mail

mail (usually uncountable, plural mails)

From Middle English mayle (“mail armor”), borrowed from Old French maille (“loop, stitch”), from Vulgar Latin *macla, from Latin macula (“blemish, mesh”), probably from Proto-Indo-European *smh₁-tleh₂, from *smeh₁- (“smear, rub”).

thurak

armour consisting of metal rings or plates linked together

(uncountable, by extension, now fiction, fantasy) Armour consisting of small plates linked together.


arcadian

en-adj

arcadian (comparative more arcadian, superlative most arcadian)

more arcadian (comparative)
most arcadian (superlative)

/ɑɹˈkeɪdɪən/

(literature) Ideally rustic or pastoral.


virgule

Borrowed from Middle French virgule, from Latin virgula (“twig; scratch comma”), from virga (“rod, branch”) + -ulus (diminutive suffix). Doublet of virgula.

(typography, dated) A pipe, ⟨|⟩.
(poetry) Used to mark metrical feet.

A pipe, ⟨|⟩.
Used to mark metrical feet.


afflatus

la-noun

afflātus m (genitive afflātūs); fourth declension

afflātus (canonical masculine)
afflātūs (genitive)
afflātus (nominative singular)
afflātūs (nominative plural)
afflātūs (genitive singular)
afflātuum (genitive plural)
afflātuī (dative singular)
afflātibus (dative plural)
afflātum (accusative singular)
afflātūs (accusative plural)
afflātū (ablative singular)
afflātibus (ablative plural)
afflātus (singular vocative)
afflātūs (plural vocative)

Catalan: aflat

→ English: afflatus

Italian: afflato

Occitan: aflat

Portuguese: aflato

Spanish: aflato

[ˈäfːɫ̪ät̪ʊs̠]

Perfect passive participle of afflō (“I blow, breathe (on or towards)”).

(poetry, religion) afflation (from an inspiring spirit from an unknown source in Cicero; from a divine spirit in a pagan context or from the Holy Spirit in later Christian contexts)


arc

Inherited from Old French arc, from Latin arcus (“bow, arch”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂erkʷo-.


reference

en-noun

reference (countable and uncountable, plural references)

From Middle French référence, from Medieval Latin referentia, nominative neuter plural of referēns, present participle of referō (“return, reply”, literally “carry back”). Morphologically refer + -ence.

verwysing

academic writing: identification of a source

(academic writing) A short written identification of a previously published work which is used as a source for a text.

(academic writing) A previously published written work thus indicated; a source.


antagonist

From Latin antagonista, from Ancient Greek ἀνταγωνιστής (antagōnistḗs, “opponent”) (ἀντί (antí, “against”) + ἀγωνιστής (agōnistḗs, “a combatant, pleader, actor”)), from ἀνταγωνίζεσθαι (antagōnízesthai, “antagonize”).

der

ἀνταγωνιστής

So God forbid I'm seen just as an average human being / I mean, imagine if antagonists lacked any evil scheme

2022, Will Wood (musician) (lyrics and music), “The Main Character”, in In case I make it,, performed by Will Wood:

(authorship) The main character or force opposing the protagonist in a literary work or drama.


antagonist

head

antagonist c (singular definite antagonisten, plural indefinite antagonister)

antagonisten (definite singular)
antagonister (indefinite plural)
antagonist (indefinite nominative singular)
antagonisten (definite nominative singular)
antagonister (indefinite nominative plural)
antagonisterne (definite nominative plural)
antagonists (genitive indefinite singular)
antagonistens (definite genitive singular)
antagonisters (genitive indefinite plural)
antagonisternes (definite genitive plural)


antagonist

antagonist (indefinite nominative singular)
antagonisten (definite nominative singular)
antagonister (indefinite nominative plural)
antagonisterna (definite nominative plural)
antagonists (genitive indefinite singular)
antagonistens (definite genitive singular)
antagonisters (genitive indefinite plural)
antagonisternas (definite genitive plural)


subtext

→ Hebrew: סאבטקסט (sábtekst)

Everyone heard the announcement, but not everyone agrees on what the subtext was.

The word dick has meant penis since the 1890s, but Chester Gould’s private detective “Dick Tracy” has no puerile subtext related to this word.

2011, Patrick Spedding, James Lambert, “Fanny Hill, Lord Fanny, and the Myth of Metonymy”, in Studies in Philology, volume 108, number 1, page 113:

While his major plays appear on the surface to have little plot, their subtext is full of overheated romance and melodrama.

2012 July 27, Jason Zinoman, “Chekhov's Banana Peel”, in Slate:

(authorship) The implicit meaning of a text, often a literary one, or a speech or dialogue.


historical

en-adj

historical (comparative more historical, superlative most historical)

more historical (comparative)
most historical (superlative)

From Latin historicus (“historical”) + -al (forming adjectives denoting of or relating to).

suf

Hagiography, the historical genre which is the subject of this week's seminar, comprises narratives concerned with the saints and their achievements, especially the miracles which God has performed through them and on their behalf.

2017 December 8, Paul Hayward, “Seminar VII: Hagiography”, in Medieval Primary Sources—Genre, Rhetoric and Transmission:

There is no acknowledgment—because there is no understanding—that sometimes historical fiction departs from facts in order to reach for more abstract, thematic, or complexly intuitive truths that even the most diligently fact-checked histories and biographies can fail to illuminate.

2015 January 28, Mark Harris, “How 'Selma' Got Smeared”, in Grantland:

Of, concerning, or in accordance with recorded history, (particularly) as opposed to legends, myths, and fictions.

(literature, art) About history; depicting persons or events from history.

Of, concerning, or in accordance with the past generally.


roman

id-noun

roman (plural roman-roman, first-person possessive romanku, second-person possessive romanmu, third-person possessive romannya)

roman-roman (plural)
romanku (first-person possessive)
romanmu (possessive second-person)
romannya (possessive third-person)

From Malay roman, from Dutch roman, from French roman, from Old French romanz (“common language (as opposed to Latin)”), from Vulgar Latin romanicē (“in the way of the Romans (as opposed to the Franks)”), from Latin rōmānicus < rōmānus.

der

(literature) novel: a work of prose fiction, longer than a novella.


fare

head

fare (imperative far, present tense farer, simple past for, past participle fart, present participle farende)

far (imperative)
farer (present)
for (past)
fart (participle past)
farende (participle present)


Gothic

en-adj

Gothic (comparative more Gothic, superlative most Gothic)

more Gothic (comparative)
most Gothic (superlative)

From Late Latin gothicus (“Gothic, barbaric”), from Ancient Greek Γοτθικός (Gotthikós), from Ancient Greek Γότθοι (Gótthoi, “Goths”) + -ικός (-ikós, “-ic”), proposed to derive from unattested Gothic *𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌰 (*guta). Equivalent to Goth + -ic. The various usages of the adjective are introduced nearly simultaneously in the first half of the 17th century. The literal meaning “of the Goths” is found in the 1611 preface of the King James Bible, in reference to the Gothicke tongue. The generalized meaning of “Germanic, Teutonic” appears in the 1640s. Reference to the medieval period in Western Europe, and specifically the architecture of that period (“barbaric style”, initially a term of abuse), also appears in the 1640s, as does reference to “Gothic characters” or “Gothic letters” in typography.

готически

of the type formerly used for printing German

Gothic tales

Shelley's two early novels Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne are, as many scholars have noted, obviously connected to the tradition of the Gothic novel; as well, two volumes of early poetry contain Gothic elements and his tragedy The Cenci has been […]

1975, John V. Murphy, The Dark Angel: Gothic Elements in Shelley's Works, Bucknell University Press, →ISBN, page 9:

(literature) Of or relating to the style of fictional writing associated with Gothic fiction, emphasizing violent or macabre events in a mysterious, desolate setting.

готически

of or relating to a style of fictional writing


hymn

hymn (nominative singular)
hymny (nominative plural)
hymnu (genitive singular)
hymnów (genitive plural)
hymnowi (dative singular)
hymnom (dative plural)
hymn (accusative singular)
hymny (accusative plural)
hymnem (instrumental singular)
hymnami (instrumental plural)
hymnie (locative singular)
hymnach (locative plural)
hymnie (singular vocative)
hymny (plural vocative)

→? Belarusian: гімн m inan (himn)

desctree

→ Russian: гимн m inan (gimn) (likely)
→ Armenian: հիմն (himn)
→ Bashkir: гимн (gimn)
→ Crimean Tatar: gimn
→ Georgian: ჰიმნი (himni)
→ Kazakh: gïmn
→ Kildin Sami: гӣммн (gīmmn)
→ Urum: гимн
→ Uzbek: gimn

→? Ukrainian: гімн m inan (himn)

Learned borrowing from Latin hymnus, from Ancient Greek ὕμνος (húmnos).


extragalactic

(science fiction) Originating outside of the local galaxy.


glass

en-verb

glass (third-person singular simple present glasses, present participle glassing, simple past and past participle glassed)

glasses (present singular third-person)
glassing (participle present)
glassed (participle past)
glassed (past)

From Middle English glas, from Old English glæs, from Proto-West Germanic *glas, from Proto-Germanic *glasą, possibly related to Proto-Germanic *glōaną (“to shine”) (compare glow), and ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root *ǵʰel- (“to shine, shimmer, glow”). Cognate with West Frisian glês, Dutch glas, Low German Glas, German Glas, Swedish glas, Icelandic gler.

“The Covenant don’t ‘miss’ anything when they glass a planet,” the Master Chief replied.

2003, Eric Nylund, Halo: First Strike, New York: Del Rey, →ISBN, page 155:

(transitive, science fiction) To bombard an area with such intensity (by means of a nuclear bomb, fusion bomb, etc) as to melt the landscape into glass.


poeta

pl-noun

poeta m pers (female equivalent poetka or poetessa)

poetka (feminine)
poetessa (feminine)
poeta (nominative singular)
poeci (nominative plural)
poety (derogatory nominative plural)
poety (genitive singular)
poetów (genitive plural)
poecie (dative singular)
poetom (dative plural)
poetę (accusative singular)
poetów (accusative plural)
poetą (instrumental singular)
poetami (instrumental plural)
poecie (locative singular)
poetach (locative plural)
poeto (singular vocative)
poeci (plural vocative)


synopsis

From Late Latin synopsis, itself from Ancient Greek σύνοψις (súnopsis), from σύν (sún, “with or whole”) + ὄψις (ópsis, “view”) meaning whole view.

(authorship) A brief summary of the major points of a written work, either as prose or as a table; an abridgment or condensation of a work.


homunculus

Unadapted borrowing from Latin homunculus (“little man”). Compare the adapted borrowing omuncolo.

ubor

(alchemy, folklore) homunculus (a legendary figure resembling a little man, who was said to be created through alchemy)


teleporter

(science fiction) A device used for teleporting.


cyberspace

en-noun

cyberspace (countable and uncountable, plural cyberspaces)

Blend of cybernetics + space, equivalent to cyber- + space, coined by American-Canadian speculative fiction writer William Gibson in his 1982 short story collection Burning Chrome and popularized in his 1984 novel Neuromancer.

coin

I knew every chip in Bobby's simulator by heart; it looked like your workaday Ono-Sendai VII, the ‘Cyberspace Seven’, but I'd rebuilt it so many times that you'd have had a hard time finding a square millimetre of factory circuitry in all that silicon.

1982 July, William Gibson, “Burning Chrome”, in Omni, volume 4, number 10, page 72:

Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts… A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding…

1984, William Gibson, Neuromancer (Sprawl; book 1), New York, N.Y.: Ace Books, →ISBN, page 51:

(science fiction) A three-dimensional representation of virtual space in a computer network.

կիբերտարածք

science fiction: three-dimensional representation of virtual space


entity

From the Medieval Latin entitās, from ēns (“being”) (stem: ent-) + -tās (compare essentia), see there for more information.

Appendix:Roget MICRA thesaurus/Class I § 1. Existence

(science fiction) An alien lifeform that has no corporeal body.


carrier

но́сьбіт

And each was hideously powerful: an attack carrier could destroy a world, a force of cruisers and spinship destroyers could destroy a sun.

1990, Dan Simmons, The Fall of Hyperion, 1st edition, New York: Doubleday, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 114:

The first carrier completely ignored us, sir! Blew through the Malta’s debris field and headed straight for Earth!

2004 November 9, Bungie, Halo 2, spoken by Cortana (Jen Taylor), Microsoft Game Studios, Xbox, level/area: Cairo Station:

In fleet combat, carriers stay clear of battle, launching fighters bearing disruptor torpedoes. Fighters are the primary striking power of the ship; if a carrier enters mass accelerator range of the enemy, things have gone very wrong.
It is possible to recover and rearm fighters during combat, though most carriers seal the flight deck and try to stay out of the way. The flight deck is essentially a corridor through the armor and into the heart of the vessel. A single well-placed torpedo is enough to gut a carrier.
Alliance carriers are named after great leaders, artists, and intellectuals from human history.

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

aircraft carrier
aircraft carrier#English

A person or object that carries someone or something else.

(science fiction, by extension) A starship designed to carry starfighters


basilisk

From Middle English basilicke, borrowed from Old French basilique, from Latin basiliscus, from Ancient Greek βασιλίσκος (basilískos) (literally "minor king or chieftain", possibly based on descriptions or rare encounters with different types of cobra which have crown-like patterns on their head; the "deadly gaze" could have been from the spitting cobra's ability to spit venom into the eyes of predators or prey from a distance), from βασιλεύς (basileús, “king”). The cognitohazard/infohazard sense is by analogy with the deadly gaze of the mythical creature.

A basilisk, in this context, is information that can hurt you simply because you are aware of it.

2019 June 13, Tom Chivers, The AI Does Not Hate You, Orion Publishing Group, →ISBN:

(science fiction) An infohazard or cognitohazard, especially a Langford's basilisk.


quinzaine

(poetry) A piece of verse having fifteen syllables.


auto

Early borrowing from Latin actus. Doublet of the later borrowing acto.

(literature) short play from the Middle Ages or the Renaissance


speaker

From Middle English speker, spekere, an alteration (with change of suffix) of Old English speca, spreca (“speaker”), from Proto-Germanic *sprekô (“speaker”), equivalent to speak + -er. Compare Saterland Frisian Spreeker (“speaker”), West Frisian sprekker (“speaker”), Dutch spreker (“speaker”), German Low German Spreker (“speaker”), German Sprecher (“speaker”).

puhuja

linguistics: producer of a given utterance

Popular culture often incorrectly attributes quotes from the speakers of poems or songs to the authors thereof, as when "I took the one less traveled by" is attributed to Robert Frost rather than to the speaker in Frost's "The Road Not Taken".

(especially in linguistics) The producer of a given utterance, whether speech or text.

(poetry) The literary character uttering the lyrics of a poem or song, as opposed to the author writing the words of that character.


fiction

en-noun

fiction (countable and uncountable, plural fictions)

→ Irish: ficsean

→ Scottish Gaelic: ficsean

From Middle English ficcioun, from Old French ficcion (“dissimulation, ruse, invention”), from Latin fictiō (“a making, fashioning, a feigning, a rhetorical or legal fiction”), from fingō (“to form, mold, shape, devise, feign”). Displaced native Old English lēasspell (literally “false story”).

ncog

I am a great reader of fiction.

the fiction section of the library

(literature) Literary type using invented or imaginative writing, instead of real facts, usually written as prose.


ton

head

ton m (genitive singular toin, nominative plural toin)

toin (genitive singular)
toin (nominative plural)
ton (indefinite nominative singular)
toin (indefinite nominative plural)
a thoin (indefinite singular vocative)
a thona (indefinite plural vocative)
toin (genitive indefinite singular)
ton (genitive indefinite plural)
ton (dative indefinite singular)
toin (dative indefinite plural)
an ton (definite nominative singular)
na toin (definite nominative plural)
an toin (definite genitive singular)
na dton (definite genitive plural)
leis an ton (dative definite singular)
don ton (dative definite singular)
leis na toin (dative definite plural)
ton (mutation mutation-radical)
thon (lenition mutation)
dton (eclipsis mutation)


credit

en-noun

credit (countable and uncountable, plural credits)

Borrowed from Middle French crédit (“belief, trust”), from Latin crēditum (“a loan, credit”), neuter of crēditus, past participle of crēdere (“to believe”). The verb is from the noun. Doublet of shraddha, creed.

To repair your star cruiser will cost 100,000 credits.

Aside from the fact that she means nearly ten million credits investment, which no one will insure on this trip, there will necessarily be seventy-three men aboard.

1934 December, John W. Campbell, Jr., “The Mightiest Machine”, in Astounding Stories, volume XIV, number 4, Street & Smith, page 12:

The standard credit was established by the Citadel's Unified Banking Act as the currency of interstellar trade. The credit has a managed floating exchange rate, calculated in real time by the central bank to maintain the average value of all participating currencies. Some regional currencies are worth more than a credit and some less.

2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Credits ("Creds") Codex entry:

"First the Patrons wipe-out our home world, now you blow any chance of us making any credits," Kane said in his gruff sinking voice.

2016, A.K. Brown, Jumpstart (Champagne Universe Series: Book 1), page 19:

(science fiction) A unit of currency used in a fictional universe or timeframe.


Venus

Venus (countable and uncountable, plural Venuses)

From Middle English Venus, from Latin Venus.

Immoderate Venus in excess, as it is a cause, or in defect; so, moderately used, to some parties an only help, a present remedy.

(obsolete or poetry) Sexual activity or intercourse, sex; lust, love.


portal

From Middle English portal, porttol, from Old French portal and Medieval Latin portāle, from porta.

jet bridge

elevated corridor permitting access to a plane from an airport

(science fiction and fantasy) A magical or technological doorway leading to another location, period in time or dimension.


portal

en-verb

portal (third-person singular simple present portals, present participle portaling or portalling, simple past and past participle portaled or portalled)

portals (present singular third-person)
portaling (participle present)
portalling (participle present)
portaled (participle past)
portaled (past)
portalled (participle past)
portalled (past)

(science fiction, fantasy) To use a portal (magical or technological doorway).


portal

pl-noun

portal m inan (related adjective portalowy)

portalowy (adjective)
portal (nominative singular)
portale (nominative plural)
portalu (genitive singular)
portali (genitive plural)
portalów (genitive plural)
portalowi (dative singular)
portalom (dative plural)
portal (accusative singular)
portale (accusative plural)
portalem (instrumental singular)
portalami (instrumental plural)
portalu (locative singular)
portalach (locative plural)
portalu (singular vocative)
portale (plural vocative)

Borrowed from German Portal. Sense 4 is a semantic loan from English portal.

sl

(fantasy, science fiction) portal (magical or technological doorway leading to another location, period in time, or dimension)


fool

full (accents with FOOT-GOOSE merger or full-fool merger)

From Middle English fole (“fool”), from Old French fol (cf. modern French fou (“mad”)) from Latin follis. Doublet of follis and folly.Displaced native Old English dwæs.

(literature) A stock character typified by unintelligence, naïveté or lucklessness, usually as a form of comic relief; often used as a source of insight or pathos for the audience, as such characters are generally less bound by social expectations.


interpolation

en-noun

interpolation (countable and uncountable, plural interpolations)

/ɪnˌtɜː(ɹ)pəˈleɪʃən/

From French interpolation, from Latin interpolatio.
Morphologically interpolate + -ion

Today a widely established convention encloses all editorial interpolations in square brackets [like so] for clarity.

Bentley wrote a letter […] upon the scriptural glosses in our present copies of Hesychius, which he considered interpolations from a later hand.

1830, Thomas De Quincey, Life of Richard Bentley:

We, who are born into the world's artificial system, can never adequately know how little in our present state and circumstances is natural, and how much is merely the interpolation of the perverted mind and heart of man.

1843, Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The New Adam and Eve”, in Mosses from an Old Manse. […], part II, New York, N.Y.: Wiley and Putnam, published 1846, →OCLC, page 1:

(editing, content analysis) That which is introduced or inserted; in contexts of content analysis of centuries-old texts, especially something foreign or spurious.


imp

From Middle English impe, ympe (“tree branch; shoot, sprig; graft, scion; young tree, sapling, seedling; tree”) [and other forms], from Old English impa, impe (“shoot, sprig; graft, scion; young tree, sapling, seedling”), from impian, ġeimpian (“to graft”) (see etymology 1).

"Yes, there are a great, great many coming after us; at least a score," said the lad.—"Well, that's the troll," said the horse; "he is coming after us with his imps."

1881, P. Chr. Asbjörnsen [i.e., Peter Christen Asbjørnsen], “The Widow’s Son”, in H[ans] L[ien] Brækstad, transl., Round the Yule Log: Norwegian Folk and Fairy Tales, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, →OCLC, page 218:

It was as if there were little imps dancing in my mouth, and every so often, when a situation arose, they'd get together, giggle wickedly, and try to push words out of my open mouth.

1981 December 1, Ruth Geller, “The Lesbian Teacher”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 20, page 5:

(chiefly fiction and mythology) A small, mischievous sprite or a malevolent supernatural creature, somewhat comparable to a demon but smaller and less powerful, formerly regarded as the child of the devil or a demon (see sense 3.2).


tripod

PIE word
 *tréyes
Borrowed from Latin tripūs, tripodis, from Ancient Greek τρίπους (trípous); equivalent to tri- + -pod. Doublet of tripus and teapoy.

(science fiction) A fictional three-legged Martian war machine from H.G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds (1897).


worm

From Middle English worm, werm, wurm, wirm, from Old English wyrm (“worm, snake”), from Proto-Germanic *wurmiz, from Proto-Indo-European *wr̥mis, possibly from *wer- (“to turn”). Doublet of vermin and wyrm, the latter of which is a fairly recent borrowing directly from the Old English.
(computing): First computer usage by John Brunner in his 1975 book The Shockwave Rider.
cognates
Germanic cognates include Dutch worm, West Frisian wjirm, German Wurm, Swedish orm (“snake”), Norwegian Nynorsk orm (“earthworm or snake”), Danish orm and Yiddish וואָרעם (vorem).
Indo-European cognates include Latin vermis (“worm”), Lithuanian var̃mas (“insect, midge”), Albanian rrime (“rainworm”), Ancient Greek ῥόμος (rhómos, “woodworm”).

шнек

something helical, especially the thread of a screw

Mongolian death worm
Mongolian death worm

(fantasy, science fiction) Either a mythical "dragon" (especially wingless), a gigantic sea serpent, or a creature that resembles a Mongolian death worm.


agent

pl-noun

agent m pers (female equivalent agentka, diminutive agencik or agenciak)

agentka (feminine)
agencik (diminutive)
agenciak (diminutive)
agent (nominative singular)
agenci (nominative plural)
agenty (derogatory nominative plural)
agenta (genitive singular)
agentów (genitive plural)
agentowi (dative singular)
agentom (dative plural)
agenta (accusative singular)
agentów (accusative plural)
agentem (instrumental singular)
agentami (instrumental plural)
agencie (locative singular)
agentach (locative plural)
agencie (singular vocative)
agenci (plural vocative)

Borrowed from German Agent, from French agent, from Middle French agent, from Latin agēns. Doublet of agens. First attested in 1609.

agent literacki

(acting, literature) impresario, literary agent


soul

en-noun

soul (countable and uncountable, plural souls)

→ German: Soul

→ Esperanto: soulo

→ French: soul

→ Hungarian: soul

→ Italian: soul

→ Japanese: ソウル

→ Polish: soul

→ Portuguese: soul

→ Romanian: soul

→ Scots: sowel

→ Spanish: soul

From Middle English soule, sowle, saule, sawle, from Old English sāwol (“soul, life, spirit, being”), from Proto-West Germanic *saiwalu, from Proto-Germanic *saiwalō (“soul”), of uncertain ultimate origin (see there for further information). Cognate with Scots saul, sowel (“soul”), North Frisian siel, sial (“soul”), Saterland Frisian Seele (“soul”), West Frisian siel (“soul”), Dutch ziel (“soul”), German Seele (“soul”) Scandinavian homonyms seem to have been borrowed from Old Saxon *siala. Modern Danish sjæl, Swedish själ, Norwegian sjel, Icelandic sál, Finnish sielu may have come from Old English sāwol.

inh

1836, Hans Christian Andersen (translated into English by Mrs. H. B. Paull in 1872), The Little Mermaid
"Among the daughters of the air," answered one of them. "A mermaid has not an immortal soul, nor can she obtain one unless she wins the love of a human being. On the power of another hangs her eternal destiny. But the daughters of the air, although they do not possess an immortal soul, can, by their good deeds, procure one for themselves.

No matter how early I came down, I would find him on the veranda, smoking cigarettes, or[…]. And at last I began to realize in my harassed soul that all elusion was futile, and to take such holidays as I could get, when he was off with a girl, in a spirit of thankfulness.

1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, page 46:

Flowey: See that heart? That is your SOUL, the very culmination of your being!

2015 September 15, Toby Fox, Undertale, Linux, Microsoft Windows, OS X:

(religion, folklore) The spirit or essence of a person usually thought to consist of one's thoughts and personality, often believed to live on after the person's death.

аԥсы

the spirit or essence of a person that is often believed to live on after the person's death


antologi

id-noun

antologi (plural antologi-antologi, first-person possessive antologiku, second-person possessive antologimu, third-person possessive antologinya)

antologi-antologi (plural)
antologiku (first-person possessive)
antologimu (possessive second-person)
antologinya (possessive third-person)

From Dutch anthologie, from French anthologie, from Ancient Greek ἀνθολογία (anthología, “collection of flowers”).

der

(literature) anthology (collection of literary works)


tone

From Middle English ton, tone, from Latin tonus (“sound, tone”) (possibly through Old French ton), from Ancient Greek τόνος (tónos, “strain, tension, pitch”), from τείνω (teínō, “I stretch”). Doublet of tune, ton, tonos, and tonus.

Their tone was dissatisfied, almost menacing.

1850, William Cullen Bryant, Letters of a Traveller:

en:in language, the manner of expression

(language, literature) The manner in which speech or writing is expressed, especially the aspects of diction (word choice), connotation, emotiveness, and register.


torch

The noun is derived from Middle English torch, torche (“large candle; lighted stick; (figurative) sunbeam”), from Old French torche, torque (“torch; bundle of (twisted) straw”) (modern French torche); further etymology uncertain, probably from Vulgar Latin *torca (“coiled object”) (referring to a torch made from twisted plant fibres dipped in a flammable substance such as pitch), from Latin torqua, a variant of torquis (“collar of twisted metal, torque; wreath”), from torqueō (“to twist, wind”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *terkʷ- (“to spin; to turn”).
Sense 2.3 (Verbascum thapsus) is either due to the plant’s spike of yellow flowers, or because its leaves and stalks were used to make torches (noun sense 1). Sense 3.2 (“precious cause, etc., which needs to be protected and transmitted to others”) is derived from Latin lampada trādere, from Ancient Greek λᾰμπᾰ́δᾰ πᾰρᾰδιδόναι (lampáda paradidónai, “to hand over the torch”), a reference to the torch race held at various festivals such as the Panathenaic Games in Ancient Greece, which involved a relay where a torch was passed from one runner to another.
The verb is derived from the noun.

cog

λᾰμπᾰ́δᾰ πᾰρᾰδιδόναι

sueo'

stick of wood, etc., with one end soaked in a flammable substance and set on fire; similarly shaped implement with a replaceable supply of flammable material

(science fiction) Short for torch drive (“a spacecraft engine which produces thrust by nuclear fusion”).


torch

en-verb

torch (third-person singular simple present torches, present participle torching, simple past and past participle torched)

torches (present singular third-person)
torching (participle present)
torched (participle past)
torched (past)

cog

λᾰμπᾰ́δᾰ πᾰρᾰδιδόναι

(science fiction) To travel in a spacecraft propelled by a torch drive (“an engine which produces thrust by nuclear fusion”).

to travel in a spacecraft propelled by a torch drive

matkustaa fuusiolla toimivalla avaruusaluksella


hattu

hattu (nominative singular)
hatut (nominative plural)
hattu (accusative nominative singular)
hatut (accusative nominative plural)
hatun (accusative genitive singular)
hatut (accusative genitive plural)
hatun (genitive singular)
hattujen (genitive plural)
hattua (partitive singular)
hattuja (partitive plural)
hatussa (inessive singular)
hatuissa (inessive plural)
hatusta (elative singular)
hatuista (elative plural)
hattuun (illative singular)
hattuihin (illative plural)
hatulla (adessive singular)
hatuilla (adessive plural)
hatulta (ablative singular)
hatuilta (ablative plural)
hatulle (allative singular)
hatuille (allative plural)
hattuna (essive singular)
hattuina (essive plural)
hatuksi (singular translative)
hatuiksi (plural translative)
hatutta (abessive singular)
hatuitta (abessive plural)
hatuin (instructive plural)
See the possessive forms below. (comitative)
hattuni (nominative singular)
hattuni (nominative plural)
hattuni (accusative nominative singular)
hattuni (accusative nominative plural)
hattuni (accusative genitive singular)
hattuni (accusative genitive plural)
hattuni (genitive singular)
hattujeni (genitive plural)
hattuani (partitive singular)
hattujani (partitive plural)
hatussani (inessive singular)
hatuissani (inessive plural)
hatustani (elative singular)
hatuistani (elative plural)
hattuuni (illative singular)
hattuihini (illative plural)
hatullani (adessive singular)
hatuillani (adessive plural)
hatultani (ablative singular)
hatuiltani (ablative plural)
hatulleni (allative singular)
hatuilleni (allative plural)
hattunani (essive singular)
hattuinani (essive plural)
hatukseni (singular translative)
hatuikseni (plural translative)
hatuttani (abessive singular)
hatuittani (abessive plural)
hattuineni (comitative plural)
hattusi (nominative singular)
hattusi (nominative plural)
hattusi (accusative nominative singular)
hattusi (accusative nominative plural)
hattusi (accusative genitive singular)
hattusi (accusative genitive plural)
hattusi (genitive singular)
hattujesi (genitive plural)
hattuasi (partitive singular)
hattujasi (partitive plural)
hatussasi (inessive singular)
hatuissasi (inessive plural)
hatustasi (elative singular)
hatuistasi (elative plural)
hattuusi (illative singular)
hattuihisi (illative plural)
hatullasi (adessive singular)
hatuillasi (adessive plural)
hatultasi (ablative singular)
hatuiltasi (ablative plural)
hatullesi (allative singular)
hatuillesi (allative plural)
hattunasi (essive singular)
hattuinasi (essive plural)
hatuksesi (singular translative)
hatuiksesi (plural translative)
hatuttasi (abessive singular)
hatuittasi (abessive plural)
hattuinesi (comitative plural)
hattumme (nominative singular)
hattumme (nominative plural)
hattumme (accusative nominative singular)
hattumme (accusative nominative plural)
hattumme (accusative genitive singular)
hattumme (accusative genitive plural)
hattumme (genitive singular)
hattujemme (genitive plural)
hattuamme (partitive singular)
hattujamme (partitive plural)
hatussamme (inessive singular)
hatuissamme (inessive plural)
hatustamme (elative singular)
hatuistamme (elative plural)
hattuumme (illative singular)
hattuihimme (illative plural)
hatullamme (adessive singular)
hatuillamme (adessive plural)
hatultamme (ablative singular)
hatuiltamme (ablative plural)
hatullemme (allative singular)
hatuillemme (allative plural)
hattunamme (essive singular)
hattuinamme (essive plural)
hatuksemme (singular translative)
hatuiksemme (plural translative)
hatuttamme (abessive singular)
hatuittamme (abessive plural)
hattuinemme (comitative plural)
hattunne (nominative singular)
hattunne (nominative plural)
hattunne (accusative nominative singular)
hattunne (accusative nominative plural)
hattunne (accusative genitive singular)
hattunne (accusative genitive plural)
hattunne (genitive singular)
hattujenne (genitive plural)
hattuanne (partitive singular)
hattujanne (partitive plural)
hatussanne (inessive singular)
hatuissanne (inessive plural)
hatustanne (elative singular)
hatuistanne (elative plural)
hattuunne (illative singular)
hattuihinne (illative plural)
hatullanne (adessive singular)
hatuillanne (adessive plural)
hatultanne (ablative singular)
hatuiltanne (ablative plural)
hatullenne (allative singular)
hatuillenne (allative plural)
hattunanne (essive singular)
hattuinanne (essive plural)
hatuksenne (singular translative)
hatuiksenne (plural translative)
hatuttanne (abessive singular)
hatuittanne (abessive plural)
hattuinenne (comitative plural)
hattunsa (nominative singular)
hattunsa (nominative plural)
hattunsa (accusative nominative singular)
hattunsa (accusative nominative plural)
hattunsa (accusative genitive singular)
hattunsa (accusative genitive plural)
hattunsa (genitive singular)
hattujensa (genitive plural)
hattuaan (partitive singular)
hattuansa (partitive singular)
hattujaan (partitive plural)
hattujansa (partitive plural)
hatussaan (inessive singular)
hatussansa (inessive singular)
hatuissaan (inessive plural)
hatuissansa (inessive plural)
hatustaan (elative singular)
hatustansa (elative singular)
hatuistaan (elative plural)
hatuistansa (elative plural)
hattuunsa (illative singular)
hattuihinsa (illative plural)
hatullaan (adessive singular)
hatullansa (adessive singular)
hatuillaan (adessive plural)
hatuillansa (adessive plural)
hatultaan (ablative singular)
hatultansa (ablative singular)
hatuiltaan (ablative plural)
hatuiltansa (ablative plural)
hatulleen (allative singular)
hatullensa (allative singular)
hatuilleen (allative plural)
hatuillensa (allative plural)
hattunaan (essive singular)
hattunansa (essive singular)
hattuinaan (essive plural)
hattuinansa (essive plural)
hatukseen (singular translative)
hatuksensa (singular translative)
hatuikseen (plural translative)
hatuiksensa (plural translative)
hatuttaan (abessive singular)
hatuttansa (abessive singular)
hatuittaan (abessive plural)
hatuittansa (abessive plural)
hattuineen (comitative plural)
hattuinensa (comitative plural)

From Proto-Finnic *hattu (compare Ingrian hattu, Karelian hattu, Votic hattu), borrowed from Proto-Norse *ᚺᚨᛏᛏᚢᛉ (*hattuʀ) (compare Swedish hatt), from Proto-Germanic *hattuz (compare English hat).

vetää hatustaan

to improvise, guess, express off the top of one's head

(orthography, typography) háček, caron (diacritical mark [ ˇ ])


minúsculo

pt-adj

minúsculo (feminine minúscula, masculine plural minúsculos, feminine plural minúsculas)

minúscula (feminine)
minúsculos (masculine plural)
minúsculas (feminine plural)

Learned borrowing from Latin minusculus.

(orthography) minuscule; lower-case (written in minuscules)


minúsculo

From Latin minusculus, from minus (“less”) + -culus (diminutive suffix).


mayúscula

Borrowed from Latin maiusculus. Cognate with English majuscule.


fee

nl-noun

fee f (plural feeën, diminutive feetje n)

feeën (plural)
feetje (diminutive neuter)

Afrikaans: fee

→ West Frisian: fee

Borrowed from French fée, from Middle French [Term?], from Old French fae, from Latin fāta, from fātum.


ensayo

Borrowed from Spanish ensayo (“essay”), from Late Latin exagium.


fronte

Inherited from Latin frontem (“forehead”). For sense 2 compare the Latin etymon and derivatives in Italian like sfrontato (“shameless”).

inh+

(poetry, prosody) the two initial quatrains of an Italian sonnet


minúscula

(orthography) minuscule (lower-case letter)


minúscula

(orthography) minuscule, lower-case letter, small letter


essay

Since late 16th century, borrowed from Middle French essay, essai (“essay”), meaning coined by Montaigne in the same time, from the same words in earlier meanings 'experiment; assay; attempt', from Old French essay, essai, assay, assai, from Latin exagium (“weight; weighing, testing on the balance”), from exigere + -ium.

der

In his first book since the 2008 essay collection Natural Acts: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature, David Quammen looks at the natural world from yet another angle: the search for the next human pandemic, what epidemiologists call “the next big one.”

2013 January 5, Katie L. Burke, “Ecological Dependency”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 1, archived from the original on 2017-02-09, page 64:

(authorship) A written composition of moderate length, exploring a particular issue or subject.


defective

en-adj

defective (comparative more defective, superlative most defective)

more defective (comparative)
most defective (superlative)

From Middle English defectif, defective, from Old French defectif, from Late Latin dēfectīvus.

(orthography, of a script) Not capable of representing all the phonemic distinctions of a language it is used to write.


nano

en-noun

nano (countable and uncountable, plural nanos)

From nano-, from Latin nānus, from Ancient Greek νᾶνος (nânos).

(countable, science fiction) A nanotechnological device, such as a computer

(countable, science fiction) A nanoscale device, such as a robot


dystopia

dystopia (nominative singular)
dystopie (nominative plural)
dystopii (genitive singular)
dystopii (genitive plural)
dystopij (archaic genitive plural)
dystopii (dative singular)
dystopiom (dative plural)
dystopię (accusative singular)
dystopie (accusative plural)
dystopią (instrumental singular)
dystopiami (instrumental plural)
dystopii (locative singular)
dystopiach (locative plural)
dystopio (singular vocative)
dystopie (plural vocative)

(film, literature) dystopia (vision of a future that is a corrupted (usually beyond recognition) utopian society)


ほ

ho (romanization)
fo (romanization)
ほ (hiragana historical)

From Old Japanese, from Proto-Japonic *po.


chapter

→ Cebuano: tsapter

From Middle English chapitre, from Old French chapitre, from Latin capitulum (“a chapter of a book, in Medieval Latin also a synod or council”), diminutive of caput (“a head”); see capital, capitulum, and chapiter, which are doublets of chapter.

der

Detective novel writers try to keep up the suspense until the last chapter.

At her invitation he outlined for her the succeeding chapters with terse military accuracy ; and what she liked best and best understood was avoidance of that false modesty which condescends, turning technicality into pabulum.

1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter VIII, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:

(authorship) One of the main sections into which the text of a book is divided.

CHAPTER - One of the principal divisions of a book, and, in reference to the Bible, one of the larger sections into which its books are divided. This division, as well as that consisting of verses, was introduced to facilitate reference, and not to indicate any natural or accurate division of the subjects treated in the books.

1842, Walter Farquahar Hook, A Church Dictionary, published 1896:

At least thirty-two of the first forty-seven decretal chapters were received by English ecclesiastics,

1963, Charles Duggan, Twelfth-century Decretal Collections and Their Importance in English History, page 127:

il conclut: « No pope, no collection but the masters who served the one and commented on the other ultimately determined the content of this decretal chapter».

1983, Revue théologique de Louvain - Volume 14, page 127:

But unlike a similar annotation, it has not been turned into a chapter title because the annotation “de quodam hermita” (Of a certain hermit) immediately preceded it. If a scribe had also turned Liberauit Dominus hermitam into a chapter title, he would have created a chapter that consisted of a single sentence, which even for a rather dull scribe would seem unacceptable. […] While scribe A wrote the body of the text of the De nugis curialium, scribe X contributed the rubricated chapter headings.

2017, Joshua Byron Smith, Walter Map and the Matter of Britain, page 67:

While rubrics do not appear in paper manuscripts, eight paper manuscripts contain chapter titles, which serve the same function as the medieval rubrics.

2018, Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir, Emily Lethbridge, New Studies in the Manuscript Tradition of Njáls saga, page xvii:

Characteristics: parchment; 92 fols.; 260 × 180 mm.; 32 lines; Italy; ca. 1430; two hands: humanistic rotunda with some Gothic features; marginal notes by first hand and names by a second hand; space left for initials; rubric inscriptions; superscript variants by first hand; chapters marked in margin; horizontal catchwords; quaternions.

2018, David J. Hunt, A Textual History of Cicero's Academici Libri, page 152:

From canon law, he cited Gratian's Decretum, Gregory's Decretales, the Sexto and Clementines Decretales, and the Extravagantes, and specifically referred to “the rules for understanding the Law” in a decretal chapter on Propterea.

2021, David T. Orique, The Unheard Voice of Law in Bartolomé de Las Casas’s Brevísima Relación de la Destruición de las Indias, page 97:

A section of a work, a collection of works, or fragments of works, often manuscripts or transcriptions, created by scholars or advocates, not the original authors, to aid in finding portions of the texts.


-er

Li’er said hello to his father.

Yue’er began to laugh again and her tears shimmered like dew on a lotus leaf disturbed by a breeze. Then we heard a sound. It was Man’er.

The fish was laid out on the table, but Ping’er had not come back, nor had his father.

2002 [1934], Xiao Hong, “The Field of Life and Death”, in Howard Goldblatt, transl., The Field of Life and Death & Tales of Hulan River, →ISBN, page 32:

Ying’er was not yet three years old. Li’er had always been the one to play with her or to carry her places on his back.

2014 [1959], Zhong Lihe, “The Little Ridge”, in T. M. McClellan, transl., From the Old Country: Stories and Sketches of China and Taiwan, →ISBN, page 202:

(Chinese literature) Junior, child, younger person. (Attached to a name, usually one syllable of the given name.)


mechanical

From Middle English mechanical, mechanicalle, mechanycalle, equivalent to mechanic + -al.

Is it a mechanical, or a man in a clockwork suit?

2012, Cindy Spencer Pape, Moonlight & Mechanicals, →ISBN, page 90:

Mechanicals arose when advanced, organic societies somehow committed suicide, from war, degeneration, unimaginable things -- or retreated, from plain simple lack of interest in the tensions of the technological life.

2013, Gregory Benford, Sailing Bright Eternity: Galactic Centre, →ISBN:

This is an example of what can take place when mechanicals are programmed with human attributes and designed to interact closely with humans.

2013, Alan Dean Foster, Greenthieves, →ISBN:

(science fiction) A robot or mechanical creature.


novella

novellák (plural)
novella (nominative singular)
novellák (nominative plural)
novellát (accusative singular)
novellákat (accusative plural)
novellának (dative singular)
novelláknak (dative plural)
novellával (instrumental singular)
novellákkal (instrumental plural)
novelláért (causal-final singular)
novellákért (causal-final plural)
novellává (singular translative)
novellákká (plural translative)
novelláig (singular terminative)
novellákig (plural terminative)
novellaként (essive-formal singular)
novellákként (essive-formal plural)
novellában (inessive singular)
novellákban (inessive plural)
novellán (singular superessive)
novellákon (plural superessive)
novellánál (adessive singular)
novelláknál (adessive plural)
novellába (illative singular)
novellákba (illative plural)
novellára (singular sublative)
novellákra (plural sublative)
novellához (allative singular)
novellákhoz (allative plural)
novellából (elative singular)
novellákból (elative plural)
novelláról (delative singular)
novellákról (delative plural)
novellától (ablative singular)
novelláktól (ablative plural)
novelláé (possessed-single possessive predicative singular)
novelláké (plural possessed-single possessive predicative)
novelláéi (possessed-single possessive predicative singular)
novellákéi (plural possessed-single possessive predicative)
novellám (first-person possessed-single possessive singular)
novelláim (first-person possessed-many possessive singular)
novellád (possessed-single possessive second-person singular)
novelláid (possessed-many possessive second-person singular)
novellája (possessed-single possessive singular third-person)
novellái (possessed-many possessive singular third-person)
novellánk (first-person plural possessed-single possessive)
novelláink (first-person plural possessed-many possessive)
novellátok (plural possessed-single possessive second-person)
novelláitok (plural possessed-many possessive second-person)
novellájuk (plural possessed-single possessive third-person)
novelláik (plural possessed-many possessive third-person)

Borrowed from Italian novella, from Latin novella.

(literature) (relatively short) short story


flying saucer

From an interview given by amateur pilot Kenneth Arnold who described seeing nine flying objects that were "moving like saucers being skimmed across a lake". The description was not meant to describe the shape of the objects, only how they maneuvered, yet the misinterpretation took hold and gained popularity.

en:Flying saucer (confectionery)
en:flying saucer

(science fiction) An alien interplanetary vessel, typically disc-shaped and of metallic construction.


arco

Inherited from Latin arcus (whence English archery), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂erkʷo- (“bow, arrow”). In some senses inherited, in others borrowed directly from Latin. Cognate with English arrow, arc, and arch.


umlaut

Borrowed from German Umlaut in the 19ᵗʰ century, from um- or um (“around, re-, trans-”) + Laut (“sound”), from Old High German hlūt. More at umb, loud.

(orthography) The diacritical mark ( ¨ ) placed over a vowel when it indicates a (rounded) front vowel

"Naïve" takes an umlaut because it is pronounced as two syllables.


umlaut

From English umlaut, from German Umlaut in the 19ᵗʰ century, from um- or um (“around, re-, trans-”) + Laut (“sound”).

(orthography) the diacritical mark ( ¨ ) placed over a vowel when it indicates a (rounded) front vowel


umlaut

head

umlaut m (genitive singular umlaut, plural umlautyn)

umlaut (genitive singular)
umlautyn (plural)


umlaut

(orthography) umlaut (the diacritical mark ¨ used to indicate such assimilation)


ufo

Orthographic borrowing from English UFO.

(science fiction, ufology) Alternative spelling of UFO


hic

Onomatopoeia, from the sobbing sound. Compare hức (“sob; hic”).

(comics, Internet slang) dang; darn; aw man; man


novel

id-noun

novel (first-person possessive novelku, second-person possessive novelmu, third-person possessive novelnya)

novelku (first-person possessive)
novelmu (possessive second-person)
novelnya (possessive third-person)

From Dutch novelle, from Italian novella, from Latin novella, feminine of novellus. Doublet of novela and novelet.

(literature) novel: a work of prose fiction, longer than a novella.


ani

Cognate to tani (“now, at present, then”), from Proto-Albanian *nū, from Proto-Indo-European *nū (“now”) (cognate to Sanskrit नू (nū, “now”)). Occurs in coordination with other particles, compare nani, nime.
Further related to Arvanitika Albanian αί (e, “yes”) and (Standard) Albanian a (“probably, whether; or, there”).

cog

Ani mori nuse...

Well, (oh) you bride... (traditional wedding song)

(folklore, poetic) come on, hey; yes, well, alright; oh/ah (a vocative particle or/and complementary poetic tool)


bizarro

en-adj

bizarro (comparative more bizarro, superlative most bizarro)

more bizarro (comparative)
most bizarro (superlative)

Variant of bizarre, equivalent to bizarre + -o; see that entry for more information. In the sense of “logical inverse”, derived via the comic book character Bizarro, an inverted version of Superman from a planet where “good” means “bad” and so on, and popularized by "The Bizarro Jerry", a 1996 episode of the sitcom Seinfeld.

An incredibly fucked-up parody of B-horror movies with a bizarro slant.

2010, Caris O'Malley, The Egg Said Nothing, Caris O'Malley, →ISBN, page 97:

(literature) Pertaining to bizarro fiction.


גולם

he-noun

גולם / גֹּלֶם • (gólem) m (plural indefinite גְּלָמִים, plural construct גָּלְמֵי־) [pattern: קֹטֶל]

גֹּלֶם (canonical)
gólem (romanization)
גְּלָמִים (indefinite plural)
גָּלְמֵי־ (construct plural)

(mythology, Jewish folklore) a golem, a clay automaton


גולם

yi-noun

גולם • (goylem) m, plural גולמס (goylems) or גולמים (goylomem)

goylem (romanization)
goylems (romanization)
goylomem (romanization)

bor

גולם \ גֹּלֶם


arse

(poetry, music) arsis (the stronger part of a measure or foot)


ghoul

Unadapted borrowing from English ghoul, from Persian غول (ğul).

(mythology, folklore) ghoul (a spirit said to feed on corpses)


golem

nl-noun

golem m (plural golems, diminutive golempje n)

golems (plural)
golempje (diminutive neuter)

Ultimately from Hebrew גולם \ גֹּלֶם (gólem).

der

גולם \ גֹּלֶם

(folklore, fiction) a golem, a clay automaton


scanlation

en-noun

scanlation (countable and uncountable, plural scanlations)

(comics, chiefly manga) The process of scanning and translating foreign-language comics (especially Japanese manga or Korean manhwa) into the translator's language, for free distribution over the Internet.

(comics) A comic that has been scanned, translated, and with translation overlaid onto the original text to produce a second-language version of the comic; a scanlated comic.


Frankenstein

en-proper noun

Frankenstein (countable and uncountable, plural Frankensteins)

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

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

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


Sapphic

Sappho (Ancient Greek Σαπφώ (Sapphṓ)) + -ic, whence Latin Sapphicus. Sense related to sexuality alludes to Sappho's poetry discussing love between women (see also lesbian).

(poetry) Of a certain kind of verse reputed to have been invented by Sappho, consisting of five metrical feet, of which the first, fourth, and fifth are trochees, the second is a spondee, and the third a dactyl.


Sapphic

His Sapphics, on the story of Bacchus and Ariadne, are easy, elegant, and poetical.

1824, Vicesimus Knox, The Works of Vicesimus Knox, D.D.: With a Biographical Preface:

The first line (which goes by the name of Aristophanes) is a Sapphic without the initial trochees.

1887, Horace, Horace: The Odes, Carmen Seculare, and Epodes, page 174:

"A real Sapphic," said Crane, dropping into a poetical tone, as an elocutionist does when he is hungry for an opportunity to recite a favorite sketch.

1888, Maurice Thompson, A Fortnight of Folly, page 41:


retrograde

en-adj

retrograde (comparative more retrograde, superlative most retrograde)

more retrograde (comparative)
most retrograde (superlative)

The adjective is derived from Middle English retrograd, retrograde (“of a planet: appearing to move in a direction opposite to the order of the zodiac signs, retrograde; unfortunate”), from Middle French retrograde and Old French retrograde (“of a celestial object: appearing to move backwards; moving backwards; reverse; palindromic; opposed to change”) (modern French rétrograde), and from their etymon Latin retrōgradus (“of a celestial object: appearing to move backwards”) (compare Late Latin retrōgradus (“reverse; palindromic”)), from retrō (“back, backwards; behind; before, formerly”) + gradus (“pace, step”). By surface analysis, retro- + -grade.
The adverb and noun are derived from the adjective.

cog

/ˈɹɛtɹə(ʊ)ɡɹeɪd/

/ˈɹɛtɹəˌɡɹeɪd/

retrògrad

reverting to an inferior or less developed state — see also declining, regressing

(poetry, archaic) Of verse: reading the same forwards or backwards; palindromic.


chaser

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

преследва́ч

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

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


deus ex machina

en-noun

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

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

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

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

ubor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

suspension of disbelief
suspension of disbelief

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


super

For quotations using this term, see Citations:super.


metro

eo-head

metro (accusative singular metron, plural metroj, accusative plural metrojn)

metron (accusative singular)
metroj (plural)
metrojn (accusative plural)


metro

Borrowed from French mètre, from Ancient Greek μέτρον (métron, “measure”).

der

(poetry, music) metre (the rhythm or measure in verse and musical composition)


metro

→ Tagalog: metro


time travel

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

пътуване във времето

hypothetical or fictional travel to the past or future


mythos

en-noun

mythos (countable and uncountable, plural mythoi or mythoses)

Borrowed from Late Latin mȳthos (“myth”), from Ancient Greek μῦθος (mûthos, “report, tale, story”). Doublet of myth.
The plural form mythoi is from Ancient Greek μῦθοι (mûthoi), and the form mythoses from mythos + -es.

der

To get most benefit from the four mythoi, one must avoid making two errors. First, a work embodying the comic mythos may be called comic but should not be confused with comedy since the latter term has too many meanings that are exclusively dramatic. The same stricture applies to tragedy and the tragic mythos. The second error is to assume that a work embodying the ironic mythos is an anti-romance.

1984, Kathryn Hume, “Fantasy as a Function of Form”, in Fantasy and Mimesis: Responses to Reality in Western Literature, New York, N.Y.: Methuen, →ISBN; republished Abingdon, Oxon., New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2014, →ISBN, part III (The Functions of Fantasy: why Use Fantasy?), page 151:

In addition to mythoi drawn from myths and fairy tales, romances also employ mythoi derived from chivalric romances.

2011, Laura Vivanco, “Mythoi”, in John Lennard, editor, For Love and Money: The Literary Art of the Harlequin Mills & Boon Romance (Genre Fiction Monographs), Penrith, Cumbria: Humanities-Ebooks, →ISBN, page 76:

(literature) A recurring theme; a motif.


time machine

H. G. Wells
The Time Machine
Time Machine

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

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

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

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


tesseract

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

af

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

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

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


diaeresis

/daɪˈɛɹɪsɪs/

/daɪˈɪəɹɪsɪs/

/daɪˈɛɹəsɪs/

From Late Latin diaeresis, from Ancient Greek διαίρεσις (diaíresis, “division, split”), from διά (diá, “apart”) + αἱρέω (hairéō, “I take”).

der

Coordinate term: umlaut

(orthography) A diacritic (◌̈) placed over a vowel letter (especially the second of two consecutive ones) indicating that it is sounded separately, usually forming a distinct syllable, as in the English words naïve, Noël and Brontë, the French haïr and the Dutch ruïne.


breve

From Middle English breve, variant of bref, from Old French brieve, breve (feminine form of brief, bref), from Latin brevis (“short”).

(orthography, printing) A semicircular diacritical mark (˘) placed above a vowel, commonly used to mark its quantity as short.


breve

nl-noun

breve f (plural breves, diminutive brevetje n)

breves (plural)
brevetje (diminutive neuter)


breve

id-noun

breve (first-person possessive breveku, second-person possessive brevemu, third-person possessive brevenya)

breveku (first-person possessive)
brevemu (possessive second-person)
brevenya (possessive third-person)

Borrowed from Dutch breve (“breve”), from Latin brevis (“short”).

(orthography) breve: a semicircular diacritical mark (˘) placed above a vowel, commonly used to mark its quantity as short.


alba

First attested in 1821; borrowed from Occitan alba, ultimately from Latin albus (“white”); compare Spanish alba (“dawn”).

(poetry) A type of lyrical poetry, traditionally Provençal, about lovers who must part at dawn.


alba

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

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

ref

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

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


tren

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

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


devil

Tok Pisin: tewel

→ Chuukese: tefin

Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁
Proto-Indo-European *dwísder.
Ancient Greek διά (diá)
Ancient Greek δια- (dia-)
Proto-Hellenic *gʷəlnō-der.
Ancient Greek βᾰ́λλω (bállō)
Ancient Greek διαβάλλω (diabállō)
Ancient Greek διάβολος (diábolos)bor.
Latin diabolusbor.
Proto-West Germanic *diubul
Old English dēofol
Middle English devel
English devil
From Middle English devil, devel, deovel, from Old English dēofol, dēoful, from earlier dīobul (“devil”), from Latin diabolus, ultimately from Ancient Greek διάβολος (diábolos, “false accuser, slanderer”), also as "Satan" (in Jewish/Christian usage, translating Biblical Hebrew שָׂטָן (śātān)), from διαβάλλω (diabállō, “to slander”), literally “to throw across”, from διά (diá, “through, across”) + βάλλω (bállō, “throw”). The Old English word was probably adopted under influence of Latin diabolus (itself from the Greek). Other Germanic languages adopted the word independently: compare Saterland Frisian Düüwel (“devil”), West Frisian duvel (“devil”), Dutch duivel, duvel (“devil”), German Low German Düvel (“devil”), German Teufel (“devil”), Bavarian Teifl (“devil”), Danish djævel (“devil”), Swedish djävul (“devil”) (older: djefvul, Old Swedish diævul, Old Norse djǫfull). Doublet of diable, diablo, and diabolus.

der

better the devil you know than the devil you don't know

better the devil you know than the one you don't know

devil is beating his wife and marrying his daughter

he who sups with the devil should have a long spoon

the devil we know is better than the devil we don't know

the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know

(folklore) A fictional image of a man, usually red or orange in skin color; with a set of horns on his head, a pointed goatee and a long tail and carrying a pitchfork; that represents evil and portrayed to children in an effort to discourage bad behavior.


stunner

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

2018, Jonathan Moeller, Silent Order: Omnibus One:

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


phase

en-verb

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

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

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


Oktave

de-noun

Oktave f (genitive Oktave, plural Oktaven)

Oktave (genitive)
Oktaven (plural)
Oktave (nominative singular)
Oktaven (definite nominative plural)
Oktave (genitive singular)
Oktaven (definite genitive plural)
Oktave (dative singular)
Oktaven (dative definite plural)
Oktave (accusative singular)
Oktaven (accusative definite plural)

From Middle High German octāv, from Medieval Latin octava (“eighth”).


mag

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

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


metaverse

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

coin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


義訓

/i⁵¹⁻⁵³ ɕyn⁵¹/

/jiː²² fɐn³³/

/i⁵¹⁻⁵³ ɕyn⁵¹/

/jiː²² fɐn³³/

(literature) annotation of an ancient word with its meaning


blank verse

en-noun

blank verse (countable and uncountable, plural blank verses)

Milton's command of blank verse exceeds even Shakespeare's.

[T]here is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute Iohannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey.

1592, Robert Greene, Groats-Worth of Witte, Bought with a Million of Repentance, London: imprinted for William Wright, folio F¹v:

I could have spoken in blank verse of Shakespearean beauty, all sorts of great ideas flashed through my mind; it was as though the bonds of my flesh had been loosened, and left the spirit free to soar to the empyrean of its native power.

1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, “The Spirit of Life”, in She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC, page 288:

Soon after Surrey's translation of Virgil, blank verse became a persuasive rival to the heroic couplet.

2006, Philip Hobsbaum, “The heroic couplet”, in Metre, Rhythm and Verse Form, Routledge, →ISBN, page 18:

(poetry) A poetic form with regular meter, particularly iambic pentameter, but no fixed rhyme scheme.


Dracula

Dracula
Order of the Dragon
Vlad II Dracul
Vlad the Impaler

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

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


نسخ

(calligraphy) Naskh (style of calligraphy)


septet

A group of seven, particularly
(poetry) A set of seven lines.

A group of seven, particularly
A set of seven lines.


Spenserian sonnet

Spenserian sonnet (plural Spenserian sonnets)

Named after English poet Edmund Spenser (1552/1553–1599) and associated with his authorship.

named-after

(poetry) A sonnet comprising three quatrains with the latter rhyme part being carried over from one quatrain to the next, and a concluding couplet, therefore comprising a rhyme scheme of abab bcbc cdcd ee.


pes

la-noun

pēs m (genitive pedis); third declension

pēs (canonical masculine)
pedis (genitive)
pēs (nominative singular)
pedēs (nominative plural)
pedis (genitive singular)
pedum (genitive plural)
pedī (dative singular)
pedibus (dative plural)
pedem (accusative singular)
pedēs (accusative plural)
pede (ablative singular)
pedibus (ablative plural)
pēs (singular vocative)
pedēs (plural vocative)

Balkan Romance:

⇒ Aromanian: pezã

Romanian: piez ⇒ piază

Dalmatian:

pi

Italo-Romance

Corsican: pede

Gallurese: pedi

Italian: piede

→ Esperanto: piedo

→ Ladino: piede (regional)

Neapolitan: pede

Sassarese: pedi

Sicilian: pedi, peri

Rhaeto-Romance:

Friulian: pît

Romansch: pe

Padanian:

Istriot: peîe, pèie

Gallo-Italic:

Ligurian: pê

Piedmontese: pe

Romagnol: pè, pid (Rimini, San Marino)

Venetian: piè

Northern Gallo-Romance:

Franco-Provençal: pièd

Norman: pid, pyid

desctree

Old French: pié, pé (Anglo-Norman), *pied, *piet
Middle French: pied
French: pied
Walloon: pî

Southern Gallo-Romance:

Catalan: peu

Old Occitan: pe
Occitan: pè

Ibero-Romance:

Asturian: pie

Extremaduran: pie

Leonese: pía

Mirandese: pie

Navarro-Aragonese: pie, pied

Aragonese: piet

Old Galician-Portuguese: pee
Galician: pé
Portuguese: pé

Old Spanish: pie
Ladino: pye
Spanish: pie

Sardinian:

Campidanese: pei

Logudorese: pe

Nuorese: pede

Derived forms:

⇒ Vulgar Latin: *pedicāre

Catalan: petjar

Borrowings:

→ English: pes

→ Ido: pedo

→ Interlingua: pede

→⇒ German: stante pede

From Proto-Italic *pets, from Proto-Indo-European *pṓds (compare Sanskrit पद् (pád), Ancient Greek πούς (poús) and Old English fōt, whence English foot).

(poetry) a metrical foot: the basic unit of metered poetry


Shakespearean sonnet

en-noun

Shakespearean sonnet (plural Shakespearean sonnets)

Named after English playwright and poet William Shakespeare (1564–1616) and strongly associated with his authorship.

named-after

(poetry) A sonnet comprising three quatrains and a final couplet, in iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg.


Romeo

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

der

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


Curved single quotation marks and apostrophes

Straight single quotation mark and apostrophe

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

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

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


brownie

en-noun

brownie (countable and uncountable, plural brownies)

→ Belarusian: бра́ўні (bráŭni)

→ Chinese: 布朗尼 (bùlǎngní)

→ French: brownie

→ German: Brownie

→ Hungarian: brownie

→ Irish: donnóg (calque)

→ Italian: brownie

→ Japanese: ブラウニー (buraunī)

→ Lithuanian: braunis

→ Norwegian Nynorsk: brownie

→ Polish: brownie

→ Portuguese: brownie

→ Russian: бра́уни (bráuni)

→ Kazakh: брауни (brauni)

→ Spanish: brownie

→ Thai: บราวนี (bpraao-níi)

→ Turkish: brownie, browni, brovni

→ Welsh: browni

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

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

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

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

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

1908, Dinah Craik, The Adventures of A Brownie:

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

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

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

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

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


Petrarchan sonnet

Petrarchan sonnet (plural Petrarchan sonnets)

Named after Italian scholar, poet and humanist Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374), who did not invent but made large use of this form in his authorship.

named-after

(poetry) A sonnet comprising an octave and a closing sestet, following the rhyme scheme of either abba abba cde cde or abba abba cd cd cd or abba abba cce dde or abba abba cdd cee.


para

para (nominative singular)
parat (nominative plural)
paran (genitive singular)
parroin (genitive plural)
parraa (partitive singular)
paroja (partitive plural)
parraa (illative singular)
parroi (illative plural)
paras (inessive singular)
parois (inessive plural)
parast (elative singular)
paroist (elative plural)
paralle (allative singular)
paroille (allative plural)
paral (adessive singular)
paroil (adessive plural)
paralt (ablative singular)
paroilt (ablative plural)
paraks (singular translative)
paroiks (plural translative)
paranna (essive singular)
parraan (essive singular)
paroinna (essive plural)
parroin (essive plural)
parant (exessive singular)
paroint (exessive plural)

(folklore) troll cat (being designed to bring milk to its creator)


Shakespearean

en-adj

Shakespearean (comparative more Shakespearean, superlative most Shakespearean)

more Shakespearean (comparative)
most Shakespearean (superlative)

[…]there were those who had them set far over back—wide-awake men, who wanted a clear prospect; while careless men, who did not know, or care, how their hats sat, had them shaking about in all directions. The various hats, in fact, were quite a Shakespearean study.

1851 June – 1852 April, Harriet Beecher Stowe, chapter XI, in Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly, volume I, Boston, Mass.: John P[unchard] Jewett & Company; Cleveland, Oh.: Jewett, Proctor & Worthington, published 20 March 1852, →OCLC:

The boisterous Bulmer playfully made a pass at him with his drawn sword, going forward with the lunge in the proper fencing fashion, and making a somewhat too familiar Shakespearean quotation about a rodent and a Venetian coin.

1922, G[ilbert] K[eith] Chesterton, “The Hole in the Wall”, in The Man Who Knew Too Much […] , London: Cassell and Company, pages 80–81:

Meanwhile, I presided over the Senate. I also dined quite frequently with the President who continued to delight and fascinate me with his conversation, not to mention his wonderful malice which was positively Shakespearean in its variety.

There was indeed something Shakespearean about both the service in the abbey and the marches that surrounded it. By Shakespearean I mean there was a blend of pageantry, procession, music and mystery.

2023 May 7, Michael Billington, “The Coronation review – immaculately rehearsed, touching and Shakespearean”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(literature) Of or pertaining to, characteristic of, associated with, or suggestive of William Shakespeare (an English playwright), his works, or his authorship, or the time in which he lived.


zombie

Unadapted borrowing from English zombie.

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


quiescent

quiescent (comparative more quiescent, superlative most quiescent)

more quiescent (comparative)
most quiescent (superlative)

Borrowed from Latin quiēscēns (“resting, reposing, sleeping”), present participle of quiēscere, from quiēs (“rest, repose, quiet”).

bor

The k is quiescent in "knight" and "know".


foil

en-noun

foil (countable and uncountable, plural foils)

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

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

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

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

contrastfiguur

character who helps emphasise the traits of the main character


狒々

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

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


đũa

head

đũa • (箸, 筷, 杜, 𥮊)

vi-noun

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

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

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

der

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

đũa cả

large flat chopstick used to serve rice from a pot

(by extension, folklore, fantasy) a wand


vend

venda (definite singular)
vender (indefinite plural)
vendene (definite plural)

(poetry, music) a stanza, or the tune of one


blast

en-verb

blast (third-person singular simple present blasts, present participle blasting, simple past and past participle blasted)

blasts (present singular third-person)
blasting (participle present)
blasted (participle past)
blasted (past)

⇒ Italian: blastare

From Middle English blasten, blesten, from Old English blǣstan (“to blow, blast”), from Proto-West Germanic *blēstijan, from Proto-Germanic *blēstijaną. Possibly related to Middle High German blesten (“to stand out, plop, splash”).

noncog

Chewbacca blasted the Stormtroopers with his laser rifle.

(transitive, science fiction) To shoot, especially with an energy weapon (as opposed to one which fires projectiles).


anti-gravity

(science fiction) Any concept, system or device that would oppose or cancel out the force of gravity.


abat

(folklore) a vampirelike creature or monster


rest

en-noun

rest (countable and uncountable, plural rests)

From Middle English rest, reste, from Old English ræst, from Proto-West Germanic *rastu, from Proto-Germanic *rastō, from Proto-Indo-European *ros-, *res-, *erH- (“rest”). Cognate with West Frisian rêst (“rest”), Dutch rust (“rest”), German Rast (“rest”), Swedish rast (“rest”), Norwegian rest (“rest”), Icelandic röst (“rest”), Old Irish árus (“dwelling”), German Ruhe (“calm”), Albanian resht (“to stop, pause”), Welsh araf (“quiet, calm, gentle”), Lithuanian rovà (“calm”), Ancient Greek ἐρωή (erōḗ, “rest, respite”), Avestan 𐬀𐬌𐬭𐬌𐬨𐬈 (aⁱrime, “calm, peaceful”), Sanskrit रमते (rámate, “he stays still, calms down”), Gothic 𐍂𐌹𐌼𐌹𐍃 (rimis, “tranquility”). Related to roo.

rest

stick used to support the cue in snooker

(poetry) A short pause in reading poetry; a caesura.


plot

id-noun

plot (first-person possessive plotku, second-person possessive plotmu, third-person possessive plotnya)

plotku (first-person possessive)
plotmu (possessive second-person)
plotnya (possessive third-person)

From Dutch plot, from English plot, from Middle English plot, plotte, from Old English plot (“a plot of ground”), from Proto-Germanic *plataz, *platjaz (“a patch”), of uncertain origin.

(art, literature) plot, storyline: the course of a story, comprising a series of incidents which are gradually unfolded, sometimes by unexpected means.


prosa

From Old Galician-Portuguese prosa, from Latin prōsa (“straightforward”) in the term prōsa ōrātio (“straightforward speech”), alteration of prōrsa, from the feminine form of prōrsus (“straight, forwards”), from Old Latin prōvorsus (“moving straight ahead”), from prō- (“forward”) + vorsus (“turned”).

der

(literature, uncountable) prose (written language not intended as poetry)


tag

From Middle English tagge (“small piece hanging from a garment”), probably of North Germanic origin. Compare Norwegian tagg (“point; prong; barb; tag”), Swedish tagg (“thorn; prickle; tine”), Icelandic tág (“a willow-twig”). Compare also tack.

cog

Seems here like Russ would be speaking. You could use a tag here.

(Can we date this quote?), michael, alt.fiction.original (Usenet):

If you want to start with talk, stick a tag in right away

(Can we date this quote?), Jane MacDonald, alt.fiction.original (Usenet):

You could combine these two paragraphs, I think, and rewrite to lose the tag portion of the third sentence.

(Can we date this quote?), bart_...@hotmail.com, alt.fiction.original (Usenet):

(informal, authorship) An attribution in narrated dialogue (eg, "he said") or attributed words (e.g. "he thought").


ancora

From Latin ancora. Doublet of anchor and anker.

(palaeography) Either of the symbols ⟨⸔⟩, ⟨⸕⟩ found in marginal notes to mark missing text.


enano

es-noun

enano m (plural enanos, feminine enana, feminine plural enanas)

enanos (plural)
enana (feminine)
enanas (feminine plural)

→ Cebuano: unano

→ Tagalog: unano

From Latin nānus, from Ancient Greek νᾶνος (nânos). Cognate with Portuguese anão. Compare English nano-.


redundant

en-adj

redundant (comparative more redundant, superlative most redundant)

more redundant (comparative)
most redundant (superlative)

From Latin redundāns, present participle of redundō (“to overflow, redound”), from red- (“again, back”) + undō (“to surge, flood”), from unda (“a wave”).

(of words, writing, etc) Repetitive or needlessly wordy.


trickster

1991, Alan R. Velie (compiler and editor), American Indian Literature: An Anthology, Revised edition, page 44,
The trickster is one of the oldest and most widespread of mythological and literary figures. […] As the name implies, the trickster is, on one level—probably the most important—an amoral practical joker who wanders about playing pranks on unsuspecting victims […] With all the fluctuations, certain things about the trickster are predictable: he is always a wanderer, always hungry, and usually oversexed.
Tricksters abound in folktales […] .

And let us begin with those sympathetic elements, the tricksters who obtain the lovers and the land, always at the expense of fools and knaves, sometimes at the expense of other tricksters.

2015, J. Douglas Canfield, Tricksters and Estates: On the Ideology of Restoration Comedy, page 31:

(mythology, literature) Any of numerous figures featuring in various mythologies and folk traditions, who use guile and secret knowledge to challenge authority and play tricks and pranks on others with their acts of trickery; any similar figure in literature.


octave

From Latin octavus (“eighth”). Doublet of octavo, ochava, and oitava.

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

With mournful melody it continued this octave.

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

(poetry) A poetic stanza consisting of eight lines; usually used as one part of a sonnet.


cyborg

Blend of cybernetic + organism. Coined by Austrian neuroscientist Manfred Clynes in 1960.

coinage

I would not classify the Tin Woodman as magical robot, but more of a magical cyborg, if anything.

1981, Teri (Pettit at PARC-MAXC), fa.sf-lovers newsgroup, "Re: SF-LOVERS Digest V3 #122", May 15

Prof. Clynes is a published poet and author of five books. He coined the word "cyborg". He also coined the word "sentics" to describe a new science entirely of his own devising.

1991, Timothy K. Smith, "Manfred Clynes Sees A Pattern in Love -- He's Got the Printouts", The Wall Street Journal, September 24, front page

... Kevin Warwick, professor of cybernetics at Reading University. Warwick is no stranger to publicity. His autobiography, I, Cyborg, which came out last month (Century, £16.99), meticulously catalogues his very many newspaper, magazine, radio and TV appearances. With commendable honesty, he also acknowledges the amount of (unfair, obviously) criticism he has received for being greedy for media attention. That isn't the main thrust of the book, though, which is rather an account of why he is turning himself into a cyborg.

2002 September 19, “Short Cuts”, in London Review of Books, volume 24, number 18, Thomas Jones:

The cyborg subject, with its pacemakers, drug regimes and artificial limbs, is usually also the first world middle to upper-class economic subject with a conscious incentive to preserve life for as long as possible under the best possible conditions.

2003, David Simpson, "Are we still tragic?", guardian.co.uk (exclusive from London Review of Books Vol. 25 No. 7, April 3), April 1

On the track of John and Kate is the T-X (Kristanna Loken), a blond female cyborg so metallically single-minded, and so impervious to blandishment and punishment alike, that, from where I was sitting, she looked to be our best hope of getting a woman into the Oval Office.

2003 July 14, Anthony Lane, “The Current Cinema -- Metal Guru”, in The New Yorker:

(science fiction) A being which is part machine and part organic.


cyborg

en-verb

cyborg (third-person singular simple present cyborgs, present participle cyborging, simple past and past participle cyborged)

cyborgs (present singular third-person)
cyborging (participle present)
cyborged (participle past)
cyborged (past)

(science fiction) To convert (something) into a cyborg.


cyborg

cyborg (nominative singular)
cyborgi (nominative plural)
cyborga (genitive singular)
cyborgów (genitive plural)
cyborgowi (dative singular)
cyborgom (dative plural)
cyborga (accusative singular)
cyborgi (accusative plural)
cyborgiem (instrumental singular)
cyborgami (instrumental plural)
cyborgu (locative singular)
cyborgach (locative plural)
cyborgu (singular vocative)
cyborgi (plural vocative)

(robotics, science fiction) cyborg (being which is part machine and part organic)


Persephone

From Ancient Greek Περσεφόνη (Persephónē).

(science fiction) The tenth planet, orbiting beyond Pluto.


cenobite

From Old French cenobite or Ecclesiastical Latin coenobīta, from coenobium, from Ancient Greek κοινόβιον (koinóbion, “community life, convent”), from κοινός (koinós, “common”) + βίος (bíos, “life”).

der

(fiction) A torturous demon creature made famous by the Hellraiser series.


measure

→ Japanese: メジャー (mejā)

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

From Middle English mesure, from Old French mesure, from Latin mēnsūra (“a measure”), from mēnsus, past participle of mētīrī (“to measure”). Displaced native Old English metan (“to measure”) and ġemet (“a measure”).

lainsäädäntötoimenpide

piece of legislation as course of action

a poem in iambic measure

(poetry) The manner of ordering and combining the quantities, or long and short syllables; meter; rhythm; hence, a metrical foot.

runomitta

poetry: manner of ordering and combining the quantities


rishathra

Generalized from the term coined by author Larry Niven in his Ringworld novels.

(science fiction) Sex between any two (or more) humanoids of different species.


Middle-earth

(fiction) The main setting of J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and other works.

Միջերկիր

fictional place on Earth where most of the stories of J. R. R. Tolkien are set


shield

From Middle English scheld, shelde, from Old English scield (“shield”), from Proto-West Germanic *skeldu, from Proto-Germanic *skelduz (“shield”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- (“cut, split”). Cognate with West Frisian skyld, Dutch schild (“shield”), German Schild (“shield”), Danish skjold (“shield”), Icelandic skjöldur (“shield”) and Faroese skjøldur (“shield”).
Compare Latin scūtum (“shield”), Irish sciath (“shield”), Latgalian škīda (“shield”), Lithuanian skydas (“shield”), Russian щит (ščit, “shield”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewH- (“to cover, protect”), *skey- (“to cut, split”).

noncog

Kinetic barriers, colloquially called "shields", provide protection against most mass accelerator weapons. Whether on a starship or a soldier's suit of armor, the basic principle remains the same.
Kinetic barriers are repulsive mass effect fields projected from tiny emitters. These shields safely deflect small objects traveling at rapid velocities. This affords protection from bullets and other dangerous projectiles, but still allows the user to sit down without knocking away their chair.

2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Kinetic Barriers ("Shields") Codex entry:

Anything that protects or defends; defense; shelter; protection.

(science fiction) A field of energy that protects or defends.

schild

sci fi: a field of energy that protects or defends


rampant

fr-adj

rampant (feminine rampante, masculine plural rampants, feminine plural rampantes)

rampante (feminine)
rampants (masculine plural)
rampantes (feminine plural)


panel

From Middle English panel (“piece of cloth, saddle pad, pane of glass, piece of ice, part, division, jury list, jury members”), from Anglo-Norman panel, panelle (“piece of cloth, saddle cushion”), from Vulgar Latin *pannellus, diminutive of Latin pannus (“cloth, rag, garment”), from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂n- (“fabric”). Cognate with Old English fana (“a piece of cloth, patch, banner, flag, vane”). Doublet of vane.

cog

The last panel of a comic strip usually contains a punchline.

(comics) An individual frame or drawing in a comic.


panel

id-noun

panèl (plural panel-panel, first-person possessive panelku, second-person possessive panelmu, third-person possessive panelnya)

panèl (canonical)
panel-panel (plural)
panelku (first-person possessive)
panelmu (possessive second-person)
panelnya (possessive third-person)

Borrowed from Dutch paneel, from Middle Dutch paneel, from Old French panel (Modern French panel), from Medieval Latin pannellus, later variant of pannulus, diminutive of pannus.

(comics) an individual frame or drawing in a comic.


tempus

la-noun

tempus n (genitive temporis); third declension

temporis (genitive)
tempus (nominative singular)
tempora (nominative plural)
temporis (genitive singular)
temporum (genitive plural)
temporī (dative singular)
temporibus (dative plural)
tempus (accusative singular)
tempora (accusative plural)
tempore (ablative singular)
temporibus (ablative plural)
tempus (singular vocative)
tempora (plural vocative)

Balkan Romance:

Megleno-Romanian: timp

Romanian: timp

Dalmatian:

tiamp

Italo-Romance:

Corsican: tempu

Italian: tempo (see there for further descendants)

Neapolitan: tiempo

Sicilian: tempu

North Italian:

Istriot: tenpo

Venetian: tenpo, tènp

Gallo-Italian:

Ligurian: tempo

Lombard: temp

Piedmontese: temp

Rhaeto-Romance:

Friulian: timp

Ladin: tëmp

Romansch: temp, taimp, tains

Gallo-Romance:

Franco-Provençal: temps

Oïl:

desctree

Old French: temps, tans, tens
Anglo-Norman: tens
Middle English: tens
English: tense
Bourguignon: tamps
Middle French: temps
French: temps
Norman: temps
Walloon: tins
, tans, tens

Oc:

Old Catalan: temps

Catalan: temps

Old Occitan: tems
Occitan: tèms, tems, temps

Ibero-Romance:

Asturian: tiempu

Galician: tempo

Portuguese: tempo

Spanish: tiempo

→ Basque: denbora

→ Norwegian Bokmål: tempus

→ Russian: темп (temp)

→ Sardinian: tempus

→ Swedish: tempus

→ Welsh: tymor

Asturian: tenllera

Catalan: templa

Esperanto: tempio

Old French: temple
French: tempe
→ Middle English: temple
English: temple

Galician: tempas

Italian: tempia

→ Portuguese: têmpora

Romanian: tâmplă

→ Sardinian: tempus

Sicilian: sintimentu

Spanish: tiempo

Catalan: temps

→ Galician: tempo

→ Italian: tempo

Neapolitan: tiempo

→ Portuguese: tempo

Romanian: timp

Sicilian: tempu

Spanish: tiempo

Two roots have been proposed: (1) from Proto-Indo-European *tempos (“stretch”), from the extension *temp- of the root *ten- (“to stretch, string”), with meaning development "what is stretched, stretching" → "stretch (of time)" → "time, occasion"; (2) from Proto-Indo-European *temh₁- (“to cut”), thus "a section (of time)", this root also giving Latin temnō, tondeō, Ancient Greek τέμνω (témnō); compare the etymology of English time. Templum is a possible cognate that has also been assigned to both roots.
Sense 2 is a semantic loan from Ancient Greek τὰ καίρῐᾰ (tà kaíria, “the vital or fatal place (on the body)”), from καιρός (kairós, “time, opportunity, etc.”), and is less frequent in singular form. See Old English þunwang (“temple of the head”), Middle High German tinne, tinge (“forehead, temples”).
As seen from the adverb temperī, the noun would originally have declined like genus.

cog

(poetry, rhetoric) Time; measure, quantity.


conceit

en-noun

conceit (countable and uncountable, plural conceits)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Mélange a trois-conceit.wav

From Middle English conceyte, formed from conceyven by analogy with pairs such as (Modern English) deceive~deceit, receive~receipt etc. Doublet of concept and concetto. Akin to Portuguese conceito.

The “cyberspace” conceit allows him to dramatize computer hacking in nontechnical language, although I wonder how much his somewhat florid descriptions of the “bodiless exultation of cyberspace” will mean to readers who have not experienced the illusion of power that punching the keyboard of even a dinky little word-processor can give.

1985 November 24, Gerald Jonas, “Science Fiction”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

In the next and final stanza, Donne expands the conceit of world exploration to present us with a further distinction between the spirituality of the lovers and the “map reader” and “sea-discoverers.”

2009, Harold Bloom, John Donne, Infobase Publishing, →ISBN, page 16:

Jones and Palin wrote and starred in The Complete and Utter History of Britain (1969) for LWT. Its conceit was to relate historical incidents as if TV had existed at the time.

2020 January 22, Stuart Jeffries, “Terry Jones obituary”, in The Guardian:

(countable, rhetoric, literature) An ingenious expression or metaphorical idea, especially in extended form or used as a literary or rhetorical device.

metafora

ingenious expression or metaphorical idea as a literary device


pathos

pathos (countable and uncountable, plural pathoses)

From Ancient Greek πάθος (páthos, “suffering”).

uder

(literature) An author's attempt to evoke a feeling of pity or sympathetic sorrow for a character.


cloak

en-verb

cloak (third-person singular simple present cloaks, present participle cloaking, simple past and past participle cloaked)

cloaks (present singular third-person)
cloaking (participle present)
cloaked (participle past)
cloaked (past)

From Middle English cloke, from Old Northern French cloque (“travelling cloak”), from Medieval Latin clocca (“travelers' cape, literally “a bell”, so called from the garment’s bell-like shape”), of Celtic origin, from Proto-Celtic *klokkos, ultimately imitative.
Doublet of cloche and clock.

onomatopoeic

imitative

The ship cloaked before entering the enemy sector of space.

(science fiction, transitive, intransitive) To render or become invisible via futuristic technology.


figa

From Old Galician-Portuguese figa (13th century, Cantigas de Santa Maria), from Vulgar Latin *fīca (“vulva”), from Latin fīcus (“fig tree or fruit”).

(folklore) fig sign, used to ward off evil spirits, the evil eye, etc. When directed to a person is insulting and equivalent to a bras d'honneur