests Ibibio ka iso (“come on”), used to urge dancers on. The spelling reflects a later folk-etymological assimilation with the mythological name Calypso.

'How you does live, Mr. Wordsworth?' I asked him one day.
He said, 'You mean how I get money?'
When I nodded, he laughed in a crooked way.
He said, 'I sing calypsoes in the calypso season.'
'And that last you the rest of the year?'
'It is enough.'

1959, V. S. Naipaul, “B. Wordsworth”, in Miguel Street

A style of Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago during the early to the mid-19th century and spread to the rest of the Caribbean Antilles and Venezuela by the mid-20th century. Its rhythms can be traced back to West African Kaiso and the arrival of French planters and their slaves from the French Antilles in the 18th century.


calypso

calypso (indefinite nominative singular)
calypsos (genitive indefinite singular)
calypson (definite nominative singular)
calypsons (definite genitive singular)
calypsor (indefinite nominative plural)
calypsors (genitive indefinite plural)
calypsorna (definite nominative plural)
calypsornas (definite genitive plural)

en glad calypso om våren


halfling

Dungeons and Dragons
J.R.R. Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings

From half + -ling. Sense 3 ("half-grown young person") is attested to 1794. It was then used by J.R.R. Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings (1954) as an alternative reference to members of his hobbit race. Hobbits were used in the original 1974 releases of the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons, but in later editions they were changed to "halflings" for legal reasons, as being a pre-existing word rather than one invented by Tolkien.

(fantasy) A fictional small humanoid creature featuring in fantasy fiction; a hobbit.

(fantasy) A fictional humanoid born of a human parent and a parent of another race in fantasy fiction.


satire

satire (countable and uncountable, plural satires)

From Middle French satire, from Old French, from Latin satira, from earlier satura, from lanx satura (“full dish”), from feminine of satur. Altered in Latin by influence of Ancient Greek σάτυρος (sáturos, “satyr”), on the mistaken notion that the form is related to the Greek σατυρικόν δράμα (saturikón dráma, “satyr drama”).

(uncountable) A literary device of writing or art which principally ridicules its subject often as an intended means of provoking or preventing change or highlighting a shortcoming in the work of another. Imitation, humor, irony, and exaggeration are often used to aid this.


hyper

hyper (countable and uncountable, plural hypers)

Shortenings, ultimately from the prefix hyper-.

(uncountable, science fiction, informal) Clipping of hyperspace.


leprechaun

→ German: Leprechaun

desc

→ Italian: leprecauno, leprechaun (unadapted), leprecano, lepricauno

→ Japanese: レプラコーン (repurakōn)

→ Korean: 레프러콘 (repeureokon)

→ Portuguese: leprechaun

→ Russian: лепреко́н (leprekón)

→ Spanish: leprechaun

/ˈlɛpɹəkɔːn/

/ˈlɛpɹəˌkɔn/

/ˈlɛpɹəˌkɑn/

From Irish leipreachán, luprachán, from Middle Irish luchrupán, from Old Irish luchorpán. See also Irish lucharachán.
The word's further etymology is disputed; it is traditionally explained as a compound containing lú (“small”, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁lengʷʰ-) + corp (“body”, which is from Latin corpus). However, an alternative suggestion is that it is a derivative of Latin Lupercī (“priests of Lupercus”), who were misinterpreted as an antediluvian species by medieval Irish scholars.

af

from Proto-Indo-European <i class="Latn mention" lang="ine-pro">*h₁lengʷʰ-</i>

which is from Latin <i class="Latn mention" lang="la">corpus</i>

Do you not catch the tiny clamour, / Busy click of an elfin hammer, / Voice of the leprechaun singing shrill, / As he merrily plies his trade?

1888, William Allingham, “The Lepracaun; or Fairy Shoemaker”, in William Butler Yeats, editor, Irish Fairy and Folk Tales, pages 86–87:

(Irish folklore) One of a race of elves that can reveal hidden treasure to those who catch them.

（爱尔兰民间传说里的）短妖精

[Àiěrlán mínjiān chuánshuō lǐ de] duǎn yāojing


bossa nova

en-noun

bossa nova (countable and uncountable, plural bossa novas)

/ˈbɒsə ˈnəʊvə/

From colloquial Brazilian Portuguese bossa (“inclination, propensity, trend”, literally “protuberance”) + nova (“new”).

bor

A genre of music originating from Brazil, similar to a fusion of jazz and samba music, no longer closely associated with the Brazilian dance.


bossa nova

bossa nova (nominative singular)
bossa novy (genitive singular)
bossa novie (dative singular)
bossa novę (accusative singular)
bossa novą (instrumental singular)
bossa novie (locative singular)
bossa novo (singular vocative)

Unadapted borrowing from Brazilian Portuguese bossa nova.


erotic

en-adj

erotic (comparative more erotic, superlative most erotic)

more erotic (comparative)
most erotic (superlative)

From French érotique, from Ancient Greek ἐρωτικός (erōtikós, “related to love”), from ἔρως (érōs, “sexual love”).

der

erotic entertainment and services

I had an erotic dream last night.

There's a local cinema that only shows erotic movies.

Relating to or tending to arouse sexual desire or excitement.


polka

Via French and German from Czech polka, variant of půlka (“half”) as in "half-step"; see půl (“half”).


polka

→ Ottoman Turkish: پولقه (polka)

Turkish: polka


polka

poleczka (diminutive)
polka (nominative singular)
polki (nominative plural)
polki (genitive singular)
polek (genitive plural)
polce (dative singular)
polkom (dative plural)
polkę (accusative singular)
polki (accusative plural)
polką (instrumental singular)
polkami (instrumental plural)
polce (locative singular)
polkach (locative plural)
polko (singular vocative)
polki (plural vocative)

Borrowed from Czech polka. Doublet of półka.


FPS

first-person shooter
first-person shooter#English

(video games) Initialism of first-person shooter.


FPS

Orthographic borrowing from English FPS.

(video games) FPS (initialism of "first-person shooter")


phantom

From Middle English fantome, fanteme, from Old French fantosme, fantasme, from Latin phantasma (“an apparition, specter; (in Late Latin also) appearance, image”), from Ancient Greek φάντασμα (phántasma, “phantasm, an appearance, image, apparition, specter”), from φαντάζω (phantázō, “I make visible”). Doublet of phantasm.


insectoid

Two hundred Earth years earlier, a race of Insectoids discovered them as the Squishys were sending their first probes to other planets in their own star system.

2017, A.K. Brown, Humans on the Menu (Champagne Universe Series: Book 2), page 24:

(science fiction, ufology) An insect-like creature.


jazzy

nl-adj

jazzy (comparative jazzyer, superlative jazzyest)

jazzyer (comparative)
jazzyest (superlative)
jazzy (adverbial positive predicative)
jazzyer (adverbial comparative predicative)
het jazzyest (adverbial predicative superlative)
het jazzyeste (adverbial predicative superlative)
jazzy (feminine indefinite masculine positive singular)
jazzyere (comparative feminine indefinite masculine singular)
jazzyeste (feminine indefinite masculine singular superlative)
jazzy (indefinite neuter positive singular)
jazzyer (comparative indefinite neuter singular)
jazzyeste (indefinite neuter singular superlative)
jazzy (indefinite plural positive)
jazzyere (comparative indefinite plural)
jazzyeste (indefinite plural superlative)
jazzy (definite positive)
jazzyere (comparative definite)
jazzyeste (definite superlative)
jazzyers (comparative partitive)


spook

Borrowed from Dutch spook (“ghost”), from Middle Dutch spooc (“spook, ghost”). Cognate with Middle Low German spôk, spûk (“apparition, ghost”), Middle High German gespük (“a haunting”), German Spuk, Danish spøge (“to haunt”), Swedish spöke (“ghost”). Doublet of puck.


spook

→ Northern Ndebele: isipoko

→ Xhosa: isiporho

→ Zulu: isipoki

From Dutch spook, from Middle Dutch spoke, spooc, from Proto-Germanic *spōk.


spook

nl-noun

spook n (plural spoken, diminutive spookje n)

desctree

Afrikaans: spook
→ Northern Ndebele: isipoko
→ Xhosa: isiporho
→ Zulu: isipoki

Negerhollands: spook

→ English: spook

→ Papiamentu: spoki, spooki

From Middle Dutch spoke, spooc, from spoke, spoocke, spoicke (“wizardry, witchcraft”), from Proto-Germanic *spōk. Further etymology unclear. Cognate with Middle Low German spôk, Low German spôk, Middle High German Spuch, and German Spuk.

het spook van de oorlog

an imaginary horror, conceptual nightmare


wight

From Middle English wight, wiȝt, from Old English wiht (“thing, creature”), from Proto-West Germanic *wihti, from Proto-Germanic *wihtiz (“thing, creature”, literally “being”), from Proto-Indo-European *wekti- (“cause, sake, thing”), from *wekʷ- (“to say, tell”).
Cognate with Scots wicht (“creature, being, human”), Dutch wicht (“child, baby, girl”), German Low German Wicht (“girl; wight”), German Wicht (“wretch, wight, little creature, scoundrel”), Danish vætte (“underground creature, gnome”), Norwegian Bokmål vette (“underground creature, gnome”), Swedish vätte (“underground creature, gnome”), Icelandic vættur (“imp, elf”). Doublet of whit.


film noir

en-noun

film noir (countable and uncountable, plural film noirs or films noirs)

film noirs (plural)
films noirs (plural)

Borrowed from French film noir (“dark film”, literally “black film”), attributed to French film critic Nino Frank (1946).

bor

During this period his own films were being studied alongside classic film noir together with European arthouse cinema and the works of directors from around the world.

2017, Ian Brookes, Film Noir: A Critical Introduction, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, →ISBN:

(film, uncountable) A film genre characterized by low-key lighting, a bleak urban setting, and corrupt, cynical or desperate characters.


folk

folk (nominative singular)
folku (genitive singular)
folkowi (dative singular)
folk (accusative singular)
folkiem (instrumental singular)
folku (locative singular)
folku (singular vocative)

Borrowed from English folk (music), from Middle English folk, from Old English folc, from Proto-West Germanic *folk, from Proto-Germanic *fulką, from Proto-Indo-European *pl̥h₁-gós, from *pleh₁-.

folk music (contemporary music in traditional style)


folk

(music) folk music (contemporary music in traditional style)


disintegrate

en-verb

disintegrate (third-person singular simple present disintegrates, present participle disintegrating, simple past and past participle disintegrated)

disintegrates (present singular third-person)
disintegrating (participle present)
disintegrated (participle past)
disintegrated (past)

There is a Latvian gentleman named Theodore Nemor living at White Friars Mansions, Hampstead, who claims to have invented a machine of a most extraordinary character which is capable of disintegrating any object placed within its sphere of influence.

1929, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Disintegration Machine:

(transitive) To undo the integrity of; to break into parts.

(science fiction, transitive) To cause to break up into infinitesimal parts through the use of a disintegrator.

dīlābor (Due to Latin treating the verb "to disintegrate" as purely intransitive, "X disintegrates Y" is expressed with (nominative of Y) + (appropriate form of dīlābor) + (ablative of X), faciō dīlābī (literally "to cause to fall apart")


pseudoscience

en-noun

pseudoscience (countable and uncountable, plural pseudosciences)

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

From pseudo- + science, 1796, originally typeset pſeudo-ſcience, in reference to alchemy.

It pulls together first-rate pseudo-science and high-grade detective meller of the Spillane school (but entirely clean) and the result is fine read-and-forget entertainment.

1952 November 14, Groff Conklin, Galaxy Science Fiction, page 122, column 1:

Fictitious science as portrayed in science fiction.


intergalactic

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

They say he's a member of the Exchange – you know, the big intergalactic criminal organization.

2003 July 16, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic:

(proscribed, science fiction) Occurring across a single galaxy, interstellar.


mermaid

From Middle English mermayde (“maid of the sea”), from mere (“sea, lake”) + maid, equivalent to mer- + maid. Cognate with Dutch meermeid (“mermaid”), Middle High German mermaget, mermeit (“mermaid”, > German Meermagd, Meermädchen (“mermaid”)). Compare Old English meremenn, meremennen, meremenin (“mermaid, siren”).

inh

Holonym: merfolk

Search the depth, & ſee that variety of Sea monſters & fiſhes, Mare-maids, Sea men, Horſes, &c. which it affords.

1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 2, section 2, member 3, page 210:

People that are drowned, and whose bodies are not founds are believed to have been taken into the dwellings of the Mermaids.

1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 242:

A mythological creature with a woman's head and upper body, and a tail of a fish.


footwork

en-noun

footwork (usually uncountable, plural footworks)

In April, DJ Rashad, a Chicago-based producer and pioneer of the increasingly popular footwork genre, died in a drug-related accident.

2015 November 16, Sukhdev Sandhu, “How dub master Kode9 became the hero of zero”, in The Guardian:

(uncountable, music) A subgenre of juke/ghetto house and style of street dance that originated in Chicago in the early 1990s.


stock character

stock character (plural stock characters)

(writing, theater, film) Any fictional character drawn from some stereotype who is instantly recognizable.

ամպլուա

fictional character based on a recognizable stereotype


raï

From French raï, from Algerian Arabic راي (rāy, “opinion”), from Arabic رَأْي (raʔy, “opinion”).

Rai arrives in the US, in some ways, as the latest rage to hit the World Music record bins, the result of a new post-modern global marketing strategy.

1991 March-April, David McMurray and Ted Swedenburg, "Rai Tide Rising" in Middle East Report no. 169, page 39 http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0899-2851%28199103%2F04%29169%3C39%3ARTR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-5

1997: Karen Fog Olwig & Kirsten Hastrup, Siting Culture: The Shifting Anthropological Object — chapter 3: “Which world? On the diffusion of Algerian raï to the West” (by Marc Schade-Poulsen), p59: INTRODUCTION →ISBN (10); →ISBN (13))^†
This chapter deals with raï music from Algeria. Since its emergence in the late 1970s, raï has spread throughout the world and stands today as an exponent of “World Music”. The chapter traces a transnational process that has taken place in the 1980s: the diffusion of raï from the cabarets of Oran (the second largest city of Algeria) to the stereo racks in the West. It evokes the existence of different places and spaces for the consumption of raï.

In France, raï’s lack of commercial success was thought to have been caused by hidden French racism and the subsequent de facto absence of raï on commercial radio and prime-time television. All in all, it did seem difficult to “sell an Arab” to a Western audience, as was the case, for example, with Cheb Mami’s U.S.-recorded album “Let me raï”, released during the Gulf War.

1999: Marc Schade-Poulsen, Men and Popular Music in Algeria: The Social Significance of Raï, p34 →ISBN (10); →ISBN (13))

The rise of raï has paralleled the rise of Islamism in Algerian society, despite its mixing the male and female roles of musical production and consumption. Indeed, the paradox is at first glance perplexing because one might expect the critical message of raï to be anti-Islamist. The rhetoric of raï, however, does not contradict the rise of Islamism in Algeria, and therefore it acquires the potential to complement religious fundamentalism. Raï and Islam do not so much occupy the same space as draw a cluster of public discussions and debates about gender into the same discourse (Schade-Poulsen 1996, 148–53; compare Bohlman 2000, 293–96).

2003: Tullia Magrini, Music and Gender: Perspectives from the Mediterranean — chapter 14: “‘And She Sang a New Song’: Gender and Music on the Sacred Landscapes of the Mediterranean” (by Philip V. Bohlman), p333 →ISBN (10); →ISBN (13))

At least three conflicting varieties of Raï drifted in through the open doorway of the bus, blasting from cafés in the square.

2005, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Pashazade, p33: §2:

A form of music, originating in Oran, Algeria from Bedouin shepherds.


raï

→ English: raï

→ German: Raï

Borrowed from Algerian Arabic راي (rāy, “opinion”), from Arabic رَأْي (raʔy, “opinion”).

bor+

(music) raï (form of music originating from Algeria)


Min Min light

Named after the small settlement of Min Min, located between the outback towns of Boulia and Winton, where the light was observed by a stockman in 1918.

Min-min lights are usually seen during the winter, for example, when cold-air inversions abound. This, and his artificial min-min, seemed to confirm the theory.

2003, New Scientist, volume 180, numbers 2415-2428, page 71:

Then, once a man was talking about his outdoor work, he got around to speaking about the mysteries of the min-min light and who saw it where.

2006, Alexis Wright, Carpentaria, Giramondo, published 2012, page 340:

Neuroscientist, Professor Jack Pettigrew, of the University of Queensland claims the Min Min lights are an inverted mirage of light sources hundreds of miles away, caused by a temperature inversion when cold dense air is trapped near the ground to be refracted so that it travels a curved path around the globe.

2006, Marion Houldsworth, From Gulf to God Knows Where, footnote, page 127:

“You′ve heard of Min Min lights?” She grinned. “Sure.”
The strange appearance of those lights in the outback was legendary.[…]
“Min Min lights were part of Aboriginal folklore long before modern day sightings made them famous,” Jack said.

2010, Robyn Grady, Bargaining For Baby, unnumbered page:

Travellers camping out on the plains may witness a glowing light that seems to hover eerily across the vast landscape – the unexplained Min Min Lights that have been shrouded in mystery for over 100 years.

2010, Craig Lewis, Cathy Savage, The Complete 4WD Guide, unnumbered page:

(Australia) An unexplained light reportedly appearing in the sky in remote parts of Australia, especially northwest Queensland, possibly caused by reflections of distant light in the dry air conditions.


conversion

en-noun

conversion (countable and uncountable, plural conversions)

From Middle English conversion, conversioun, borrowed from Anglo-Norman conversion, from Latin conversiō, from convertō.

обръщане

the act of having converted something or someone

המרת דת

to replace one religious faith with another

(rugby) A free kick, after scoring a try, worth two points.

(American football) An extra point (or two) scored by kicking a field goal or carrying the ball into the end zone after scoring a touchdown.

(obsolete) The act of turning round; revolution; rotation.

(slang, board games) Changing a miniature figure into another character, usually by mixing different parts, or molding the model's parts, or doing both.


Darth Vader

"Darth" is a blend of dark + death (the derivation from Dark Lord of the Sith is a later development).
"Vader" is traditionally explained as being from Dutch vader (“father”). However, the idea of Vader's fatherhood was only developed for The Empire Strikes Back (after the character was introduced), making this improbable. It is more likely a shortening of invader or from the surname Vader.

What's all this? Looks like Darth Vader's bathroom.

1982, “Knight of the Phoenix”, in Knight Rider, episode 1 (television production), spoken by Michael Knight (David Hasselhoff):

Darth Vader, a villain of the science-fantasy film series Star Wars.


hokum

hokum (usually uncountable, plural hokums)

Uncertain; first attested as US theater slang, possibly a blend of hocus-pocus + bunkum.

[D]uring the 'twenties, jazz developed from an infrequent ‘hokum’ music in a few vaudeville acts to a household commodity.

1956, Marshall W[inslow] Stearns, “The Jazz Age Begins”, in The Story of Jazz, paperback edition, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, published 1970, →ISBN, page 153:

As a result a hybrid music, ‘hokum’, became popular. It owed much to ‘Georgia Tom’ Dorsey, Tampa Red and Big Bill Broonzy, and the first recordings in the idiom appeared around 1929. Many recordings by The Famous Hokum Boys, the Hokum Trio, The Hokum Boys and similar groups were recorded by 1930. Jokey, often bawdy, frequently satirical, they employed rural techniques in an urban setting, gently lampooning country ways through a city sophistication.

1985, Paul Oliver, “Black Music: ‘Sales Tax on It’: Race Records in the New Deal Years”, in Stephen W. Baskerville, Ralph Willett, editors, Nothing Else to Fear: New Perspectives on America in the Thirties, Manchester: Manchester University Press, →ISBN, page 210:

ES: That thing that you call double bow, I've heard many different names for it. / JG: Rockin' the bow. / ES: I've heard it called a straight shuffle. I've heard it called hocum. Have you ever heard it called hocum? / JG: Yeah, we call the jazz hocum. You see, anything away from the melody.

1990, The Devil’s Box, Madison, Ala.: Tennessee Valley Old Time Fiddlers’ Association, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 27:

Pianist [Thomas A.] Dorsey and guitarist Tampa Red popularized the double-entendre, up-tempo novelty blues style known as hokum blues that was a forerunner of the up-tempo rhythm and blues, whose similarly adult lyrics often had to be bowdlerized when covered by white singers for the white teen market in the 1950s.

2008, “R&B”, in Charles Reagan Wilson, general editor, Bill C. Malone, editors, Music, Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, →ISBN, page 108:

Blues and hokum intertwined at least through the mid-1930s, when the hokum bands faded out. [...] Hokum was also absorbed into the jazz tradition.

2013, Larry Birnbaum, “The Jumpin’ Jive”, in Before Elvis: The Prehistory of Rock ’n’ Roll, Lanham, Md.: The Scarecrow Press, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 133:

(uncountable, music) A genre of blues song or music, often characterized by sexual innuendos or satire.


fusion

Unadapted borrowing from English fusion, from Middle French fusion, from Latin fūsiōnem.


biorobot

(science fiction) A biological organism that has been created and designed by artificial means.


clairgustance

Presumably from 17th-century French clair (“clear”) + gustance

The paranormal ability to taste a substance without putting anything in one's mouth. It is claimed that those who possess this ability are able to perceive the essence of a substance from the spiritual or ethereal realms through taste.


corpsicle

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

Blend of corpse + popsicle. The cryogenic sense is a coinage by author Frederik Pohl in The Age of the Pussyfoot (1969).

'Your newspapers called you people corpsicles,' said the blond man. 'I never understood what the tapes meant by that.'
'It comes from Popsicle. Frozen sherbet.' Corbell had used the word himself before he became one of them. One of the corpsicles, the frozen dead.

There are dozens of companies that will turn you into a human corpsicle and store your chilled earthly remains indefinitely.

2007, Daniel H. Wilson, Where's My Jetpack?:, page 176:

I won't turn you into a corpsicle and hope somebody knows how to fix you in a hundred years.

(science fiction) A person who has been cryonically frozen in the hope of later revival.


psychic

From Ancient Greek ψυχικός (psukhikós, “relative to the soul, spirit, mind”). Earlier referred to as "psychical"; or from Ancient Greek ψυχή (psukhḗ, “soul, mind, psyche”). First appeared (as substantive) 1871 and first records 1895.

uder

A person who possesses, or appears to possess, extra-sensory abilities such as precognition, clairvoyance, and telepathy, or who appears to be susceptible to paranormal or supernatural influences.

екстрасенс

a person who possesses, or appears to possess, extra-sensory abilities

јасновидац m (rare, literally "clairvoyant")

jasnovidac m (rare, literally "clairvoyant")


kecapi suling

Name of the instruments used, kecapi + suling.

Sundanese instrumental and improvisational form of music.


cliffhanger

From cliff + hanger, evoking the image of someone left hanging from a cliff, thereby having an uncertain fate.
The term "cliffhanger" is considered to have originated with the serialised version of Thomas Hardy's "A Pair of Blue Eyes", published in Tinsley's Magazine in the 1870s, in which the character Henry Knight is left hanging off of a cliff. It was inspired by a real life story from his wife Emma's childhood, when she had to rescue one of her school friends from a similar position.

This presidential election is such a cliffhanger. Will it be the rising star Dmitry "Obamovich" Medvedev? Or the veteran Gennady "McCainovich" Zyuganov?

February 28 2008, Timothy Garton Ash, “Russia has run rings round the west”, in Guardian, retrieved 2009-02-02:

(by extension) An outcome which is awaited with keen anticipation, especially one which is delayed for a period of time or which is not known until the last minute.


Viking

Borrowed from Old Norse víkingr (“Viking”). Already in Old English as wīċing and Old Frisian wītsing, but assumed extinct in Middle English and borrowed anew in the 19th century; any survivals in dialect through the Middle Ages are unknown.
Old Norse víkingr itself is from Old Norse vík (“inlet, cove, fjord”) + -ingr (“one belonging to, one who frequents”) (the -r is the nominative desinence). Thus, “one from or who frequents the sea’s inlets”.
The Old English and Anglo-Frisian form, existing since at least the eighth century, could also have been derived from or influenced by Old English wīc (“camp”), on account of the temporary encampments which were often a prominent feature of the Vikings’ raids.
Others proposals were made, like e.g. deriving víkingr from the root related to the verb víkja or deriving both English and Old Norse words to *wīkingaz related to víkja or wīc.

أُرْدَمَانِيّ

One of the Scandinavian seafaring warriors

(by extension, fantasy) A stock character common in the fantasy genre, namely a barbarian, generally equipped with an axe or sword and a helmet adorned with horns.


bean sí

head

bean sí f (genitive singular mná sí, nominative plural mná sí)

mná sí (genitive singular)
mná sí (nominative plural)
nominative (indefinite)
bean sí (indefinite singular)
mná sí (indefinite plural)
vocative (indefinite)
a bhean sí (indefinite singular)
a mhná sí (indefinite plural)
genitive (indefinite)
mná sí (indefinite singular)
ban sí (indefinite plural)
dative (indefinite)
mnaoi shí (archaic dialectal indefinite singular)
mnáibh sí (archaic indefinite plural)
nominative (definite)
an bhean sí (definite singular)
na mná sí (definite plural)
genitive (definite)
na mná sí (definite singular)
na mban sí (definite plural)
dative (definite)
leis an mbean sí (definite singular)
don bhean sí (definite singular)
leis an mnaoi shí (archaic definite dialectal singular)
don mhnaoi shí (archaic definite dialectal singular)
leis na mná sí (definite plural)
leis na mnáibh sí (archaic definite plural)
bean sí
bhean sí
mbean sí

→ English: banshee (see there for further descendants)

→ Scots: banshee

From Old Irish ben síde (literally “woman of the fairy mound”). By surface analysis, bean + sí.


pally

Clipping of paladin + -y (diminutive suffix).

(slang, fantasy roleplaying games) A paladin.


omnipotence

en-noun

omnipotence (countable and uncountable, plural omnipotences)

From Late Middle English omnipotens, from Old French omnipotence, from Latin omnipotentia.

One purpose of the Freedom of Information Act is to make our society less of a police state. Until the CIA's omnipotence is seriously challenged, however, the xeroxed papers in my hand have little meaning. For now, they remind me of nothing less than the simple fact that evil forces still control our society.

1976 December 18, Allen Young, “Speaking Out”, in Gay Community News, volume 4, number 25, page 9:

Unlimited power; commonly attributed to a deity or deities.


omnipresence

omnipresence (countable and uncountable, plural omnipresences)

Notwithstanding these precise statements concerning the omnipresence of the flesh of Christ, there still was no uniform and, in all its features, settled doctrinal statement concerning it […]

1899, Heinrich Friedrich Ferdinand Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, page 333:

So the Lord's omnipresence as well as the omnipresence of the Self of the soul is rather an internal omnipresence, a subjective omnipresence, […]

1911, Walter Winston Kenilworth, The Life of the Soul, page 153:

The ability to be, or the characteristic of being, at all places at the same time (usually only attributed to God).

omnipresencia

the ability to be at all places at the same time


archdevil

/ɑɹt͡ʃˈdɛvəl/

/ɑɹt͡ʃˈdɛvɪl/

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

From the context and other parts of the work, we are to understand that the demons here described are the personal friends of our sovereign, and that the archdevil was the mother of our sovereign.

1802, The Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine, Volume 12, Open Court Publishing Company, page 30:

In short, it is purely the work of the devil that they are doing, and especially that of the archdevil, who presides at Muhlhausen, and directs nothing but robbery, murder and bloodshed.

1841, George Waddington, A History of the Reformation on the Continent: In Three Volumes, Duncan and Malcolm, page 155:

A spirit of ultraism seems to pervade the whole community. The language of Milton's archdevil "Evil, be thou my good" is the creed of modern reformers, or, in other words — anything for a change. What is to come of all this, I have not wisdom even to guess. It is an age of transition and whether you and I live to see the elements of the moral and political world at rest, is, I think, extretmely doubtful.

1851, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers: With Brief Notices of Passing Events, Facts, and Opinions, A.D. 1812 to A.D. 1842, Lippincott, Grambo and Company, page 517:

The bishops in question were described as archdevils, priests of Baal, standard-bearers of the Balaamites, and children of perdition.

1896, Marvin Richardson Vincent, The Age of Hildebrand, Christian Literature Company, page 267:

They are archdevils. Partake not of anything from their hands. Now I shall sell myself and do this act if only I have thee at my back.

1940, United States Congress, The Madras Law Journal, page 813:

(theology, rare, religion, fantasy, science fiction) A chief or reigning devil.


omniscience

omniscience (countable and uncountable, plural omnisciences)

From Medieval Latin omniscientia (“all-knowledge”), from Latin omni- (“all”), and scient from the Latin scientia (“knowledge”).

Many people believe in God's omniscience.

If, a few pages back, the present writer claimed the privilege of peeping into Miss Amelia Sedley's bedroom, and understanding with the omniscience the novelist all the gentle pains and passions which were tossing upon that innocent pillow, why should he not declare himself to be Rebecca's confidante too, master of her secrets, and seal-keeper of that young woman's conscience?

1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 15, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:


omnipresent

Borrowed from Medieval Latin omnipraesēns, equivalent to omni- + present.

bor+

In 1975, China was emerging from the Cultural Revolution, its government’s effort to purify and revitalize society. Communist officials had set up indoctrination programs, broadcast propaganda over omnipresent loudspeakers, and sought to stamp out any evidence of China’s ancient history.

2010, George W. Bush, Decision Points, →ISBN, →OCLC, →OL, pages 22–23:

Another most notable change concerns rolling stock liveries. Back then, corporate Rail Blue was omnipresent, whereas now there is a kaleidoscope of colours and styles.

2020 June 17, David Clough, “Then and now: trains through Crewe”, in Rail, page 60:


Whovian

From (Doctor) Who + -v- + -ian; compare Peruvian and Kachruvian.

But I am sorry; I'm a devout Whovian and I guess I got a little hot seeing the good Doctor ignored like that.

1985, Amazing: science fiction stories, page 23:

Typing birthday and Doctor Who into the search fireld turned up a fan-made video of a Dalek singing "Happy Birthday," which was perfect for my friend Steve, a fellow Whovian.

In his time, he's been a comic-book geek, a role-playing geek, a computer geek, and a sci- fi geek, though never a Trekkie, Trekker, or a Whovian, because he has his limits.

2009, Holly Black, Cecil Castellucci, editors, Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd:

Westin: "Oh, yeah. We found a full fledged member of a fan club that has already seen all episodes of the show[…]he was a closet Whovian, or what ever they are called.”

(fandom slang) A fan of the British science-fiction television programme Doctor Who.


opera house

A theatre, or similar building, primarily used for staging opera.


thrash

en-noun

thrash (countable and uncountable, plural thrashes)

From Middle English thrasshen, a dialectal variant of thresshen, threshen (whence the modern English thresh), from Old English þrescan, from Proto-Germanic *þreskaną, whence also Old High German dreskan, Old Norse þreskja.

(music, uncountable) Ellipsis of thrash metal.


omniscient

From Medieval Latin omnisciens (“all-knowing”), from Latin omnis (“all”) + sciens (“knowing”) (further analysable via scient).

der

The story was narrated from an omniscient point of view.

The Abrahamic God is omniscient.

For me, anything is possible. I am omniscient and omnipotent, extremely vain, and, what is more, I come in a handy self-carrying package.

1992, Douglas Adams, chapter 17, in Mostly Harmless (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), page 155:


lucharachán

head

lucharachán m (genitive singular lucharacháin, nominative plural lucharacháin)

lucharacháin (genitive singular)
lucharacháin (nominative plural)
nominative (indefinite)
lucharachán (indefinite singular)
lucharacháin (indefinite plural)
vocative (indefinite)
a lucharacháin (indefinite singular)
a lucharachána (indefinite plural)
genitive (indefinite)
lucharacháin (indefinite singular)
lucharachán (indefinite plural)
dative (indefinite)
nominative (definite)
an lucharachán (definite singular)
na lucharacháin (definite plural)
genitive (definite)
an lucharacháin (definite singular)
na lucharachán (definite plural)
dative (definite)
leis an lucharachán (definite singular)
don lucharachán (definite singular)
leis na lucharacháin (definite plural)

/ˈl̪ˠʊxəɾˠəxɑːnˠ/

From Middle Irish luchrupán, from Old Irish luchorpán (from Old Irish lú (“small”, from Proto-Indo-European *legʷʰ-) + corp (“body”, which is from Latin corpus) + -án (diminutive suffix)).

af

from Proto-Indo-European <i class="Latn mention" lang="ine-pro">*legʷʰ-</i>


omnipotent

en-adj

omnipotent (comparative more omnipotent, superlative most omnipotent)

more omnipotent (comparative)
most omnipotent (superlative)

Inherited from Middle English omnipotent(e), from Old French omnipotent, from Latin omnipotēns, omnipotentem.

inh+

All the spirits of the elements bowed down before him; but the future was still hidden from his eyes, and Death was omnipotent.

1832, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Heath's Book of Beauty, 1833, The Enchantress, pages 16–17:

Having unlimited power, force or authority.

عَلَى كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ

having unlimited power, force or authority


brillig

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe

A nonce word in Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky, explained by Humpty Dumpty as "four o'clock in the afternoon — the time when you begin broiling things for dinner."


skin flick

Trading is scheduled to begin next month in the shares of another purveyor of erotica, Olympia Press; its latest skin flick, "Barbara," cost $32,000 to make, grossed $11,700 in its second week in Manhattan and is scheduled for national distribution.

1970 November 16, “The Rich Pornocopia”, in Time:

(chiefly US, slang) A pornographic film.


xenophilia

While it may appear that Sturgeon has thus become an advocate of homoeroticism, incest, xenophilia, and other exotic or decadent sexual practices, he remains committed rather to the ideals of understanding and tolerance.

1983, Frank Northen Magill, Survey of modern fantasy literature, Volume 4, Salem Press, →ISBN, page 1707:

An alien—seemingly just a tourist—lands in the middle of Washington, assumes human, male form, and is adopted by four college kids for fun and sex. The story is told in snatches of dialogue and scraps of poetry (the title is from e.e. cummings), and is all goofy juxtapositions, happy xenophilia, and affection for the enthusiastic and accepting youth.

2007, Julie Phillips, James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, →ISBN, page 300:

Xenophilia (header) From a young age, even before I knew what sex was, I always had a thing for girls. Alien girls I mean — Alorians in particular. I broke out in a sweat every time I saw them. They were so beautiful.

2012, Mark Guinane, Horizon's Edge, →ISBN, page 303:

(science fiction) love (especially sexual love) between humans and extraterrestrials


chick flick

From chick (“young woman”) + flick (“movie”), chosen for the rhyme.

Films like Russ Meyers’ ‘Beyond the Valley of the Dolls’ (1970) and ‘Twilight People’ (1972) […] Corman’s ‘Black Mama, White Mama’ (1972), another chick-flick set in a slammer in the Philippines.

(dated, slang) A sexually exploitative or pornographic film depicting women, intended for straight men.


Darth

From the Star Wars universe, where it is used as a title for Sith Lords. (There are Darth Vader, Darth Tyranus, Darth Maul etc.) Blend of dark + death (the derivation from Dark Lord of the Sith is a later development).

Consider the threat of an evil hacker, Darth, who can not only eavesdrop on your network connection but also alter the messages that are sent.

2000, David G. Messerschmitt, Understanding Networked Applications: A First Course (textbook), Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, page 400

[…] glaring malevolently across his desk at me in the manner that had earned him the nickname “Darth” among his elite cadre of audio penetration officers.

2000, Antonio J. Mendez, Malcolm McConnell, The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA, HarperCollins, published 2000, →ISBN, page 186:

The evil Darth Leonard steals the formula and a young couple must get it back (real life Ward Leonard is a legendary recluse who has hiked the Appalachian Trail something like 20-30 times).

2005, John Illig, Pacific Dream: A Pacific Crest Trail Through-Hike, Elderberry Press, →ISBN, page 74:

I’m sure Darth Hoodie has some other illegal way of messing with inexperienced quarterbacks on the road.

2015 November 27, Jimmy Kempski quoted in "Patriots-Broncos prediction roundup" in Boston Globe

(humorous) Used as a title or name for an evil person.


romance

en-noun

romance (countable and uncountable, plural romances)

→ Japanese: ロマンス

→ Korean: 로맨스 (romaenseu)

From Middle English romauns, roumance, borrowed from Anglo-Norman and Old French romanz, romans (the vernacular language of France, as opposed to Latin), from Medieval Latin rōmānicē, Vulgar Latin rōmānicē (“in the Roman language”, adverb), from Latin rōmānicus (“roman”, adj) from rōmānus (“a Roman”). Doublet of Romansch.

der

(music) A romanza, or sentimental ballad.


romance

→ French: romance (see there for further descendants)

Borrowed from Old Occitan romans, or Old French romanz, from Vulgar Latin *romanĭce, compare Medieval Latin rōmānice, ultimately from Latin rōmānicus < rōmānus. Cognates include Old French romanz, whence the modern French noun roman (“novel”).


mento

en-noun

mento (countable and uncountable, plural mentos)

Musician who never meet before the journey entertain we with mento song.

2020, Paul Mendez, Rainbow Milk, Dialogue Books (2021), page 19:

a folk music genre of Jamaica, featuring acoustic instruments and voices.


deadhead

From dead + head. Some senses are derived from theater jargon (originally spelled dead head) for audience members admitted without paying, which probably arose in analogy to dead weight or deadwood in reference to their lack of contribution to revenue or in reference to their unenthusiastic (dead) response to performances. Perhaps even from Latin caput mortuum, alchemy term for distillation residue. As Paul Quinion writes: Similarly, the term was applied to a dull or lazy person, one who contributes nothing to an enterprise, only in the early years of the twentieth century, well after the theatrical and transport senses had become well established.

(slang) Alternative form of Deadhead (“fan of the rock band The Grateful Dead”)


fada

From Vulgar Latin *Fāta (“goddess of fate”), from the plural of Latin fātum (“fate”).


fada

From Vulgar Latin *Fāta (“goddess of fate”), from the plural of Latin fātum (“fate, destiny told by the gods”). Compare Catalan fada, French fée, Italian fata, Portuguese fada, Spanish hada.


blink

en-verb

blink (third-person singular simple present blinks, present participle blinking, simple past and past participle blinked)

blinks (present singular third-person)
blinking (participle present)
blinked (participle past)
blinked (past)

From Middle English blynken, blenken, from Old English blincan (suggested by causative verb blenċan (“to deceive”); > English blench), from Proto-Germanic *blinkaną, a variant of *blīkaną (“to gleam, shine”).
Cognate with Dutch blinken (“to glitter, shine”), German blinken (“to flash, blink”), Danish blinke (“to flash, twinkle, wink, blink”), Swedish blinka (“to flash, blink, twinkle, wink, blink”). Related to blank, blick, blike, bleak.

blikat

to flash on and off at regular intervals

(science fiction, video games) To teleport, mostly for short distances.


chthonian

en-adj

chthonian (not generally comparable, comparative more chthonian, superlative most chthonian)

more chthonian (comparative)
most chthonian (superlative)

From Ancient Greek χθόνιος (khthónios, “in or under the ground”), from χθών (khthṓn, “ground”).

uder

Consus, moreover, is regarded as a god of the lower world, or Chthonian divinity—another circumstance which connects him with Poseidôn, whose character becomes more and more Chthonian the farther his cultus is traced into the East, where also his phase as lord of knowledge and wisdom appears more manifestly.

1872, Robert Brown, Poseidôn: A Link between Semite, Hamite, and Aryan, page 70:

...I intend to apply the name chthonian to all gods and spirits of the earth, whether their functions are concerned with agriculture or with the grave and the world beyond, or (as often) with both.

1950, W. K. C. Guthrie, The Greeks and Their Gods, Beacon Press, published 1955, page 219:

The Olympian religion is truly Olympian when it rests on Chthonian grounds, and the Chthonian religion is truly Chthonian when it stands in the Olympian light.

1969, Vincent Vycinas, Earth and Gods: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Martin Heidegger, page 196:

Even an “Olympian” deity such as Athena Polias at Athens may have chthonian features, such as her association with the snake, a creature symbolic of the earth.

2007, Jennifer Lynn Larson, Ancient Greek Cults: A Guide, page 12:

For example, the Oresteia, 'that treasure house of chthonian concepts' (Scullion 1994: 111), categorizes gods in ways that do not match the rigid terms of the foundational scholarship on Olympian versus chthonian deities.

2015, Susan Deacy, “Gods—Olympian or Chthonic”, in Esther Eidinow, Julia Kindt, editors, The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Religion, page 359:

Pertaining to the underworld; being beneath the earth.

chthonien

pertaining to the underworld; being beneath the earth


Wurm

de-noun

m:n􂀿alternatively when meaning "baby, mite"􂁀,es:s,^er:^e􂀿archaic􂁀

Wurm m or (alternatively when meaning "baby, mite") n (strong, genitive Wurmes or Wurms, plural Würmer or (archaic) Würme, diminutive Würmchen n or Würmlein n)

meaning "baby
mite"
Wurmes (genitive)
Wurms (genitive)
Würmer (plural)
Würme (archaic plural)
Würmchen (diminutive neuter)
Würmlein (diminutive neuter)
Wurm (definite nominative singular)
Würmer (definite nominative plural)
Würme (archaic definite nominative plural)
Wurmes (genitive singular)
Wurms (genitive singular)
Würmer (definite genitive plural)
Würme (archaic definite genitive plural)
Wurm (dative singular)
Wurme (dative singular)
Würmern (dative definite plural)
Würmen (archaic dative definite plural)
Wurm (accusative definite singular)
Würmer (accusative definite plural)
Würme (accusative archaic definite plural)

From Middle High German wurm, from Old High German wurm, from Proto-Germanic *wurmiz, from Proto-Indo-European *wr̥mis. Cognate with Dutch worm, English worm, West Frisian wjirm, Danish orm, Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐌿𐍂𐌼𐍃 (waurms).

(poetic, heraldry) dragon, lindworm, wyrm


freestyle

en-noun

freestyle (countable and uncountable, plural freestyles)

freestyle

sports event where competitors can choose their own method of participation

A not always visibly but nevertheless significantly Latin music, freestyle originated alongside hip-hop in the Bronx and achieved a quicker yet more fleeting commercial success. The style’s similarities to contemporaneous R&B and hi-NRG endeared it to pop radio programmers, […]

2012 March 2, Nick Minichino, “A Quick Primer On Freestyle: 1980s Dancepop's Most Underheralded Genre”, in The Village Voice:

Already a veteran DJ-producer on New York’s freestyle scene, 23-year-old Frankie Bones was flown to England for an Energy rave.

2012, Simon Reynolds, Energy Flash, Soft Skull Press, page 281:

(music) Ellipsis of Latin freestyle, a form of electronic dance music.


disko

Borrowed from English disco, clipping of discotheque, from French discothèque.


gore

(film) gore; splatter (genre of gory horror)