pong

en-verb

pong (third-person singular simple present pongs, present participle ponging, simple past and past participle ponged)

pongs (present singular third-person)
ponging (participle present)
ponged (participle past)
ponged (past)

(slang, theater, derogatory) To deliver a line of a play in an arch, suggestive or unnatural way, so as to draw undue attention to it.

[…] and the “good old crusted” actor, forgetting the lines of the author, used without compunction to cover his discomfiture by inventing a text of his own–an achievement known as "ponging."

2016, Jim Davis, European Theatre Performance Practice, 1750–1900:

(slang, theater, intransitive) To invent a line of dialogue when one has forgotten the actual line.


description

en-noun

description (countable and uncountable, plural descriptions)

From Middle English descripcioun, from Old French description and its etymon, Latin dēscrīptiō, noun of action of dēscrībō (“I describe”).

(linguistics) The act or practice of recording and describing actual language usage in a given speech community, as opposed to prescription, i.e. laying down norms of language usage.

kuvailu

linguistics: act or practice of recording and describing actual language usage


redhead

Coordinate term: blonde

Most [camera crews] carry two blondes and three redheads or their equivalents. Blondes are 2000 watt lamps traditionally with yellow heads (or shells) used to light fairly large areas — also referred to as 2Ks — and redheads smaller 800 watt lamps traditionally with red shells to light faces.

2012, Colin Hart, Television Program Making, page 63:

(film, television, theater) A kind of 800-watt lamp.


meme

Shortened from mimeme, equivalent to mime + -eme.
Coined by British biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976 in his book The Selfish Gene. Shortened (after gene) from mimeme (compare English phoneme), anglicized as if from a noun derived from Ancient Greek μῑμέομαι (mīméomai) with the deverbal suffix -μα (-ma), from μῖμος (mîmos, “imitation, copy”). The concept was later applied to the Internet by Mike Godwin.

coin

This meme generator lets you make your own memes by adding a caption to existing images, or by uploading your own image.

I'm always posting memes on the groupchat.

(Internet) A specific instance of a meme, such as an image macro or a video, often with humorous superimposed text.


narrative

en-noun

narrative (countable and uncountable, plural narratives)

The plot is full of holes, but the narrative is extremely compelling.

The player is free to create their own narrative within a much larger set of possible designed narrative options, or, given the geographic and dialogical openness of Morrowind, to refuse the creation of any narrative but their own and wander aimlessly through the game.

2015, Angus Slater, “Prophecy, Pre-destination, and Free-form Gameplay: The Nerevarine Prophecy in Bethesda’s ‘Morrowind’”, in Online: Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet, volume 7, →DOI, page 175:

(creative writing) A manner of conveying a story, fictional or otherwise, in a body of work.


panic

panic (countable and uncountable, plural panics)

The adjective is borrowed from Middle French panique, a word itself borrowed from Ancient Greek πανικός (panikós, “pertaining to Pan”); Pan, the Greek god of fields and woods, was believed to be the source of mysterious sounds that caused contagious, groundless fear in herds and crowds, or in people in lonely spots.
Adjective sense 3 (“pertaining to or resulting from overpowering fear or fright”) is partly an attributive use of the noun.
The noun is derived from the adjective, while the verb is derived from the noun. Verb sense 1.3 (“to highly amuse, entertain, or impress (an audience watching a performance or show”) is derived from noun sense 4 (“a highly amusing or entertaining performer, performance, or show”).

der

(countable, US, originally theater, colloquial) A highly amusing or entertaining performer, performance, or show; a riot, a scream.


runner

From Middle English rennere, rynner, urnare, equivalent to run + -er. Cognate with Old Norse rennari (“runner; messenger”). Displaced earlier Middle English runel (“runner”), from Old English rynel (“runner”; also “messenger, courier”).

махови́к

mechanical part intended to guide or aid something else to move

A leaping food fish (Elagatis pinnulatis) of Florida and the West Indies; the skipjack, shoemaker, or yellowtail.


drop

From Late Middle English droppe, Middle English drope (“small quantity of liquid; small or least amount of something; pendant jewel; dripping of a liquid; a shower; nasal flow, catarrh; speck, spot; blemish; disease causing spots on the skin”) [and other forms], from Old English dropa (“a drop”), from Proto-West Germanic *dropō (“drop (of liquid)”), from Proto-Germanic *drupô (“drop (of liquid)”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrewb- (“to crumble, grind”).

nb...

dropan, droupe, (Northern England) droipe

afval

small quantity of liquid, just large enough to hold its own round shape through surface tension

pisara

very small quantity of liquid, or of anything

pisara

that which hangs or resembles a liquid globule

pudotettu esine

(online gaming, video games) item dropped by a defeated enemy

aleneminen

decline in degree, quality, quantity, or rate

afgrond

distance through which something drops, or falls below a certain level

La Cage's upstage drops include two of the St. Tropez harbor (one for the day and another for the night), [... an] ocean drop (used in an Act I dream sequence), and an abstract chandelier drop (used in the second act[…]).

1983, Theatre Crafts, New York, N.Y.: Theatre Crafts Associates, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 61, column 1:

In The Rover, one of these esthetically important elements was the arrangement of the upstage drops. Originally the drop was split into three sections, with obvious and blatant seams between them.

2007, Michele Fields, Designing The Rover (unpublished M.F.A. dissertation), Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin–Madison, →OCLC:

(theater) A curtain which falls in front of a theatrical stage; also, a section of (cloth) scenery lowered on to the stage like a curtain.


prop

They used the trophy as a prop in the movie.

(theater, film) An item placed on a stage or set to create a scene or scenario in which actors perform.

реквизит

item placed on a stage to create a scene


stage

→ Japanese: ステージ (sutēji)

From Middle English stage, from Old French estage (“dwelling, residence; position, situation, condition”), from Old French ester (“to be standing, be located”). Cognate with Old English stæþþan (“to make staid, stay”), Old Norse steðja (“to place, provide, confirm, allow”), Old English stæde, stede (“state, status, standing, place, station, site”). More at stead. Doublet of étage.

cog

The band returned to the stage to play an encore.

Knights, squires, and steeds must enter on the stage.

1711 May, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Criticism, London: […] W[illiam] Lewis […]; and sold by W[illiam] Taylor […], T[homas] Osborn[e] […], and J[ohn] Graves […], →OCLC:

Lo! Where the stage, the poor, degraded stage, / Holds its warped mirror to a gaping age.

The theater is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, it is also the return of art to life.

(theater) A platform; a surface, generally elevated, upon which show performances or other public events are given.


prima donna

en-noun

prima donna (plural prima donnas or prime donne or (nonstandard) primae donnae)

prima donnas (plural)
prime donne (plural)
primae donnae (nonstandard plural)

/ˌpɹiːməˈdɒnə/

From Italian prima donna (“first lady”).

The truth is, the inhabitants of that languid and luxurious city wanted some little variety; and the minister ... supported a favourite actress in the range of first-rate characters in the Opera—supported her against the united musical opinion of Naples. One night she sang worse than ever; and the next morning half the city rose up, demanding liberty and a new prima donna.

1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, pages 255–256:

(opera) The principal female singer or the leading lady.


reboot

(narratology) The restarting of a series' storyline, discarding all previous continuity.

reboot

the restarting of a series' storyline, discarding all previous continuity


off

(older Received Pronunciation, General American) -ɔːf

From Middle English of, from Old English of, af, æf (“from, off, away”), from Proto-West Germanic *ab, from Proto-Germanic *ab (“from”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂epo (“from, off, back”). Doublet of of.
Cognates
Cognate with Scots of, af (“off, away”), West Frisian af, ôf (“off, away”), Dutch af (“off, from”), German Low German of (“off, from”), German ab (“off, from”), Danish af (“of, off”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish av (“of, off”), Icelandic af (“of, off”), Gothic 𐌰𐍆 (af, “of, from”); and with Latin ab (“of, from, by”), Ancient Greek ἀπό (apó, “from”), and others.

inh

noises off


deus ex machina

en-noun

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

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

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

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

ubor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

suspension of disbelief
suspension of disbelief

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

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

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

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

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


super

For this scene, a large number of supers are engaged, and in order to further swell the crowd, practically all the available stage hands have to ‘walk on’ dressed in various coloured dominoes, and all wearing masks.

1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Affair at the Novelty Theatre”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:

The piece was gave by a bunch o’ supers the time I went. I’d like to see it with a real cast. They say it’s a whiz when it’s acted right.

1916, Ring W. Lardner, “Three Kings and a Pair”, in The Saturday Evening Post:

Short for supernumerary; (theater) specifically, a supernumerary actor.


bowl

Bislama: bol

→ Esperanto: bovlo

desctree

→ French: bol
→ Catalan: bol
→ Greek: μπολ (bol)

→ German: Bowle, → Bowl

→ Hungarian: bólé

→ Ido: bolo

→ Irish: bolla

→ Japanese: ボール (bōru)

→ Latvian: bole (probably via German)

→ Korean: 볼 (bol)

→ Scottish Gaelic: bòl

→ Swedish: bål

From Middle English bolle, from Old English bolla, bolle (“bowl, cup, pot, beaker, measure”), from Proto-West Germanic *bollā, from Proto-Germanic *bullǭ (“ball, round vessel, bowl”).
Cognate with North Frisian bol (“bun, bread roll”), Middle Low German bolle, bole (“round object”), Dutch bol (“ball, sphere, scoop, dot”), German Bolle (“bulb”), Danish bolle (“bowl, bread roll”), Icelandic bolli (“cup”). Doublet of boule and pulla.

inh

(sports, theater) An elliptical-shaped stadium or amphitheater resembling a bowl.


knock-knock joke

en-noun

knock-knock joke (plural knock-knock jokes)

Knock knock.

"Who's there?"

(The teller of the joke says a name.)

(The person to whom the joke is being told repeats the name, followed by "who?")

(The teller of the joke says a pun based on the name.)

One of a class of childish jokes told as a dialog, and usually including a pun, in the following form:


whoopee cushion

whoopee cushion (plural whoopee cushions)

An inflatable bag containing a valve at its neck that retains the air in the bag until pressure is put on it (usually by someone unintentionally sitting on it after it has been placed on a chair by someone else as a practical joke), when the air is expelled with a sound similar to that of someone farting (breaking wind).


practical joke

The class put a whoopee cushion on the teacher's chair as a practical joke.

This is a street of elegant stucco terraced houses, two of which (numbers 23 and 24) straddled the mouth of the canyon. [...] they were knocked down and replaced with fake houses [...]. So began 150 years of practical jokes, with coal merchants sending young apprentices to deliver coal to the façades, or letters addressed to Mr N. O. Body, 24 Leinster Gardens. (There is no letterbox).

2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 58:

A playful trick done for amusement to the detriment of someone else.

惡作劇

something done for amusement to the detriment of someone else


parody

parody (countable and uncountable, plural parodies)

From Latin parōdia, from Ancient Greek παρῳδία (parōidía, “parody”), from παρά (pará, “besides”) + ᾠδή (ōidḗ, “song”).

der

The lively parody which he wrote […] was received with great applause.

1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 20, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:

A work or performance that imitates another work or performance with ridicule or irony.


magic wand

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

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


block

en-verb

block (third-person singular simple present blocks, present participle blocking, simple past and past participle blocked)

blocks (present singular third-person)
blocking (participle present)
blocked (participle past)
blocked (past)

From Middle English blok (“log, stump, solid piece”), from Old French bloc (“log, block”), from Middle Dutch blok (“treetrunk”), from Old Dutch *blok (“log”), from Proto-West Germanic *blokk, from Proto-Germanic *blukką (“beam, log”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵ- (“thick plank, beam, pile, prop”). Cognate with Old Frisian blok, Old Saxon blok, Old High German bloh, bloc (“block”), Old English bolca (“gangway of a ship, plank”), Old Norse bǫlkr (“divider, partition”). More at balk. See also bloc, bulk.

cog

It was very difficult to block this scene convincingly.

(transitive, theater) To specify the positions and movements of the actors for (a section of a play or film).

asemoida

to specify positions and movements of actors


fridge

→ Antillean Creole: fridj

→ Bengali: ফ্রিজ (phrij)

→ Hindi: फ़्रिज (frij), फ्रिज (phrij)

→ Malayalam: ഫ്രിഡ്ജ് (phriḍjŭ)

→ Maltese: friġġ

→ Scottish Gaelic: frids

→ Swahili: friji

Alexandra DeWitt
Chicago Review Press
Frigidaire
Kyle Rayner
Women in Refrigerators

The noun is a clipping of refrigerator, perhaps influenced by the Frigidaire brand of refrigerators, or frigerator (“(dated) refrigerator”). The spelling is likely influenced by analogy with bridge, ridge, etc. The verb is derived from the noun.
The fandom slang verb sense alludes to the phrase "women in refrigerators" coined by the American comic book writer Gail Simone. Simone was referencing a plot point in Green Lantern (volume 3, issue 54, 1994), in which the Green Lantern's girlfriend is murdered by a villain, and her body placed in a refrigerator for him to find.

coinage

Sweet broccolini with tofu, sesame, and cilantro […] First, marinate the tofu. In a bowl, whisk the soy sauce, chile sauce, and sesame oil together. Cut the tofu into strips about ⅜ inch / 1 cm thick, mix gently (so it doesn't break) with the marinade, and leave in the fridge for half an hour.

2008, Yotam Ottolenghi, Sami Tamimi, “Vegetables, Legumes, and Grains”, in Ottolenghi: The Cookbook, New York, N.Y.: Ten Speed Press, published 2013, →ISBN:


fridge

en-verb

fridge (third-person singular simple present fridges, present participle fridging, simple past and past participle fridged)

fridges (present singular third-person)
fridging (participle present)
fridged (participle past)
fridged (past)

The backing cast are also all excellent, as expected considering the calibre of actors attached to the film – Andrea Riseborough is a very good example, playing a fascinating cop who really didn't deserve to be ‘fridged’ (meaning: removed from the action so that the men can do their manly things).

2013 April 26, Siobhan Whitebread, “Welcome to the Punch: A Little Less Conversation [film review]”, in Sophie Harrison, editor, Spark*: The University of Reading’s Student Newspaper, volume 63, number 1, Reading, Berkshire: Reading University Students’ Union, →OCLC, page 15, column 5:

In terms of villains, familiar characters haven't been fridged but they've been rather sexualized.

2014, Tim Hanley, “The Mundane Modern Age”, in Wonder Woman Unbound: The Curious History of the World’s Most Famous Heroine, Chicago, Ill.: Chicago Review Press, →ISBN, part 3 (The Bronze Age), page 240:

Gwen [Stacy] dying is as big a part of Spider-Man's storyline as Uncle Ben dying. But originally, she was fridged, long before that was a thing. Gwen was something of a pretty nonentity in the comics, her death really only served the purpose of hurting Peter. She died a victim, yanked around by other characters.

2014 June 1, Dave Van Domelen, “Dave’s Capsules for May 2014”, in alt.toys.transformers (Usenet):

There’s more than a hint of fridging to Missandei's death, as she leaves behind a grief-stricken Grey Worm along with Daenerys [Targaryen].

2019 May 5, Danette Chavez, “Campaigns are Waged On and Off the Game Of Thrones Battlefield (Newbies)”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 2021-01-28:

2022 March 12, Rich Johnston, “Gail Simone's "Fridging" Becomes Official DC Comics Terminology”, in Bleeding Cool, retrieved 2022-03-12:

(transitive, fandom slang) To gratuitously kill, disempower, or otherwise remove (a character, usually female) from a narrative, often strictly to hurt another character (usually male) and motivate vengeance.


story

desctree

Sranan Tongo: tori
Aukan: toli
→ Dutch: tori

→ Welsh: stori

→ Persian: استوری (estori)

→ Portuguese: estória

From Middle English storie, storye, from Anglo-Norman estorie by aphesis. The Anglo-Norman word itself comes from Latin historia, a borrowing from Ancient Greek ἱστορίᾱ (historíā, “learning through research”). Doublet of history and storey.

der

...it must be exploded for fabulous, with other relics of ancient story...

1673, William Temple, An Essay upon the Advancement of Trade in Ireland:

June 1861, Edinburgh Review, The Kingdom of Italy
Venice, with its unique city and its impressive story...

The stories did not seem to me to touch life. They were plainly intended to have a bracing moral effect, and perhaps had this result for the people at whom they were aimed. They left me with the impression of a well-delivered stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows on the screen, and whisking on and off, at the mercy of the operator.

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

So, what happened?
It's quite a long story actually...
Really? Don't worry about it then.

2006 Feb. 17, Graham Linehan, The IT Crowd, Season 1, Episode 4

Even without hovering drones, a lurking assassin, a thumping score and a denouement, the real-life story of Edward Snowden, a rogue spy on the run, could be straight out of the cinema. But, as with Hollywood, the subplots and exotic locations may distract from the real message: America’s discomfort and its foes’ glee.

2013 June 29, “Travels and travails”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 55:

The book tells the story of two roommates.

What will she do without being able to watch her stories?

He stood on the doorstep for a minute, listening for sounds inside the house — a radio, a TV tuned to one of the stories […]

(US, colloquial, usually pluralized) A soap opera.

What's the story with him?

I tried it again; same story, no error message, nothing happened.

The images it captured help tell a story of extreme loss: 25 percent of its ice and four of its 19 glaciers have disappeared since 1957.

A sequence of events, or a situation, such as might be related in an account.


aside

From Middle English aside, asyde, a-side, oside, from Middle English on side, from Old English on sīdan (literally “on (the) side (of)”), equivalent to a- + side. Compare beside.

An incidental remark to a person next to one made discreetly but not in private, audible only to that person.
 (theater) A brief comment by a character addressing the audience, unheard by other characters.

旁白

(theatre) a brief comment by a character addressing the audience, unheard by other characters


clown

From earlier clowne, cloyne (“man of rustic or coarse manners, boor, peasant”). likely of North Germanic origin, akin to Icelandic klunni (“clumsy fellow, klutz”), Swedish kluns (“clumsy fellow”), all from Middle Low German klunz, from klunt (“pile, lump, something thick”); according to Pokorny, this could be related to a group of Germanic derivatives of Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to ball up; amass”), such as Proto-West Germanic *klott (“lump”), Proto-Germanic *klūtaz (“clod, lump”), *kultaz (“lump, bundle”), etc.
Alternatively, directly from Low German (compare North Frisian klönne (“clumsy fellow, klutz”), Dutch kluns (“clumsy fellow, klutz”), Dutch kloen (“uncouth person, lout”)), themselves from the same ultimate source as above.
Unlikely from Latin colōnus (“colonist, farmer”), although learned awareness of this term may have influenced semantic development.

cog

Over there in Norway, the churches all burn down / Let's go dress in goth clothes and get painted like a clown

2008, Lich King, “Black Metal Sucks”, in Toxic Zombie Onslaught:

A slapstick performance artist often associated with a circus and usually characterized by bright, oversized clothing, a red nose, face paint, and a brightly colored wig.


joke

→ Danish: joke

→ French: joke

→ Persian: جوک

→ Japanese: ジョーク, → Japanese: 冗句

→ Welsh: jôc

From Latin iocus (“joke, jest, pastime”), from Proto-Italic *jokos (“word, (playful?) saying”), from Proto-Indo-European *yokos (“word, utterance”), from ultimate root Proto-Indo-European *yek- (“to speak, utter”) (of which distant cognates include Proto-Celtic *yextis (“language”) (Breton yezh (“language”) and Welsh iaith (“language”)) and German Beichte (“confession”)). Cognate with French jeu, Italian gioco, Portuguese jogo, Spanish juego, Romanian joc, English Yule, Danish Jule, Norwegian Bokmål Jul, Swedish Jul, and Norwegian Nynorsk jol.

der

Or witty joke our airy senses moves / To pleasant laughter.


Grim Reaper

/ˈɡɹɪm ˈɹiː.pə/

/ˈɡɹɪm ˈɹi.pɚ/

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

cog

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chronos
Cronus
The Taming of the Shrew
Uranus_(mythology)

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


ingenue

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

The intelligent and talented blonde who was fluent in English, French and Spanish was interested in art and joined a local theater group to work on set designs but wound up on stage playing an ingenue in Liliom and was spotted by director Vincente Minnelli.

2012, Thomas Lisanti, Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave, 1959-1969, McFarland, →ISBN, page 396:

(theater, film) A dramatic role of such a woman; an actress playing such a role.

naiva

a dramatic role of such a woman; an actress playing such a role


mute

From Middle English muet, from Anglo-Norman muet, moet, Middle French muet, from mu (“dumb, mute”) + -et, remodelled after Latin mūtus.

As for the poor honest Maid, whom all the Story is built upon, and who ought to be one of the principal Actors in the Play, she is commonly a Mute in it:

1668 OF Dramatick Poesie, AN ESSAY. By JOHN DRYDEN Esq; (John Dryden)

(obsolete, theater) An actor who does not speak; a mime performer.


venue

From Middle English venu, from Old French venue, the feminine singular past participle of the verb venir (to come). Doublet of veny.

A theater, auditorium, arena, or other area designated for sporting or entertainment events.


dock

From early modern English "area of mud in which a ship can rest at low tide, dock", borrowed from Dutch dok (“dock”) or Middle Low German docke (“dock, ship's dock”), both from Middle Dutch docke (“port, harbour, roadstead”), of uncertain origin. The original sense may have been "the furrow a grounded vessel makes in a mud bank". Compare modern Dutch dok, modern German Low German Dock, West Frisian dok, German Dock, Danish dok, Swedish docka.
Some sources link this word to an unattested Middle Dutch *docke (“watercourse, trench, canal”), which is a ghost word, only being inferred from Mediaeval Latin documents in the form of ducta, doctus, doccia (“conduit, canal”). However, if this theory is correct, then it would relate the word to Italian doccia (“drainpipe”), making dock a doublet of douche and duct.
An alternative theory ties Middle Dutch docke to a North Germanic/Scandinavian source, notably Old Norse dǫkk (“depression in the landscape, pit, pool, trench”), related to Norwegian dokk (“hollow, low ground”), Old Icelandic dökk, dökð (“pit, pool”), Swedish dank (“marshy ground”). If so, this would make dock a doublet of dank.


bon mot

Borrowed from French bon mot (“good word”).

But ſo it is: our Writer has met with a Bon Mot of this Cato’s; which, according to his ſhallow Underſtanding and ſilly Interpretation, he preſages will ever live as a noble Free-thinking Saying.

1725, “Phileleutherus Lipsiensis” [pseudonym; Richard Bentley], chapter LII, in Remarks upon a Late Discourse of Free-thinking [by Anthony Collins]: In a Letter to N. N. … Part the Second, 6th edition, Cambridge: Printed for Cornelius Crownfield, printer to the University, →OCLC, page 64:

―In England, dear Sir, ſaid I, we ſit all at our eaſe. The old French officer would have ſet me at unity with myſelf, in caſe I had been at variance,—by ſaying it was a bon mot—and as a bon mot is always worth ſomething at Paris, he offered me a pinch of ſnuff.

1768, Mr. Yorick [pseudonym; Laurence Sterne], “The Dwarf. Paris.”, in A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, volume I, London: […] T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, […], →OCLC, page 197:

And if a few of these bon mots so selected be well known, they possess such acknowledged excellence, that the compiler would be justly censured, were he to deprive his readers of the pleasure of seeing them inserted in a work of this kind.

1814, Henry Kett, “Introduction”, in The Flowers of Wit, or A Choice Collection of Bon Mots, both Antient and Modern; with Biographical and Critical Remarks. … In Two Volumes, volume I, London: Printed for Lackington, Allen, and Co., […]; at the Weybridge Press, by S. Hamilton, →OCLC, page xvi:

M. de Pomponne conjures her not to let Mme. Cornuel's bons mots perish, but to keep a register of them. Saint-Simon describes Mme. Cornuel as a "vieille bourgeoise du Marais," who was "full of bons mots, but of bons mots that are apophthegms."

1858 September, “Sir Nathaniel”, “Readings in Current Literature. By Sir Nathaniel. [Victor] Cousin’s Key to the ‘Grand Cyrus.’ History of the French Academy.”, in William Harrison Ainsworth, editor, The New Monthly Magazine, volume CXIV, number CCCCLIII, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, page 47:

In the lone novel of his career, The Picture of Dorian Gray, the goading Lord Henry cannot seem to help himself from delivering bon mot after bon mot. Word-play and paradoxical summation was a compulsion for [Oscar] Wilde.

2012, “Introduction”, in Bob Blaisdell, Odette Blaisdell, editors, The Wit and Wisdom of Oscar Wilde, Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, →ISBN, page viii:

Summing up a complex analysis [...] we can say that [Peter] Pilz succeeds in turning Mayr's fierce endeavours of enforcement against himself, and his bonmot about the state of politics during socialist rule becomes widely cited in the next day's press.

2016, Emo Gotsbachner, “Asserting Interpretive Frames of Political Events: Panel Discussions on Television News”, in Richard Fitzgerald, William Housley, editors, Media, Policy and Interaction, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, pages 56–57:

A clever saying, phrase or witticism; often, a witty riposte in dialogue.


chorus

en-noun

chorus (plural choruses or (dated) chorusses or (rare) chori)

choruses (plural)
chorusses (dated plural)
chori (plural rare)

The noun is borrowed from Medieval Latin chorus (“church choir”), Latin chorus (“group of dancers and singers; dance”), from Ancient Greek χορός (khorós, “group of dancers and singers, choir, chorus; dance accompanied by song; round dance”); further etymology uncertain, perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰer- (“to encircle, enclose”) or *ǵʰoros. Doublet of choir and hora.
The plural form chori is from Latin chorī, from Ancient Greek χοροί (khoroí).
The verb is derived from the noun.

der

Enter Chorus. / Cut is the branch that might haue growne ful ſtraight, / And burned is Apolloes Laurel bough, / That ſometime grew within this learned man: […]

1589–1592 (date written), Ch[ristopher] Marl[owe], The Tragicall History of D. Faustus. […], London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Thomas Bushell, published 1604, →OCLC, signature [F3], recto:

Ya're as good as a Chorus my lord.

c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shake-speare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (First Quarto), London: […] [Valentine Simmes] for N[icholas] L[ing] and Iohn Trundell, published 1603, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:

Palinode. / Amo[rphus]. From ſpaniſh ſhrugs, french faces, ſmirks, irps, and all affected humours: / Chorvs. Good Mercvry defend vs.

1600 (first performance), Beniamin Ionson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Cynthias Reuels, or The Fountayne of Selfe-Loue. […]”, in The Workes of Beniamin Ionson (First Folio), London: […] Will[iam] Stansby, published 1616, →OCLC, Act V, scene xi, page 267:

Enter Time, the Chorus. [stage direction]

c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i], page 289, column 2:

(by extension, chiefly British, theater, historical) An actor who reads the prologue and epilogue of a play, and sometimes also acts as a commentator or narrator; also, a portion of a play read by this actor.


sardonic

en-adj

sardonic (comparative more sardonic, superlative most sardonic)

more sardonic (comparative)
most sardonic (superlative)

From French sardonique, from Latin sardonius, from Ancient Greek σαρδόνιος (sardónios), alternative form of σαρδάνιος (sardánios, “bitter or scornful laughter”), which is often cited as deriving from the Sardinian plant (Ranunculus sardous or possibly Oenanthe crocata), known as either σαρδάνη (sardánē) or σαρδόνιον (sardónion). When eaten, it would cause the eater's face to contort in a look resembling scorn (generally followed by death). It might also be related to σαίρω (saírō, “I grin”).

Another manifestation, significantly reaching its apogee in the midst of Antonine virtues, was the growing popularity of adoxographical exercises. Mock panegyrics were dashed off, not just by sardonic intellectuals such as Lucian, but also by trained courtiers and polished encomiasts of the stamp of [Marcus Cornelius] Fronto.

1979, Carl Deroux, editor, Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History [Collection Latomus; 164], volume 1, Brussels: Latomus, →OCLC, page 111:


gypsy

See Gypsy. The generic usage that refers to any itinerant person.
Compare bohemian, from Bohemia.

(theater) A member of a Broadway musical chorus line.


plot

From Middle English plot, plotte, from Old English plot (“a plot of ground”), from Proto-Germanic *plataz, *platjaz (“a patch”), of uncertain origin. Cognate with Middle Low German plet (“patch, strip of cloth, rags”), German Bletz (“rags, bits, strip of land”), Gothic 𐍀𐌻𐌰𐍄𐍃 (plats, “a patch, rags”). See also plat. See also complot for an influence on or source of sense 5.
Sense 9 is a back-formation from for the plot.

cog

If the plot or intrigue must be natural, and such as springs from the subject, then the winding up of the plot must be a probable consequence of all that went before.

c. 1725, Alexander Pope, View of the Epic Poem:

(narratology) The course of a story, comprising a series of incidents which are gradually unfolded, sometimes by unexpected means.


conperson

en-noun

conperson (plural conpeople or conpersons)

(informal) A fictional person, especially one supposed to inhabit a conworld and speak a conlang.


guy

en-verb

guy (third-person singular simple present guys, present participle guying, simple past and past participle guyed)

guys (present singular third-person)
guying (participle present)
guyed (participle past)
guyed (past)

PIE word
 *h₁weydʰh₁-
Coined by semantic widening from the name of Guy Fawkes (1570–1606), an English Catholic executed for his role in the Gunpowder Plot, from Old French Gui, a form of Proto-Germanic *Wido, a short form of names beginning with the element witu "wood" from Proto-Germanic *widuz, such as Witold and Widukind. Cognate with Italian Guido.

To guy the speech in the manner of an old-fashioned 'ham' for cheap laughs....

2000, John Southworth, Shakespeare the Player:

(theater, transitive) To play in a comedic manner.


property

en-noun

property (countable and uncountable, plural properties)

From Middle English propertee, properte, propirte, proprete, borrowed from Anglo-Norman and Old French propreté, proprieté (“propriety, fitness, property”), from Latin proprietās (“a peculiarity, one's peculiar nature or quality, right or fact of possession, property”), from proprius (“special, particular, one's own”). Equivalent to proper + -ty. Doublet of propriety.

خَاصَّة

attribute or abstract quality associated with an object, individual or concept

characteristic

attribute or abstract quality of an object

Costumes and scenery are distinguished from property properly speaking.

(usually in the plural, theater) A prop, an object used in a dramatic production.


butt

en-verb

butt (third-person singular simple present butts, present participle butting, simple past and past participle butted)

butts (present singular third-person)
butting (participle present)
butted (participle past)
butted (past)

From Middle English butten, from Anglo-Norman buter, boter (“to push, butt, strike”), from Frankish *bautan (“to hit, beat”), from Proto-Germanic *bautaną (“to beat, push”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰewd- (“to beat, push, strike”). Cognate with Old English bēatan (“to beat”). More at beat.

һөҙөшөү

(intransitive) to strike bluntly with the head

Teacher! He just butted me!

Additionally, kids are pinched, fondled, propositioned, and hit; and it all goes unseen amid the general confusion and nonspecific orders from the cafeteria supervisors who are yelling things like, "Keep it down, you people!" "No butting!" "Wait your turn, boys!" All of which sound as though there is law and order, just no actual justice to the victim.

2016, Chandler, Dan, Bullying in Plain Sight: How Inattentive Adults Encourage the School Bullies, Mustang, O.K.: Tate Publishing and Enterprises, LLC, →ISBN, page 45:

(transitive, eastern Canada, parts of the northeastern US) To cut in line (in front of someone).


narrator

(narratology) The person or the "voice" whose viewpoint is used in telling a story.


prank

Origin uncertain. Perhaps from Middle English pranken (“to adorn, arrange one's attire”), probably from Middle Dutch pronken, proncken (“to flaunt, make a show, arrange one's attire”), related to German prangen (“to make a show, be resplendent”), Dutch prangen (“to squeeze, press”), Danish pragt (“pomp, splendor”), all from Proto-Germanic *pranganą, *prangijaną, *prag- (“to press, squeeze, thring”), from Proto-Indo-European *brAngh- (“to press, squeeze”). Or, perhaps ultimately related to Proto-Germanic *brahtaz, similar to Dutch pracht (“splendor”), Swedish prakt (“glory, pomp”) (loaned from Low German).
Cognate with Middle Low German prunken (“to flaunt”), German prunken (“to flaunt”), Danish prunke (“to make a show, prank”). Sense of "mischievous act" from earlier verbal sense of "to be crafty or subtle, set in order, adjust". See also prink, prance, prong.

der

(obsolete, slang) Full of gambols or tricks.


genre

Unadapted borrowing from French genre, from Old French gen(d)re, borrowed from Latin genere. Doublet of gender and genus.

The still life has been a popular genre in painting since the 17th century.

This film is a cross-genre piece, dark and funny at the same time.

The computer game Half-Life redefined the first-person shooter genre.

One of the difficulties that plague conversations about industrial music is that the genre has come to include (to the chagrin and outright denial of some purists) anything from gentle synthesized droning to metal-inspired riffage.

2013, S. Alexander Reed, Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music, page 38:

A kind; a stylistic category or sort, especially of literature or other artworks.


genre

en-verb

genre (third-person singular simple present genres, present participle genring or genreing, simple past and past participle genred)

genres (present singular third-person)
genring (participle present)
genreing (participle present)
genred (participle past)
genred (past)

For quotations using this term, see Citations:genre.

To assign or conform to a genre, to make genre-specific.


dramaturge

* Definition 1: Borrowed from French dramaturge.
* Definition 2: Borrowed from German Dramaturg.

(rare, theater) Someone who writes or adapts theater plays, a playwright, dramatist, especially one connected with a specific theater or company.

(rare, theater) A literary adviser or editor in a theater, opera, or film company that researches, selects, adapts, edits, and interprets scripts, libretti, texts, and printed programs (or helps others with these tasks), consults with authors, and does public relations work.


dramaturge

dramaturge (third-person singular simple present dramaturges, present participle dramaturging, simple past and past participle dramaturged)

dramaturges (present singular third-person)
dramaturging (participle present)
dramaturged (participle past)
dramaturged (past)

It expresses concerns about programming (“We have watched you program play after play, written, directed, cast, choreographed, designed, acted, dramaturged and produced by your rosters of white theatermakers for white audiences”); […]

2020 June 9, Michael Paulson, “Theater Artists Decry Racism in Their Industry”, in The New York Times:

(transitive, intransitive, rare, theater) To act as a dramaturge.


doge

From dog, probably as a sensational spelling of doggy like monke. First attested in the 2005 episode "Biz Cas Fri 1" from Homestar Runner.

Bobsled wasn't the only Dogecoin-backed sporting success. Fans of Nascar will recognise the car driven by Josh Wise, emblazoned, as it is, with the adorable little doge on its bonnet (pictured above).

2015 July 23, Dave Lee, “Six times Reddit wasn't completely awful”, in BBC:

(Internet slang, humorous) Specifically, a Shiba Inu, as in the doge meme.


opera

en-noun

opera (countable and uncountable, plural operas or opere)

Borrowed from Italian opera. Doublet of oeuvre, opus, and ure.

(music) A theatrical work, combining drama, music, song and sometimes dance.

(music) The genre of such works, the art of composing operas.


motif

From French motif (1848), with the meaning of "main idea or theme". Doublet of motive.

(music) A short melodic or lyrical passage that is repeated in several parts of a work.

мотив

music: short melodic passage that is repeated in several parts of a work


kabuki

Despite its self-consciously assumed irreverence toward traditional practices, “Hokaibo” incorporates all the essential elements of classic Kabuki: the all-male company of actors, exaggerated makeup, the stomping dances, the arresting, cross-eyed poses at moments of high drama that are recognized and applauded.

2007 July 19, Charles Isherwood, “Guilty Pleasures of Comic Kabuki”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

Ichikawa, whose real name is Takahiko Kinoshi, made his kabuki debut in 1980 and went on to become one of the country’s most renowned performers.

2023 June 27, AFP, “Japanese kabuki actor arrested for allegedly assisting in his mother’s suicide”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(often capitalized) A form of Japanese theatre in which elaborately costumed male performers use stylized movements, dances, and songs in order to enact tragedies and comedies.

The whole "weapons of mass destruction" concern was phony from the start, and the drama about inspections was just kabuki: going through the motions.

2005 June 12, Michael Kinsley, “No Smoking Gun”, in Washington Post:

Health care reform recently brought Kabuki to mind for both Rush Limbaugh—“what you have here is ‘Kabuki theater’”—and New York Times columnist Frank Rich: “[I]f I were to place an incautious bet on which political event will prove the most significant of February 2010, I wouldn’t choose the kabuki health care summit.”

2010 March 14, Jon Lackman, “It’s Time To Retire Kabuki: The word doesn’t mean what pundits think it does”, in Slate:

The boy tells her she will find iPhone chargers if she takes five steps back. Here the performance shifts from mere stiltedness to a kind of hateful Kabuki, an affected defiance of how people naturally act: She walks backward, counting her steps, then turns and slaps her forehead.

2020 January 29, Dan Brooks, “Comedy Written for the Machines”, in New York Times Magazine:

(by extension, US) A stylized, pretentious, and often hollow performance; (especially) political posturing.


scrim

scrim (countable and uncountable, plural scrims)

Attested since the end of the 18th century. Origin unknown.
In one of the earliest mentions, "The Statistical Account of Scotland", 1793, by John Sinclair, page 593, we read in a paragraph devoted to weavers: "Besides these, they are now much employed in working a thin kind of coarse linen called Silesias, vulgarly Scrims, whereof each piece is 27 or 30 inches broad".

unk

unknown

Mummified mannequins dangling above the set, illuminated from within, were a heavy-handed touch, but the designer George Tsypin’s translucent scrims and painted drops beautifully conveyed the passage of sun-blasted days and bone-chilling nights on the edge of civilization.

2007 January 22, Steve Smith, “In Austin, Echoes of a Distant War in an Opera’s American Premiere”, in New York Times:

(theater) A theater drop that appears opaque when a scene in front is lighted and transparent or translucent when a scene in back is lighted.


rep

en-noun

rep (countable and uncountable, plural reps)

Clippings of various words beginning with rep.

She did her time in reps before she made the grade in West End theatre.


quip

From a shortening of earlier quippy, perhaps from Latin quippe (“indeed”), ultimately quid (“what”).

Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles.

He was full of joke and jest, / But all his merry quips are o'er.

1832 December (indicated as 1833), Alfred Tennyson, “The Death of the Old Year”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC:

He wrote it down, remembering a quip of Pym's, paraphrased from Clemenceau: "Military intelligence has as much to do with intelligence as military music has to do with music.”

Nobody could ever be bothered to imagine the Sand Snakes beyond personalized weaponry and fake-aggressive quips, none of which were very convincing, and now they don’t even register as dead weight.

2017 July 23, Brandon Nowalk, “The great game begins with a bang on Game Of Thrones (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club:

A smart, sarcastic turn or jest; a taunt; a severe retort or comeback; a gibe.


stooge

Perhaps an abbreviation of Russian студе́нт (studént) [stʊˈdʲent]; the original meaning was “stage assistant, actor who assists a comedian”. It may have been a Yiddish vaudeville term.


caper

From Latin capparis, from Ancient Greek κάππαρις (kápparis).


heroism

heroism (countable and uncountable, plural heroisms)

/ˈhɛɹəʊɪzəm/

/ˈhɛɹoʊɪzəm/

From French héroïsme, equivalent to hero + -ism.

At the time, with the D-Day invasion of Europe going on, their heroism was hardly noticed. Plenty of other heroes were dying elsewhere. Plenty of bigger bits of history were being made.

2022 January 12, Benedict le Vay, “The heroes of Soham...”, in RAIL, number 1948, page 43:

The qualities characteristic of a hero, such as courage, bravery, fortitude, selflessness, etc.; the display of such qualities.

heroizëm

the qualities characteristic of a hero, the display of them


farce

farce (countable and uncountable, plural farces)

Borrowed from Middle French farce (“comic interlude in a mystery play”, literally “stuffing”). Doublet of farse.

bor

The farce that we saw last night had us laughing and shaking our heads at the same time.

Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language[…]; his clerks […] understood him very well. If he had written a love letter, or a farce, or a ballade, or a story, no one, either clerks, or friends, or compositors, would have understood anything but a word here and a word there.

1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:

(countable) A motion picture or play featuring this style of humor.


jape

From Middle English japen (“to deceive, play tricks on; act foolishly, joke; have sex with”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Old French japer (“to bark, howl, scream; chatter, gossip”) (possibly conflated with Old French gaber (“to mock, deride”), see gab), related to Old Occitan japar, jaupar (“to bark, yelp, yap”), probably of Proto-Germanic origin, related to Old Saxon galpōn (“to cry loudly, make a noise, brag”) (Low German galpen (“to bark, howl, scream”)), Middle High German gelpfen (“to scream, bark, boast, proclaim”), Old Norse gjálpa (“to yelp”) (dialectal Swedish galpa (“to cry, screech”)). More at yelp, yawp, yap.

cog

[H]e clapped hand to thigh, and laughed and laughed until the air rang again.
"Oho, a jape—a jape indeed!" he roared.

1920, Jeffery Farnol, The Geste of Duke Jocelyn, Fytte 9


jape

en-verb

jape (third-person singular simple present japes, present participle japing, simple past and past participle japed)

japes (present singular third-person)
japing (participle present)
japed (participle past)
japed (past)

Now the Lond of Egypt longeth to the Soudan, yet the Soudan longeth not to the Lond of Egypt. And when I say this, I do jape with words, and may hap ye understond me not.

1886, Andrew Lang, “To Sir John Manndeville”, in Letters to Dead Authors:

Nay, brother, lay hand on him soon; / For he japed my wife, and made me cuckold.

1510, Hycke Scorner; “Hickscorner”, in Robert Dodsley, William Carew Hazlitt, editors, A Select Collection of Old English Plays, 4th edition, volume 1, London: Reeves and Turner, 1874, page 171:

I jape a wench […] it is better to jape a wenche than to do worce.

1530, John Palsgrave, L'esclarcissement de la Langue Francoyse, Paris: Impremierie Nationale, published 1852, page 589:

Thair is ane hundreth heir sittand by / That luiffis geaping als weill as I.

1540, Sir David Lyndsay, Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis, lines 323–324; republished in The Poetical Works of Sir David Lyndsay, volume 2, 1879, page 23:

Sum gois so gymp in gyis / Or sche war kissit plane, / Sche leir be japit thryis.

c. 1550, Alexander Scott, Poems, published 1821, page 26:

Fottere. To jape, to sard, to fucke, to swive, to occupye.

(obsolete) To have sexual intercourse with.


deck

From Middle English dekke, borrowed from Middle Dutch dec (“roof, covering”), from Middle Dutch decken, from Old Dutch thecken, from Proto-West Germanic *þakkjan, from Proto-Germanic *þakjaną. Formed the same: German Decke (“covering, blanket”). Doublet of thatch and thack.

rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic

shuffle the chairs on the deck of the Titanic


rehearse

rehearse (third-person singular simple present rehearses, present participle rehearsing, simple past and past participle rehearsed)

rehearses (present singular third-person)
rehearsing (participle present)
rehearsed (participle past)
rehearsed (past)

From Middle English rehersen, from Anglo-Norman reherser (“to repeat word-for-word”).

der

The director rehearsed the cast incessantly in the days leading up to opening night, and as a result they were tired and cranky when it arrived.

He […] has been rehearsed by Madame Defarge as to his having seen Her […]

1859, Charles Dickens, “Darkness”, in A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, book III (The Track of a Storm), page 231:

It was plain that he'd been rehearsed a lot, but he wasn't letter-perfect by any manner of means.

1916 March 11, Charles E. Van Loan, “His Folks”, in Saturday Evening Post:

(transitive, theater) To cause to rehearse; to instruct by rehearsal.

doen repeteren

to cause rehearse or instruct by rehearsal


soubrette

Borrowed from French soubrette, from Occitan soubreta (“coy”) (feminine of soubret), from soubra (Provençal sobrar), from Latin superare (“be above”).

At present I have only a soubrette's part, with an apron and pockets, and a ballad; but, as I said before, luck's all in this world, and I have every requisite for being lucky.

1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Success”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 77:

And then too it was exhilarating to see the baron come sailing in with a pair of soubrettes on his arm—each time a different pair.

1936, Henry Miller, “The Tailor Shop”, in Black Spring, Paris: The Obelisk Press […], →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, 1963, →ISBN, page 98:

This version of the fragile, yet touching story accents the romance and courtship of the schoolmaster, properly called Mr. Chipping, and the music hall soubrette he falls in love with while vacationing in Pompeii.

1969, Film Bulletin, volume 38, page 127:

The servants in the hall tonight are whitely-wigged black slaves in livery of a certain grade of satin and refinement of lace,– black Major-domos and black Soubrettes.

A female attendant or servant, especially one who is cheeky or mischievous, often featuring in theatrical comedies.


sarcasm

en-noun

sarcasm (countable and uncountable, plural sarcasms)

/ˈsɑːɹˌkæzəm/

/ˈsɑːˌkæzəm/

From Late Latin sarcasmus, from Ancient Greek σαρκασμός (sarkasmós, “a sneer”), from σαρκάζω (sarkázō, “I gnash the teeth (in anger)”, literally “I strip off the flesh”), from σάρξ (sárx, “flesh”).

uder

Although the Celebrity was almost impervious to sarcasm, he was now beginning to exhibit visible signs of uneasiness, the consciousness dawning upon him that his eccentricity was not receiving the ovation it merited.

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

(uncountable) Use of acerbic language to mock or convey contempt, often using irony and (in speech) often marked by overemphasis and sneering.


player

From Middle English pleyer, playere, from Old English pleġere (“player, athlete, wrestler”), equivalent to play + -er.

inh

All the world's a ſtage, / And all the men and women, merely Players

c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene vii], page 194, column 1:

One that plays
(theater) An actor in a dramatic play.

One that plays
An actor in a dramatic play.


scene

From Middle French scene, from Latin scaena, scēna, from Ancient Greek σκηνή (skēnḗ, “scene, stage”). Doublet of scena and skene.

der

They stood in the centre of the scene.

to paint scenes

to change the scenes

behind the scenes

(theater) The decorations; furnishings and backgrounds of a stage, representing the place in which the action of a play is set.

səhnə

(theater) decorations, furnishing and backgrounds of a stage — see also decor

The play is divided into three acts, and in total twenty-five scenes.

The most moving scene is the final one, where he realizes he has wasted his whole life.

There were some very erotic scenes in the movie, although it was not classified as pornography.

Miss Phyllis Morgan, as the hapless heroine dressed in the shabbiest of clothes, appears in the midst of a gay and giddy throng; she apostrophises all and sundry there, including the villain, and has a magnificent scene which always brings down the house, and nightly adds to her histrionic laurels.

1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Affair at the Novelty Theatre”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:

(theater, film, television, radio) A part of a dramatic work that is set in the same place or time. In the theatre, generally a number of scenes constitute an act.

տեսարան

(theater, film, television, radio) part of a dramatic work that is set in the same place or time


manet

From Latin manet (“he remains”), manent (“they remain”), inflections of maneō.

Exeunt Princess and maidens. Manet Lady Blanche.

(theater) Used in stage directions; literally, he, she or it remains. Compare exit, exeunt.


ad-lib

en-verb

ad-lib (third-person singular simple present ad-libs, present participle ad-libbing, simple past and past participle ad-libbed)

ad-libs (present singular third-person)
ad-libbing (participle present)
ad-libbed (participle past)
ad-libbed (past)

desc

Korean: 드립 (deurip, “inappropriate or risqué joke”)

Hope’s onstage ad-libbing generated more humor and attention than the show’s lacklustre libretto.

I watched Jeb Bush as his brother spoke. He paid attention, grinned and laughed, even ad-libbed when called upon.

To improvise all or part of a speech or other performance, especially in comedy.


spike

From Middle English spike, spyke, spik, from Old Norse spík (“spike, sprig”), from Proto-Germanic *spīkō (“stick, splinter, point”), from Proto-Indo-European *spey- (“to be pointed; sharp point, stick”). Cognate with Icelandic spík (“spike”), Swedish spik (“spike, nail”), Dutch spijker (“nail”), Old English spīcing (“spike”), and Latin spīca (“ear of corn”), which may have influenced some senses.

шпайкове

informal: running shoes with spikes in the soles

Sometimes actors set props on the spikes, or sometimes a deckhand will do it, depending on the action of the play.

2020, John Ramsey Holloway, Zachary Stribling, Illustrated Theatre Production Guide, page 15:

(theater) A mark indicating where a prop or other item should be placed on stage.


screwball comedy

en-noun

screwball comedy (countable and uncountable, plural screwball comedies)

(uncountable) A genre of motion picture or play where opposites were juxtaposed; characterized by snappy dialog, and a blend of sophistication and slapstick

(countable) A motion picture or play of this genre.


wheeze

wheeze The sound of a man's wheeze (canonical)
wheezes (plural)

From Middle English whesen, perhaps from Old Norse hvæsa (“to hiss”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱwes- (“to pant”).

An ordinary whisper exaggerated so as to produce the hoarse sound known as the "stage whisper"; a forcible whisper with some admixture of tone.


trope

Japanese: トロープ (torōpu)

Korean: 트로프 (teuropeu)

From Latin tropus, from Ancient Greek τρόπος (trópos, “a manner, style, turn, way; a trope or figure of speech; a mode in music; a mode or mood in logic”), related to τροπή (tropḗ, “solstice; trope; turn”) and τρέπειν (trépein, “to turn”); compare turn of phrase. The verb is derived from the noun.

der

You have to give director Colm McCarthy, a Scottish TV veteran making his feature film debut, and writer Mike Carey, adapting his own novel, credit for attempting the seemingly impossible task of doing something new with the zombie subgenre. And by blending it with the common YA [young adult] trope of a young female protagonist who leads the world into a new revolutionary era, they almost get there—largely thanks to newcomer [Sennia] Nanua, who presents her character's grappling with complex themes of identity and original sin with a childlike guilelessness.

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

They have completely supported the Russians diplomatically, they’ve abstained in key votes at the United Nations, they’ve absolutely cynically repeated all the Russian tropes, particularly in places like Africa and Latin America – [by]^([sic]) blaming Nato and all of this stuff.

2023 July 20, Helen Davidson, quoting Richard Moore, “China complicit in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, says MI6 chief”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

Contrary to the familiar trope that regulation kills innovation, Harding argues that in fact the political, moral and legal clarity provided by the Warnock commission spurred investment and economic growth.

2024 May 11, John Thornhill, “More than human?”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 8:

(art, literature) Something recurring across a genre or type of art or literature; a motif.

троп

art, literature: something recurring across a genre or type of art or literature

Is not the trope of muſic, to avoid or ſlide from the cloſe or cadence, common with the trope of rhetoric, of deceiving expectation? Is not the delight of the quavering upon a ſtop in muſic, the ſame with the playing of light upon the water?

1765, Francis Bacon, “The Second Book of Francis Bacon: Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human”, in The Works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban, and Lord High Chancellor of England. In Five Volumes, volume I, London: Printed for A[ndrew] Millar, in the Strand, →OCLC, page 53:

If the antiphon comes to an end with the “Praeparatio” trope, a musical difficulty is presented by the trope’s cadence. Although the antiphon is in the E-plagal mode and the first three trope elements cadence on E, this trope cadences on G, a rare cadence tone in this mode.

1983, John G. Johnstone, “Beyond a Chant: ‘Tui sunt caeli’ and Its Tropes”, in Studies in the History of Music, volumes 1 (Music and Language), New York, N.Y.: Broude Brothers, →ISBN, pages 24–37; reprinted in Alejandro Enrique Planchart, editor, Embellishing the Liturgy: Tropes and Polyphony, Abingdon, Oxon., New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2016, →ISBN, page 138:

A short cadence at the end of the melody in some early music.

troop

music: short cadence at the end of the melody

The eighty six-note segments were originally tabulated by Hauer and are the basis of his twelve-tone system. Each of [Josef Matthias] Hauer's tropes consists of two hexachords of mutually exclusive content, so that each pair of hexachords includes all twelve tones of the semitonal scale. Only eight hexachords may be associated in this way with their own transpositions. These generate the eight tropes illustrated in examples 141 and 128. Each of the remaining seventy-two hexachords must be paired with a dissimilar hexachord in order to form a trope.

1963, George Perle, “Simultaneity”, in Serial Composition and Atonality: An Introduction to the Music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Calif.: University of California Press, →OCLC, page 120:

twelve-tone technique
twelve-tone technique

A pair of complementary hexachords in twelve-tone technique.

The Torah was chanted in a loud and strong voice so that all could hear. This cantillation of the Torah—trope—is shown by musical notation which serves grammatical and exegetical functions, ta'amay hamikra or ta'amay n'ginah. They put down in a final form an oral tradition that had been maintained for centuries. The Ashkenazim today have six systems of cantillation, each reflective of the texts and time of chanting. For example, on Tishah B'av the tunes are sad and doleful; on Purim the trope resembles a speedy narrative; the readings of Yamim Nora'im are quite majestic, and so on.

1985, Steven M. Brown, “The Languages of Prayer”, in Stephen Garfinkel, editor, Higher and Higher: Making Jewish Prayer Part of Us, Department of Youth Activities, United Synagogue of America, →OCLC, section 3 (The Language of Music), page 45:

The trope does not appear on the handwritten Torah scroll, but the assignment of notes for each word was fixed long ago and is accepted by Jewish communities around the world; the trope now appears in nearly every Jewish printed Bible. […] The symbols that signify the trope for the Hebrew text were introduced at the end of the 10th century of the Common Era.

2006, Sara E. Karesh, Mitchell M. Hurvitz, “trope”, in Encyclopedia of Judaism (Encyclopedia of World Religions), New York, N.Y.: Facts On File, Infobase Publishing, →ISBN, page 526, column 1:

(Judaism) A cantillation pattern, or one of the marks that represents it.

troop

music, Judaism: cantillation pattern or mark


trope

en-verb

trope (third-person singular simple present tropes, present participle troping, simple past and past participle troped)

tropes (present singular third-person)
troping (participle present)
troped (participle past)
troped (past)

"So clomb this first grand Thief into God's Fold" (4.192), [John] Milton writes, thus troping Satan's transgression as neither deception, seduction, nor disobedience, though he presents it in those terms elsewhere, but rather as robbery.

1999, Heather Dubrow, “'A Doubtfull Sense of Things': Thievery in The Faerie Queene 6.10 and 6.11”, in Patrick Cheney, Lauren Silberman, editors, Worldmaking Spenser: Explorations in the Early Modern Age (Studies in the English Renaissance), Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, →ISBN, page 204:

It suggests that the "masculine" (or exaggeratedly masculine) style of Death in the Afternoon [by Ernest Hemingway] is not a formal or immanent attribute of the text but must be "engendered" through acts of interpretation. And it suggests that what was at stake in this "engendering" was nothing less than the preservation of powerful forms of authentic masculinity in the face of a work that, puzzlingly, seemed to trope the very notions of masculinity and modernism.

2002, Thomas Strychacz, “'The Sort of Thing You Should Not Admit': Ernest Hemingway's Aesthetic of Emotional Restraint”, in Milette Shamir, Jennifer Travis, editors, Boy's Don't Cry?: Rethinking Narratives of Masculinity and Emotion in the U.S., New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page 151:

(transitive) Senses relating chiefly to art or literature.

To represent something figuratively or metaphorically, especially as a literary motif.


love triangle

/ˈlʌv ˌtɹaɪ.æŋɡəl/

La Battaglia di Legnano is a patriotic melodrama with a love triangle theme included.

1961 December 12, The Times, p.5 col. F:

By placing Max and Onno in a love triangle with Ada, Mr. Mulisch achieves an emotional depth that recalls Francois Truffaut's classic film “Jules and Jim.”

1997 January 5, Jack Miles, “On a Mission From God”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

A situation in which two suitors vie or compete for the love of the same person.

liefdesdriehoek

situation in which two people vie for the love of a third


rag

→ Kashubian: reksa (United States)

From Middle English ragge, from Old English ragg (suggested by derivative raggiġ (“shaggy; bristly; ragged”)), from Old Norse rǫgg (“tuft; shagginess”), from Proto-Germanic *rawwa-, probably related to *rūhaz. Cognate with Swedish ragg. Related to rug.

(slang, theater) A curtain of various kinds.


Chronos

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek Χρόνος (Khrónos).

lbor

(Greek mythology) The personification of time.


prompter

The loud ringing of the prompter's bell made her spring suddenly away; and two of his companions, each taking an arm, hurried him away also. How glad would he have been to have left the party: his thoughts were in a tumult; duties and inclinations warred together—nay, his very sense of right was confounded.

1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Success”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 79:

(theater) The person who does the prompting.


Father Christmas

en-proper noun

Father Christmas (plural Father Christmases or Father Christmasses or Fathers Christmas)

Father Christmases (plural)
Father Christmasses (plural)
Fathers Christmas (plural)

The old men who had moustaches came with their breath frozen on them, and looked like so many old Father Christmasses: although all seemed poor and were indifferently clad, they almost all looked in good health and spirits.

1879 May, “Famine Relief. Welcome Words from Shan-si in a letter from Mr. James.”, in J[ames] Hudson Taylor, editor, China’s Millions, number 47, London: Morgan and Scott, […], page 63, column 2:

Again Donna Maria’s anger was interrupted by the rising of the curtain; or, rather, diverted from Carlo’s décadent æsthetics to the extreme badness of the mise en scène, to rows of Father Christmasses and ladies in grey waterproofs, who bellowed and gesticulated as unhappy shades at the gates of hell, and the chains of thick thighed and tight waisted furies who capered about in the rose-coloured Bengal light.

1889 June, Vernon Lee [pseudonym; Violet Paget], “Orpheus in Rome: Irrelevant Talks on the Use of the Beautiful”, in The Contemporary Review, volume LV, London: Isbister and Company […], section I, page 833:

The five Father Christmases walked slowly on, oblivious alike of the children who gaped at them and the man-hunt that was taking place under their noses.

1939, Nicholas Blake [pseudonym; Cecil Day-Lewis], The Smiler with the Knife, Harper & Row, page 199:

‘Yeah, I’ve seen those things they think are gnomes,’ said Ron, bent double with his head in a peony bush. ‘Like fat little Father Christmases with fishing rods …’

1998 July 2, J. K. Rowling [pseudonym; Joanne Rowling], “The Burrow”, in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter; 2), London: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:

At the beginning of the 1990s, therefore, Bardo moved to the current establishment, and was finally able to house his Father Christmases in the style they deserve.

2003, Piers Letcher, Eccentric France: The Bradt Guide to Mad, Magical and Marvellous France, Bradt Travel Guides; The Globe Pequot Press, →ISBN, page 207:

At Christmas, also in 2004, members processed as Fathers Christmas, employing the slogan ‘Put the fathers back into Christmas’.

2007, Duncan Watts, Pressure Groups (Politics Study Guides), Edinburgh University Press, →ISBN, page 122:

After the confrontation with the fictitious peer’s solution process, namely actually drawing rectangles around the Fathers Christmas’ irregular shapes, in Phase 4, another nine of the remaining 22 students (five 12–13- and four 15–16-year olds^([sic])) exchanged their initial linear answer for the correct nonlinear one.

2007, Dirk De Bock, Wim Van Dooren, Dirk Janssens, Lieven Verschaffel, The Illusion of Linearity: From Analysis to Improvement, Springer, →ISBN, page 103:

I was paid £1.92 an hour to wear a pink tutu and entertain the children waiting to see the two Father Christmases (one on either side of the grotto) as the increasingly irate families inched their way past the hour wait markers.

2011, Clare Hemmings, “Crossings”, in Kathy Davis, Mary Evans, editors, Transatlantic Conversations: Feminism as Travelling Theory, Routledge, published 2016, →ISBN, part I (Becoming a Feminist in a Transatlantic Context), page 29:

The smiling carol singers and the laughing Father Christmasses on the television seemed to make my misery more acute.

2016, Bryony Gordon, “I think I might be dying”, in Mad Girl, London: Headline Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 20:

In 1836, English artist Robert Seymour illustrated Thomas K. Hervey’s Book of Christmas with a couple of boozy, wild-haired Fathers Christmas that set the tone for the next fifty years in which the London newspapers were more likely to emphasize the good father’s drinking than anything else.

2020, Tom A. Jerman, Santa Claus Worldwide: A History of St. Nicholas and Other Holiday Gift-Bringers, McFarland & Company, →ISBN, pages 166–167:

In 1958, it was reported that for "the fourth year in succession, staff of four South London stations have combined to decorate the booking hall at Peckham Rye station". They installed a nativity scene, models of Father Christmas, and a sleigh driven by huskies, and Christmas trees were placed around the station.

2023 December 27, David Turner, “Silent lines...”, in RAIL, number 999, page 29:

(folklore) A mythical figure said to bring presents to people (especially children) at Christmas time.


variety

en-noun

variety (countable and uncountable, plural varieties)

From Middle French varieté (“variety”) (modern French variété (“variety; genre, type”)) or directly from its etymon Latin varietās (“difference; diversity, variety”) + English -ty (suffix forming abstract nouns from adjectives). Varietās is derived from varius (“different, diverse, various; variegated”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁weh₂- (“to abandon; to give out; to leave”)) + -tās (suffix forming feminine abstract nouns indicating a state of being). The English word displaced the native Old English mislīcnes.
Sense 1.3.2 (“total number of distinct states of a system; logarithm to the base 2 of the total number of distinct states of a system”) was coined by the English psychiatrist William Ross Ashby (1903–1972) in his work An Introduction to Cybernetics (1956).
cognates
* Galician variedade (“variety”)
* Italian varietà (“difference; variety”)
* Portuguese variedade (“variety”)
* Spanish variedad (“breed; variety”)

der

(radio, television, theater) Ellipsis of variety performance. or variety show (“a type of entertainment featuring a succession of short, unrelated performances by various artistes such as (depending on the medium) acrobats, comedians, dancers, magicians, singers, etc.”).

variety performance
variety performance#English

variety performance

(radio, television, theater) The kind of entertainment given in variety performances or shows; also, the production of, or performance in, variety performances or shows.


stand-up

en-noun

stand-up (countable and uncountable, plural stand-ups)

→⇒ Finnish: stand-up-komedia

⇒ Icelandic: uppistand

→ Japanese: スタンドアップ (sutandoappu)

→ Korean: 스탠드업 (seutaendeueop)

desc

סְטֶנְדְּאָפּ

→ Hebrew: סְטֶנְדְּאָפּ (sténdap)

→ Hebrew: סְטֶנְדְּאָפּ (sténdap)

→ Polish: stand-up

→ Russian: стенда́п (stendáp)

→⇒ Spanish: standupero

→ Swedish: ståuppare (calque)

Sometimes the club has music, sometimes stand-up.

(uncountable) A performance of stand-up comedy; jokes delivered standing on a stage


jury

→ Dutch: jury (or via French)

→ Finnish: jyry

→ French: jury (see there for further descendants)

→ Hungarian: zsűri

→ Macedonian: жири (žiri)

→ Norman: jury

→ Norwegian Bokmål: jury

→ Norwegian Nynorsk: jury

→ Portuguese: júri

→ Swedish: jury

From Middle English jure, from Anglo-Norman juree, from Medieval Latin iūrāta, from Latin iūrō (“I swear or take an oath”).

The jury which decides on the first night usually seals the fate of the season.

1828, The New Monthly Magazine, page 418:

The widespread idea that before a first-night the audience, dressed to the nose, dines en masse at the Colony and proceeds elegantly to the scene in Hispanos is as fabulous as that which imagines it assembles at Lindy's delicatessen in yesterday's shirt and moves on to the theatre in garbage wagons. And no less spurious is the theory that, in either case or in both together, the jury is possessed of a remarkably rich acumen in the matter of theatrical values.

1971, George Jean Nathan, The Entertainment of a Nation: Or, Three-sheets in the Wind, page 130:

(theater, slang) The audience attending the first night of a performance, whose reaction may determine whether it succeeds or fails.


tomfoolery

en-noun

tomfoolery (countable and uncountable, plural tomfooleries)


alienation

alienation (usually uncountable, plural alienations)

From Middle English alienacioun, borrowed from Old French alienacion, itself borrowed from Latin aliēnātiōnem.


prompt

en-verb

prompt (third-person singular simple present prompts, present participle prompting, simple past and past participle prompted)

prompts (present singular third-person)
prompting (participle present)
prompted (participle past)
prompted (past)

From French prompt, from Latin prōmptus (“visible, apparent, evident”), past participle of prōmō (“to take or bring out or forth, produce, bring to light”), from prō (“forth, forward”) + emō (“to take, acquire, buy”).

der

If he forgets his words I will prompt him.

(transitive, theater and television) To show or tell (an actor/person) the words they should be saying, or actions they should be doing.

sufloj

to show or tell an actor/person the words they should be saying, or actions they should be doing


nervous hit

But it hardly mattered; her singing (including "My Own Best Friend" made into a solo) and performing were so strong that few quibbled, especially as she was accomplishing a valiant task by selling out a new, somewhat nervous hit while its regular star recovered.

(theater, idiomatic, England) A production which receives generally favorable notice, but is not assured of success.


flipper

From flip + -er. Compare Saterland Frisian Flappert (“flipper, wing”).

cog

The flipper is designed to give support by standing at a 90-degree angle to the flat. It probably gets its name from its appearance: cut out like a piece of profile scenery, it resembles the flipper of a marine animal, […]

1998, Martin Harrison, The Language of Theatre, page 104:

When standing alone, a flat may have a small extension, a FLIPPER, for added strength.

2013, Jonathan Law, The Methuen Drama Dictionary of the Theatre:

(theater) A small flat used to support a larger one.


rhubarb

en-noun

rhubarb (countable and uncountable, plural rhubarbs)

Attributed to the circa 1852 practice by the theatre company of English actor Charles Kean (1811–1868) at the Princess’s Theatre, London, of actors saying the word rhubarb repetitively to mimic the sound of indistinct conversation, the word having been chosen because it does not have harsh-sounding consonants or clear vowels.
The baseball senses are said to have been coined by the American sports writer Garry Schumacher and popularized by the American baseball commentator Red Barber (1908–1992). Barber also claimed to have started using the word in the 1940s, based on the practice in “early radio dramas” (presumably in the US, circa 1930) of actors repetitively voicing rhubarb. However, unlike the UK usage, he felt the practice applied to muttering by an angry mob, and so applied the word to arguments on the baseball field where he could not distinguish the words.

It [the film The Picnic] wasn't actually a silent film; there were sound effects, but the dialogue was a rhubarb-ish series of grunts and mutters.

2001, Ronnie Corbett, High Hopes: My Autobiography, London: Ebury Press, published 2016, →ISBN, page 253:

(originally theater, uncountable) General background noise caused by several simultaneous indecipherable conversations, which is created in films, stage plays, etc., by actors repeating the word rhubarb; hence, such noise in other settings.


rhubarb

en-verb

rhubarb (third-person singular simple present rhubarbs, present participle rhubarbing, simple past and past participle rhubarbed)

rhubarbs (present singular third-person)
rhubarbing (participle present)
rhubarbed (participle past)
rhubarbed (past)

At Rick's side our local Liberal Party Chairman is smacking his yeoman's paws together and rhubarbing ecstatically in Rick's ear.

1986, John le Carré [pseudonym; David John Moore Cornwell], chapter 11, in A Perfect Spy, London: Hodder & Stoughton, →ISBN; 1st Pocket Books trade paperback edition, New York, N.Y.: Pocket Books, January 2003, →ISBN, page 349:

I suspect it's these pictures that —— and his cronies have in mind when they rhubarb on about iconicity and retro imagery and the 'solid, uncomplicated, talismanic Englishness' (that is, counterfeit Americanness) of the immediate post-war years that I'm supposed to represent.

1991, Gordon Burn, chapter 5, in Alma Cogan, London: Vintage Books, →ISBN; republished London: Faber and Faber, 2004, →ISBN:

They gathered under the giant chandelier, elegant little women with scraped-back hair, feet in the turned-out position, arms in the first or, for those with handbags, in the third, and one or two sur le cou-de-pied, for all the world as if they were rhubarbing in a crowd scene twenty-five years before.

2008, John Mole, “Mixed Feelings about the Tutu”, in I Was a Potato Oligarch: Travels and Travails in the New Russia, London, Boston, Mass.: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, →ISBN, page 96:

Experienced spielers know that, if they keep rhubarbing away in an unrelenting monotone, their audience will soon become hypnotised by the sound of the words and lose grasp of their meaning.

2013, Michael O'Donnell, “Medical Committeespiel”, in The Barefaced Doctor: A Mischievous Medical Companion, Kibworth Beauchamp, Leicestershire: Matador, →ISBN, page 232:

They pick up massive folders of paper and leave, rhubarbing as they go.

2014, Jon Brittain, Matt Tedford, Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho, London, New York, N.Y.: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, →ISBN, page 17:

Doors opened, food prep clattered, and the crowd rhubarbed as everyone hurried in to get their money's worth. The expected smells competed with each other to dominate the room: cheese, pasta, meat … dairy, doughy, dead. And presumably delicious.

2015 September, Gordon Edgar, “Mac and Cheese, Class War, and the Many Meanings of Cheddar”, in Cheddar: A Journey to the Heart of America’s Most Iconic Cheese, White River Junction, Vt.: Chelsea Green Publishing, →ISBN, page 1:

(intransitive, originally theater) Of an actor in a film, stage play, etc.: to repeat the word rhubarb to create the sound of indistinct conversation; hence, to converse indistinctly, to mumble.


sink

a bathroom sink sink (canonical)
sinks (plural)

From Middle English synken, from Old English sincan, from Proto-West Germanic *sinkwan, from Proto-Germanic *sinkwaną, from Proto-Indo-European *sengʷ- (“to fall, sink”).
Compare West Frisian sinke, Low German sinken, Dutch zinken, German sinken, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål synke, Swedish sjunka. In the causative sense, it replaced Old English senċan (“make sink”) from Proto-Germanic *sankwijaną.

der

(theater) A stage trapdoor for shifting scenery.


toilet humour

(euphemistic) Scatological or vulgar language intended to be amusing.

poep-en-pieshumor

a scatological or vulgar phrase intended to be amusing


amphitheater

The symphony warmed up inside the amphitheater while the audience crowded around outside.


amphitheatre

/ˈæmfɪˌθiːətə/

/ˈæmfɪˌθɪətə/

/ˈæmfiˌθiːətə/

From Latin amphitheatrum, from Ancient Greek ἀμφιθέατρον (amphithéatron) from ἀμφί (amphí, “on both sides”) + θέᾱτρον (théātron, “theatre”).

compound

Ancient Roman amphitheatres were mostly oval or circular in plan, with seating tiers that surrounded the central performance area, like a modern open-air stadium.

We had previously visited the building prepared for the assemblage, which was a vast pentagonal semicircular amphitheatre of painted wood and canvas work, ...

1816, John Cam Hobhouse Baron Broughton, The Substance of Some Letters, page 192:

The dry quarry in Shrewsbury [was] in use from at least 1445-6 [...until] 1568-9 (and perhaps beyond)[. ...] Location of this as the site of a semicircular amphitheatre [used in the 1400s and 1500s] is confirmed by the evidence, published in total for the first time in the present volume.

1994, J. A. B. Somerset, Shropshire, University of Toronto Press, →ISBN, page 388:

theatre in the round
theater-in-the-round

An open, outdoor theatre (which may be a theatre in the round, or have a stage with seating on only one side), especially one from the classical period of ancient Greece or Rome, or a modern venue of similar design.


Thalia

From Ancient Greek Θαλία (Thalía) or Θάλεια (Tháleia); from Ancient Greek θάλλω (thállō, “flourish, to be verdant”).

uder

(Greek mythology) The Muse of comedy and idyllic poetry.


chunk

Variant of chuck; or alternatively a diminutive of chump (“chunk; block”) + *-k (diminutive suffix) (compare hunk from hump, etc.).

You begin gathering two hours of dependable comedy by developing that first three-minute chunk. When you're satisfied with it, you create another three minutes of laughs, then another three minutes.

1994, Gene Perret, Successful Stand-up Comedy: Advice from a Comedy Writer, page 80:

If you're gigging outdoors for the Society of Catholic Gardeners, don't close your set with your "Papa Beelzebub" chunk (no matter how life affirming you think it is!).

2012, Jay Sankey, Zen and the Art of Stand-Up Comedy, page 168:

(comedy) A segment of a comedian's performance.


funny

en-adj

funny (comparative funnier, superlative funniest)

funnier (comparative)
funniest (superlative)

When I went to the circus, I only found the clowns funny.


sitcom

كُومِيدِيَا اَلْمَوْقِف

situation comedy — see also situation comedy


dresser

From Middle English dresser, equivalent to dress + -er.

(theater, film, television) A wardrobe assistant (who helps actors put on their costume).


limerick

From the Irish town name Limerick, Irish Luimneach [ˈl̪ˠɪmʲənʲəx].

The limerick, it would appear,
Is a verse form we owe Edward Lear;
Two long and two short
Lines rhymed, as was taught,
And a fifth just to bring up the rear.

Description of the limerick in limerick form

Take a look. That’s Buffy, Muffy, and Fluffy.
Do they have anything in common other than names you could write a limerick around?

2006 May 24, Rhonda Smiley, “Sis-KaBOOM-Bah!”, in Totally Spies!: Undercover, season 4, episode 15, spoken by Jerry Lewis and Samantha “Sam” (Adrian Truss and Jennifer Hale), Marathon Media, via Teletoon:

A humorous, often bawdy verse of five anapaestic lines, with the rhyme scheme aabba, and typically having an 8–8–5–5–8 cadence.


catastrophe

en-noun

catastrophe (countable and uncountable, plural catastrophes)

From Ancient Greek καταστροφή (katastrophḗ), from καταστρέφω (katastréphō, “I overturn”), from κατά (katá, “down, against”) + στρέφω (stréphō, “I turn”).

Pat : he comes like the Cataſtrophe of the old Comedie : my Cue is villanous Melancholly, with a ſighe like Tom o’ Bedlam.

c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], page 286, column 2:

(narratology) The dramatic event that initiates the resolution of the plot; the dénouement.

catàstrofe

Ancient Greek tragedies: the solution of the plot


black humor

Black humor is like food. Not everyone gets it.

A subgenre of comedy and satire that deals with subjects that are believed to be serious or controversial, such as death, divorce, drug abuse, etc.


gallows humor

1931, "German Falstaff" (review of The Mirror of Fools by Alfred Neumann), Time, 16 Jan.,
Author Neumann defiantly admits why he wrote this historical-romantic farce: "Because I wanted to fight against the general and my personal depression, and because in hard and bad times there is always one tragicomic feeling in place—gallows humor."

The term was part of the language before Freud wrote an essay on it -- 'gallows humour.' This is middle European humour, a response to hopeless situations. It's what a man says faced with a perfectly hopeless situation and he still manages to say something funny. Freud gives examples: A man being led out to be hanged at dawn says, 'Well, the day is certainly starting well.' It's generally called Jewish humour in this country. Actually it's humour from the peasants' revolt, the thirty years' war, and from the Napoleonic wars. It's small people being pushed this way and that way, enormous armies and plagues and so forth, and still hanging on in the face of hopelessness. Jewish jokes are middle European jokes. And the black humourists are gallows humourists, as they try to be funny in the face of situations which they see as just horrible.

1971, Kurt Vonnegut, “Running Experiments Off: An Interview”, in Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut:

True enough, there are such things as laughless jokes, what Freud called gallows humor. . . . While we were being bombed in Dresden, sitting in a cellar with our arms over our heads in case the ceiling fell, one soldier said as though he were duchess in a mansion on a cold and rainy night, "I wonder what the poor people are doing tonight."

2005, Kurt Vonnegut, A Man without a Country, →ISBN, page 5:

Mattis, it turned out, was meeting with Trudeau at NATO headquarters. Already engaging in gallows humor, I wondered if Mattis was defecting.

2020 June 23, John Bolton, The Room Where It Happened, →ISBN, page 142:

(American spelling, idiomatic) Comedy that still manages to be funny in the face of, and in response to, a tragic or hopeless situation.

絞架幽默

comedy that still manages to be funny in the face of a perfectly hopeless situation


pantomime

pantomime (countable and uncountable, plural pantomimes)

Circa 17th century, from Latin pantomīmus, from Ancient Greek παντόμιμος (pantómimos), from πᾶς (pâs, “each, all”) + μιμέομαι (miméomai, “I mimic”).

With the Stoke supporters jeering Ziv's every subsequent touch, the pantomime atmosphere created by the home crowd reached a crescendo when Ziv was shown a straight red shortly after the break in extraordinary circumstances.

2011 October 20, Michael da Silva, “Stoke 3 - 0 Macc Tel-Aviv”, in BBC Sport:

(UK) A traditional theatrical entertainment, originally based on the commedia dell'arte, but later aimed mostly at children and involving physical comedy, topical jokes, call and response, and fairy-tale plots.

Pantomime

traditional theatrical entertainment, mostly for children


diegesis

Ancient Greek διήγησις (diḗgēsis, “narration”), from διηγέομαι (diēgéomai, “I narrate”)

uder

A novel like Sterne′s Tristram Shandy, however, simply embeds a number of different diegeses on the play-within-a-play model.

1985, Bill Nichols, Movies and Methods: An Anthology, page 504:

The standard distinction between mimesis and diegesis is usually referred to as that between showing and telling, between iconic and indexical signs on the one hand and symbolic signs on the other, between drama and recitation.

1991, Christopher Collins, The Poetics of the Mind's Eye: Literature and the Psychology of Imagination, page 4:

Extradiegetic music is a matter of pure convention. It constitutes an exception within Hollywood classical cinema, in which everything is to belong to diegesis in order to elaborate a fictive, realistic universe.

2004, Sarah Hatchuel, Shakespeare: From Stage to Screen, page 89:

(narratology) A narration or recitation.


histrionic

en-adj

histrionic (comparative more histrionic, superlative most histrionic)

more histrionic (comparative)
most histrionic (superlative)

Borrowed from Late Latin histriōnicus (“pertaining to acting; scurrilous, shameful; wretched”), from Latin histriōnicus (“pertaining to acting and the theatre”), from histriō (“actor, player”) + -icus (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’). By surface analysis, histrion + -ic.

der

After three years of constant applause, Miss [Elizabeth] O'Neill directed her steps towards the summit of histrionick exertion, being engaged for the season of 1814 at Covent Garden, where she made her first entrée as Juliet, on the 6th of October, being at once recognised as the first Hibernian actress, who had joined transcendant beauty with rare histrionick talent, since the time of Mrs. [Peg] Woffington.

1816 July, “Miss O’Neill. [From an English magazine.]”, in The North American Review and Miscellaneous Journal, volume III, number VIII, Boston, Mass.: Wells and Lilly […], →OCLC, page 164:

On Saturday, Miss F. H. Kelly played Belvidera for the first time, to a crowded House, and for her own benefit;—for her own benefit in every way, for the performance added a wreath to her histrionic laurels, and drew down the warmest testimonies of applause.

1823 June 14, “The Drama, etc.”, in The Literary Gazette; and Journal of the Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, &c., number 334, London: Printed by B. Bensley, […]; published for the proprietors, at the Literary Gazette office, […], →OCLC, page 381, column 3:

[T]hey might have been figures rehearsing some play of which she herself was the author; they might even, for the happy appearance they continued to present, have been such figures as would by the strong note of character in each fill any author with the certitude of success, especially of their own histrionic.

[…] Miss Phyllis Morgan, as the hapless heroine dressed in the shabbiest of clothes, appears in the midst of a gay and giddy throng; she apostrophises all and sundry there, including the villain, and has a magnificent scene which always brings down the house, and nightly adds to her histrionic laurels.

1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Affair at the Novelty Theatre”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, →OCLC; republished in The Old Man in the Corner: Twelve Mysteries, Kelly Bray, Cornwall: House of Stratus, 2008, →ISBN, →OL, chapter 2, page 207:

[F]oppiſh airs / And hiſtrionic mumm'ry, that let down / The pulpit to the level of the ſtage, / Drops from the lips a diſregarded thing.

1785, William Cowper, “Book II. The Time-piece.”, in The Task, a Poem, […], London: […] J[oseph] Johnson; […], →OCLC, page 74:

[T]he mode and the expression of honour to literature in France has continued to this hour tainted with false and histrionic feeling, because originally it grew up from spurious roots, prospered unnaturally upon deep abuses in the system, and at this day (so far as it still lingers) memorialises the political bondage of the nation.

1848 May–August, [Thomas De Quincey], “Art VI.—The Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith. A Biography. In Four Books. By John Forster. London, 1848. [book review]”, in The North British Review, volume IX, Edinburgh: W. P. Kennedy, […]; London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co.; Dublin: James M‘Glashan, →OCLC, page 208:

[Leon] Trotsky's vanity, unlike [Joseph] Stalin's, was, practically speaking, frivolous. There was something more histrionic about it. He had shown himself no less ruthless than Stalin. Indeed, at the time of the Civil War, he had ordered executions on a greater scale than Stalin or anyone else.

1990, Robert Conquest, “The Foreign Element”, in The Great Terror: A Reassessment, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN; 40th anniversary edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, →ISBN, book II (The Yezhov Years), page 414:

In the dance, the obsessive-compulsive keeps his mate endlessly frustrated. She, in turn, becomes more histrionic, and as she projects her emotional dirty part into him, he becomes more anal and compulsive.

2008, Joan Lachkar, “The Obsessive-Compulsive Narcissist”, in How to Talk to a Narcissist, New York, N.Y., Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 72:

This lens (known as a carello ottico in Italian and a travelling optique in French) is used sparingly but effectively in General Della Rovere during the important bombardment scene inside the prison, which introduces [Vittorio] De Sica's most histrionic speech.

2009, Peter Bondanella, “Neorealism’s Legacy to a New Generation, and the Italian Political Film”, in A History of Italian Cinema, New York, N.Y.: Continuum International Publishing Group, →ISBN, part 3 (The Golden Age of Italian Cinema), pages 219–220:

A vicious circle may form in which the more rejected they feel the more histrionic they become, and the more histrionic they become the more rejected they feel.

2010, Neel Burton, “Personality Disorders”, in Psychiatry, 2nd edition, Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, →ISBN, part 2, page 138, column 2:

(by extension) Excessively dramatic or emotional, especially with the intention to draw attention.


praxis

en-noun

praxis (countable and uncountable, plural praxes or praxises)

Partly from Latin prāxis and partly from its etymon Ancient Greek πρᾶξις (prâxis, “action, activity, practice”).

bor

(drama) The deliberate action of a rational being.

ihmistoiminta

drama: deliberate action of a rational being


tragedy

en-noun

tragedy (countable and uncountable, plural tragedies)

/ˈtɹæd͡ʒɛdi/

/ˈtɹæd͡ʒɪdi/

From the Middle English tragedie, from the Old French tragedie, from the Latin tragoedia, from the Ancient Greek τραγῳδία (tragōidía, “epic play, tragedy”), from τράγος (trágos, “male goat”) + ᾠδή (ōidḗ, “song”), a reference to the goat-satyrs of the theatrical plays of the Dorians.

der

A drama or similar work, in which the main character is brought to ruin or otherwise suffers the extreme consequences of some tragic flaw or weakness of character.

The genre of such works, and the art of producing them.

tragjedi

“The story of this adoption is, of course, the pivot round which all the circumstances of the mysterious tragedy revolved. Mrs. Yule had an only son, namely, William, to whom she was passionately attached ; but, like many a fond mother, she had the desire of mapping out that son's future entirely according to her own ideas.[…]”

1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Tragedy in Dartmoor Terrace”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:

After the terrible tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in 1911, which killed 146 New York garment workers, proper fire drilling was considered a necessity.

2015, Alison Matthews David, Fashion Victims: The Damages of Dress Past and Present, →ISBN, page 142:

A disastrous event, especially one involving great loss of life or injury.