gnome

From French gnome (“gnome”), from New Latin gnomus, used by Paracelsus as a synonym for pygmaeus (“pygmy”).

He adopts the Rosycrusian fancy of Gnomes, spirits which inhabit the earth, and who by their power form the ores of metals, and all the wonders met with in the inmost recesses of the globe.

1811, The Medical and Physical Journal, volume 25, page 138:

Day belongs to the earthlier deities—the stern, the harsh, and the cold. Gnomes are the spirits of daily hours. Toil, thought, and strife, beset us: we have to work, to quarrel, and to struggle: we have to take our neighbours in; or, at least, to avoid their doing so by us.

1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Success”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 74:

Gnomes are perhaps the most useful of the elementals.
A gnome can carry a person with it as it swims through the soil, provided it is strong enough to lift the person. The gnome cannot, however, provide air for that person[…].

2006, Greg Lynch, RuneQuest Monsters, page 52:

Elementals are the consciousness guiding the four classical elements of earth, fire, air, and water. These elementals are depicted as gnomes, salamanders, diminutive faeries known as sylphs, and merfolk, known as undines, respectively.

2007, Christopher Penczak, Ascension Magick: Ritual, Myth and Healing for the New Aeon, page 413:

(magic, alchemy, Rosicrucianism) An elemental (spirit or corporeal creature associated with a classical element) associated with earth.

When the trees were disposed of, the gnomes vanished again.

1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 226:

There were not one but four gnomes standing at his feet. “I nearly trod on you,” Daniel said. “What are you doing here?”
The gnomes just stood, looking up at him.

2011, Ross Lawhead, The Realms Thereunder, page 251:

(mythology, fantasy) One of a race of imaginary human-like beings, usually depicted as short and typically bearded males, who inhabit the inner parts of the earth and act as guardians of mines, mineral treasure, etc.; in modern fantasy literature and games, when distinguished from dwarves, gnomes are usually smaller than dwarves and more focused on engineering than mining.

The mountain pygmy owl, Glaucidium gnoma, a small owl of the western United States.


knot

From Middle English knotte, from Old English cnotta, from Proto-West Germanic *knottō, from Proto-Germanic *knuttô, *knudô (“knot”); probably ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gnod- (“to bind”).
See also Old High German knoto (German Knoten, Dutch knot, Low German Knütte; also Old Norse knútr > Danish knude, Swedish knut, Norwegian knute, Faroese knútur, Icelandic hnútur; also Latin nōdus and its Romance descendants. Doublet of knout, node, and nodus.
* (unit of speed): From the practice of counting the number of knots in the log-line (as it is paid out) in a standard time. Traditionally spaced at one every ¹⁄₁₂₀ of a mile.

In the early stages of reentry, due to the extremely-rarefied air at these altitudes, the space shuttle flew at only one to a few knots equivalent airspeed, even when its actual speed was many thousands of knots.

(aviation) A unit of indicated airspeed, calibrated airspeed, or equivalent airspeed, which varies in its relation to the unit of speed so as to compensate for the effects of different ambient atmospheric conditions on aircraft performance.


red herring

en-noun

red herring (plural red herrings or red herring)

red herrings (plural)
red herring (plural)

(figurative): One possible origin of the idiom was that red herring were used to train dogs to track scents. This was true, but the modern meaning of a false trail may have been popularized in a news story by English journalist William Cobbett, c. 1805, in which he claimed that as a boy he used a red herring (a cured and salted herring) to mislead hounds following a trail; the story served as an extended metaphor for the London press, which had earned Cobbett's ire by publishing false news accounts regarding Napoleon. The OED has another possible earlier origin in the legacy of clergyman Jasper Mayne in 1672 when he misled a servant by leaving him "Somewhat that would make him Drink after his Death" in a large trunk. When the trunk was opened, the contents were found to be red herring.
(soldier): An allusion to soldiers' red uniforms; soldier is, reciprocally, a slang term for the fish.

neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring

red herring prospectus
red herring prospectus


demon

Anthony the Great
Michelangelo
en:demon
en:demon (disambiguation)

From Middle English demon, a borrowing from Medieval Latin dēmōn, daemōn (“lar, familiar spirit, guardian spirit”), from Ancient Greek δαίμων (daímōn, “dispenser, god, protective spirit”). Doublet of daimon.

daimon

now chiefly in reference to the ancient Greek spirit

So what does the Gospel of Judas really say? It says that Judas is a specific demon called the "Thirteenth." In certain Gnostic traditions, this is the given name of the king of demons - an entity known as Ialdabaoth who lives in the 13th realm above the earth. Judas is his human alter ego, his undercover agent in the world. These Gnostics equated Ialdabaoth with the Hebrew Yahweh, whom they saw as a jealous and wrathful deity and an opponent of the supreme God whom Jesus came to earth to reveal.
Whoever wrote the Gospel of Judas was a harsh critic of mainstream Christianity and its rituals. Because Judas is a demon working for Ialdabaoth, the author believed, when Judas sacrifices Jesus he does so to the demons, not to the supreme God. This mocks mainstream Christians' belief in the atoning value of Jesus' death and in the effectiveness of the Eucharist.

2007 December 2, April D. DeConick, “What the Gospel of Judas really says”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2011-11-23, Essay:

An evil spirit resident in or working for Hell; a devil.

(Greek mythology) A tutelary deity or spirit intermediate between the major Olympian gods and mankind, especially a deified hero or the entity which supposedly guided Socrates, telling him what not to do.


enemy

From Middle English enemy, enemye, enmy, borrowed from Old French enemi, anemi (Modern French ennemi), from Latin inimīcus, from in- (“not”) + amīcus (“friend”). Displaced Middle English feend (“enemy”), from Old English fēond (“enemy”), which survived into Modern English as fiend, but with a different meaning.

let the perfect be the enemy of the good

non-player character
non-player character

(video games) A non-player character that tries to harm the player.


archenemy

From arch- (“chief, most extreme”) + enemy.


torch

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

cog

λᾰμπᾰ́δᾰ πᾰρᾰδιδόναι

sueo'

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

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


torch

en-verb

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

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

cog

λᾰμπᾰ́δᾰ πᾰρᾰδιδόναι

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

to travel in a spacecraft propelled by a torch drive

matkustaa fuusiolla toimivalla avaruusaluksella


hobbit

en-noun

hobbit (plural hobbits or (humorous) hobbitses)

hobbits (plural)
hobbitses (humorous plural)

Denham Tracts
Hobbit (word)
J. R. R. Tolkien
The Hobbit
The Lord of the Rings
hobbit

Coined in its current sense by J. R. R. Tolkien in the 1930s, featured in the novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Jocularly etymologized by him as from a hypothetical Old English *holbytla (literally “hole-builder”), from hol (“hole”) + bytlan (“to build”) + -a (“-er”). Tolkien was possibly influenced by similar terms for house-sprites (probably from Hob, a hypocoristic form of Robert), or an isolated mention of hobbits (with hobgoblins following immediately afterwards) in a list of sprites and bogies from the 19th-century Denham Tracts.

pseudo-loan

A member of a fictional race of small humanoids with shaggy hair and hairy feet.


IC

(astronomy) Initialism of Index Catalogue (part of the NGC survey of J.L.E. Dreyer’s update to the Herschel General Catalogue).


apparition

/ˌæp.əɹˈɪʃn̩/

/ˌæp.ɚˈɪʃ.n̩/

/ˌæp.ɚˈɪ.ʃən/

From Middle French apparition, from Latin apparitio, from appareo.

the sudden apparition of the Spaniards

1855–1858, William H[ickling] Prescott, History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain, volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Boston, Mass.: Phillips, Sampson, and Company, →OCLC:

The apparition of Lawyer Clippurse occasioned much speculation in that portion of the world.

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

An act of becoming visible; appearance; visibility.

Coordinate term: theophany

The region's economy is buoyed by tourism driven by past apparitions of the Virgin Mary.

The attic is said to be haunted by the ghostly apparition of a young girl who died there.

He spoke to the apparition, and although its lips did not move, he somehow heard its reply.

I think it is the weakness of mine eyes / That shapes this monstrous apparition.

1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:

The heavenly bands […] a glorious apparition.

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

The apparition wobbled in front of Arthur's eyes, though the truth of the matter is probably that Arthur's eyes were wobbling in front of the apparition.

1982, Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything, page 24:

An unexpected, wonderful, or preternatural appearance; especially, one by a ghost, phantom, or suchlike; the entity itself.

привидение

(astronomy) The first appearance of a star or other luminary after having been invisible or obscured; opposed to occultation.

видимост

astronomy: the first appearance of a luminary after having been invisible or obscured

(astronomy) A period of consecutive days or nights when a particular celestial body may be observed, beginning with the heliacal rising of the body and ending with its heliacal setting.


bunyip

The bunyip here was considered to have a magical power over humans, causing them considerable misfortune. Places where there were many eels tended to be where bunyips lived, as this was their food. On one occasion, Aboriginal people claimed that a bunyip lured a woman to her death by distracting her with a large catch of eels. It was considered extremely bad luck to kill or injure a bunyip.

2007, Janet Parker, Julie Stanton, editors, Mythology: Myths, Legends and Fantasies, page 387:

According to the stories, the Bunyip comes in many different shapes and sizes—some are covered in feathers, while others have scales like a crocodile. Most Aboriginal drawings show the Bunyip with a tail like a horse, and flippers and tusks like a walrus.

2008, Oliver Ho, Mysteries Unwrapped: Mutants & Monsters, page 26:

One particularly fierce bunyip described by Smith was well known as a man-eater throughout south Australia.

2009, David D. Gilmore, Monsters: Evil Beings, Mythical Beasts, and All Manner of Imaginary Terrors, page 150:

(Australia, cryptozoology, mythology) A mythical Australian monster, said to inhabit swamps and lagoons.


resurrection

en-noun

resurrection (countable and uncountable, plural resurrections)

/ɹɛzəˈɹɛkʃən/

/ɹɛzəˈɹɛkʃn̩/

From Anglo-Norman resurrectiun, from Old French resurrection (French: résurrection), from Late Latin resurrectionem (accusative of resurrectiō) from Latin resurgō (“I rise again”), from re- (“again”), + surgō (“I rise”). Displaced native Old English ǣrist.

(figuratively) A miraculous comeback or revival (e.g., of a TV series); recovery from a dire predicament.


oni

ONI 鬼. Generic name for devils, the representation of which in art is quite a common feature. Onis have claws, a square head with two horns, sharp teeth, and malignant eyes surmounted by big eyebrows; occasionally they wear trousers of tiger skin.

1908, Henri L. Joly, Legend in Japanese Art: A Description of Historical Episodes, Legendary Characters, Folk-lore, Myths, Religious Symbolism, Illustrated in the Arts of Old Japan, pages 263–264:

Across the ocean, in Japan, there once lived curious creatures called Onis. Every Japanese boy and girl has heard of them, though one has not often been caught.

1918, William Elliot Griffis, Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks:

"That's no human being playing the instrument," he thought in amazement. "It can only be an oni or some such being."

1979, Marian Ury, Tales of Times Now Past: Sixty-Two Stories from a Medieval Japanese Collection, University of California Press, →ISBN, page 147:

The standing Shoki holds with his left hand an oni on his leg.

1992, Karl M. Schwarz, Netsuke Subjects: A Study on the Netsuke Themes with Reference to Their Interpretation and Symbolism, Böhlau Verlag Wien, →ISBN, page 46:

This is actually a boy bishie in the form of an ogre. It's called an oni in Japanese. Onis have supernatural powers that can command the forces of nature such as wind (to create hurricanes) and lightning (to create thunderbolts).

2005, Christopher Hart, Manga Mania Shoujo: How to Draw the Charming and Romantic Characters of Japanese Comics, →ISBN, page 69:

The oni are a diverse group of evil spirits who take on the form of humanoid creatures so that they can enjoy the pleasures and vices of the flesh.

2011, Mike Shel, “Ecology of the Oni”, in Jade Regent: The Brinewall Legacy, Paizo Publishing, →ISBN, page 69:


fairy tale

Their dresses were rich, and when they came bounding forward, their shapes of silver tissue, with their feathered diadems and faces of animated beauty, they might be imagined into scarcely less than the creations of fairy tale.

1819 February 27, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, page 4, column 3:

Mr. Shimerda kneels in front of the tree in prayer; a praying figure under a magic tree is a common one in fairy tale.

1989, Marilyn Berg Callander, Willa Cather and the Fairy Tale, Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, page 27:

(uncountable) The literary genre of these stories.


warlock

From Middle English warloghe, warlowe, warloȝe, from Old English wǣrloga (“traitor, deceiver”, literally “truce-breaker”), from Proto-West Germanic *wārulogō (“liar”), equivalent to Old English wǣr (“covenant, truce, pact, promise”) (from Proto-Indo-European *weh₁- (“true”); whence also Latin vērus) + loga (“liar”), from Proto-Germanic *lugô, related to Old English lēogan (whence English lie). The hard -ck ending originated in Scottish and Northern English, like the sense "male magic-user" (from the notion that such men were in league with the Devil and had thus broken their baptismal vows / betrayed Christianity). Cognate with Old Saxon wārlogo (“liar, unfaithful or insidious one”).
A few writers alternatively propose a derivation from Old Norse varðlokkur (“incantations, charms”, literally “ward songs”), but as the OED notes, this is implausible due to the extreme rarity of the Norse word, the semantic difference, and because forms without hard -k, which are consistent with the Old English etymology (“traitor”), are attested earlier than forms with -k, and forms with -ð- are not attested.

cog

He was himself a warlock, or wizard, which they knew by his taking the witch's part.

1730, Edward Burt, Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland:

It was the day of warlocks and apparitions, now happily driven out by the zeal of the General Assembly.

1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:

“Is it because she was a warlock?” she asked. “I know different kinds of magic . . .” “No, that's not it, or at least . . .” Mereth paused, collecting her thoughts, then explained, “The warlockry doesn't help, Lady Sarai,[…]”

2015 February 25, Lawrence Watt-Evans, The Spell of the Black Dagger: A Legend of Ethshar, Wildside Press LLC, →ISBN, page 115:

It seemed like a strange thing for her to risk on a student she barely knew—but then, she was a warlock. Simon had no idea what they were capable of, but he was getting better at imagining.

2015 March 17, Cassandra Clare, Robin Wasserman, The Lost Herondale, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN:

Usually she blended in with the rest of the Academy faculty, making it easy to forget she was a warlock (at least, if you overlooked the blue skin). But he'd noticed that whenever another Downworlder was on campus, Catarina went out[…]

2015 July 21, Cassandra Clare, Robin Wasserman, Pale Kings and Princes, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN:

“We're also looking for a couple of warlocks,” Magnus said. “A Korean woman and a green fellow with horns.” “Oh,” said Fang with a distinct change of mood. “Them.” “You've seen them?” Alec said, trying not to sound too eager.

2020 September 1, Cassandra Clare, Wesley Chu, The Lost Book of the White, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN:

(especially in fantasy) A magic-user (regardless of gender).


Quidditch

Coined by British author J. K. Rowling in her 1997 book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. In Quidditch Through the Ages, Rowling gives some etymological information, hinting that the word evolved from Queerditch (compound of queer + ditch), with some spelling variation as would be expected in real life Middle English, namely Kwidditch, Kweerditch.

Maybe you wish your parents were smarter or funnier or richer or better looking, but you might as well wish for a spot on the local Quidditch team.

2003, “Universal Lifts the Veil on a Harry Potter Park”, in New York Times:

Turn to the south, and you see the Central Acropolis, a five-story palace where the nobles might have sat to watch plaza ceremonies or the famous Quidditch-like Mayan ball games.

2007 December 16, Ethan Todras-Whitehill, “In Tikal, Temples in the Mist”, in New York Times:

Whichever team gets Yegor holds the edge. This is like Quidditch in hell.

2007, Roger Ebert, Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2007:

Eton’s playing fields are famous, not least because of the Eton Field Game. It’s played only there. It’s sort of like Quidditch for real people.

2010 May 8, Brooks Barnes, “Wait, Wait... Don’t Tell Me!”, in National Public Radio:

A fictional ball game played between two teams of seven players riding flying broomsticks, using four balls and six elevated ring-shaped goals.


AU

(numismatics) Initialism of almost uncirculated.


AU

en-noun

AU (countable and uncountable, plural AUs)

alopecia universalis
alopecia universalis#English

(medicine, dermatology) Initialism of alopecia universalis.

(physics, metrology) Initialism of angstrom unit.

alternate universe
alternate universe#English

(fandom slang) Initialism of alternate universe.


feral

en-adj

feral (comparative more feral, superlative most feral)

more feral (comparative)
most feral (superlative)

Borrowed from Middle French féral, from fer + -al, or borrowed from a Late Latin fērālis.

1876 Statistical, Descriptive, And Historical Account Of The North-Western Provinces Of India. Allahabad: North-Western Provinces' Government Press 1876. p XIV, Agra Division
The spotted deer, in a truly feral state, has very much the same distribution in Bundelkhand as the sambar, but it is more numerous.

див

wild, untamed, especially of domesticated animals having returned to the wild

This consideration doth afford us no small light in conceiving and judging the manners and qualifications of persons, as hath been observed, that those that have impressions of grapes, or signals of vines on their bodies, are addicted to drunkenness, those who have resemblance on their bodies, or in their countenances of a boar, or any feral creature, participate in the same feral, wild and unmannerly deportment; those having any similitude of a hare, are fearful; of a fox, are cunning; of a wolf, cruel; and so of all other resemblances: and, as from these resemblances, the manners are conjectured, so likewise future events, and fortune good or bad, as shall be noted in due place. Nature is strange in many of her operations; but this is most certain, the party retains the qualities of that animal or thing to which he hath a resemblance.

1792 The Opinion of Naturalists Concerning the Moles as they are Caused in Women's Pregnancy. The Conjuror's Magazine for August 1792. p.130

Palmistry . . .The figure of a semicircle in the quadrangle of the hand, notes a feral shedder of human blood, an implacable merciless spirit....
Little puncts disorderly in the natural line, shew the worst of manners, and a feral beast-like nature.

The Conjuror's Magazine for August 1792. p.137

(of a person) Contemptible; unruly; misbehaved.


feral

(Australia, colloquial) A contemptible young person, a lout, a person who behaves wildly.

The intolerance which was directed towards us during the early years has now shifted to ‘the ferals’ who embrace a new version of nonconformist behaviour that even some of us in their parent′s generation — the Aquarian settlers — don′t like. The ferals are the scapegoats for the drug problems here, and are highly visible since many of them have nowhere to live.

1995, Bill Metcalf, From Utopian Dreaming to Communal Reality: Cooperative Lifestyles in Australia, page 82:

A pod of ferals was moving towards the exit, a half-dozen soap-shy, low-tech, bush-dwelling hippies.

2002, Shane Maloney, Something Fishy, published 2003, page 208:

It′s the rootlessness of the ferals that people don′t seem to trust; their claims of connectedness to all wild places touches a nerve. Even residents of Maydena who want to see the Florentine protected dislike the ratbags′ itinerancy.

2010, Anna Krien, Into The Woods: The Battle For Tasmania's Forests, page 102:

alternative lifestyle
alternative lifestyle

(Australia, colloquial) A person who has isolated themselves from the outside world; one living an alternative lifestyle.

The story is about a group of ferals which have to explore the ruins of society after the humans die out.

(furry fandom) A character in furry art or literature which has the physical characteristics (body) of a regular animal (typically quadripedal), that may or may not be able to communicate with humans or anthros (contrasts anthro)


black magic

Coordinate term: gray magic

Magic derived from evil forces, as distinct from good or benign forces; or magic performed with the intention of doing harm.


nano

en-noun

nano (countable and uncountable, plural nanos)

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

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

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


ecto-

From Ancient Greek ἐκτός (ektós, “outside”). Sense 2 ("ghost-related") is a reinterpretation of this prefix in the word ectoplasm (“paranormal substance believed to be involved in the materialization of the dead”), for the etymology of which see there.

from

For quotations using this term, see Citations:ecto-.

(chiefly in fantasy fiction) Ghost-related.


hero

en-noun

hero (plural heroes or (sandwich sense) heros)

→ Hindi: हीरो (hīro)

→ Japanese: ヒーロー (hīrō)

→ Korean: 히어로 (hieoro)

→ Thai: ฮีโร่ (hii-rôo)

[ˈhɪə.ɹəʊ~ˈçɪə.ɹəʊ]

From Middle English heroes, from Old French heroes, from Latin hērōs (“hero”), from Ancient Greek ἥρως (hḗrōs, “demi-god, hero”), from Proto-Indo-European *ser- (“to watch over, protect”). Related to Latin servo (“protect”). Displaced Middle English heleð, haleð, from Old English hæleþ, hæle.

der

"I'm no hero," insists freckle-faced 14-year-old Freddie Hanberry. But to many of the young cancer patients, nurses and staff at University Medical Center here, he is as close as you can get. The "hero" talk began when a national magazine featured Hanberry, who has leukemia, in a special section called "100 New American Heroes."

1986 August 10, “Cancer victim some kind of hero”, in The Advocate, Baton Rouge, LA:

Every cancer victim is a true hero.

1993, Susanne Baxandall with Prasuna Reddy, The Courage to Care: The Impact of Cancer on the Family:

She is my hero, my heart, my baby till the end of time,” said Gabby's father

2011 September 12, Eileen Faust, “5-year-old Phoenixville cancer victim loses fight”, in The Mercury:

Each flag represents a hero, Andrews said, whether a first responder or victim of 9/11, active, fallen, or retired military, special friend or family member.

2011 September 12, Jen Armstrong, “Sherrill honors heroes of 9/11”, in Oneida Dispatch:

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:

Somebody who possesses great bravery and carries out extraordinary or noble deeds.

However, even this great hero of the story is somewhat of a simpleton (when he lets himself be crucially deceived by Peacock Ravana in Vibhisana's shape), and a weakling (when in spite of all his strength he is almost beaten by his own son, one of the rākṣasas)

1987, Kamil Zvelebil, Two Tamil Folktales: The Story of King Matan̲akāma, The Story of Peacock Rāvaṇa, →ISBN, page xlii:

Satan is wrongly called the hero of Paradise Lost. He is really the villain-hero or the counter-hero

1992, Karuna Shanker Mishra, The Tragic Hero Through the Ages, page 242:

(New York) A large sandwich made from meats and cheeses; a hero sandwich.

(web design) The eye-catching top portion of a web page, sometimes including a hero image; the portion above the fold.


dystopia

en-noun

dystopia (countable and uncountable, plural dystopia or dystopias or dystopiae)

dystopia (plural)
dystopias (plural)
dystopiae (plural)

From dys- + -topia, as if from Ancient Greek δυσ- (dus-, “bad”) + τόπος (tópos, “place, region”) + -ία (-ía), based on utopia being reinterpreted as eu-topia.

As novelist, he knows, too, that when he sees the future, it will not work—he will automatically be creating a “dystopia” (no one creates utopias any more: even the utopias of the past look like dystopias to us).

1978 November 19, Martin Amis, “A Stoked‐Up 1976”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

2. FEAR OF TECHNOLOGY/THE BOMB/THE FUTURE—Progress run amok, either in the form of cybernetic creatures that turn against their masters, or future dystopiae in which society is controlled by technology.

1997, Jeff Yang, Dina Gan, Terry Hong, the staff of A. Magazine, Eastern Standard Time: A Guide to Asian Influence on American Culture: from Astro Boy to Zen Buddhism, Mariner Books, →ISBN, page 57:

Erich Fromm, who has commented on 1984 and other dystopiae in postmodern literature discovers a mechanized dystopia in the text of existence itself in the ’50s and ’60s—a “technological nightmare” that had turned people into zombies and made the darkest alternative to “boring aliveness” seem attractive.

1997, Jacqueline Foertsch, “The Bomb Next Door: Four Postwar Alterapocalyptics”, in Genre, page 346:

[Aimee Semple] McPherson’s sexier half becomes the object of Jim [Morrison]’s obsession, and as the two struggle to find each other in this disordered land, their wild, careening chase through a dozen dystopiae recalls imagined worlds as diverse as Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange and Terry Gilliam’s movie Brazil.

1999, Mick Farren, Jim Morrison’s Adventures in the Afterlife, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Press, →ISBN, front flap – back flap:

Recollections tattooed with stiletto reasons and a sorrowful slant of light admitting of dystopiae already petrified in progress.

2003, Judith Fitzgerald, Adagios: Iphigenia’s Song, Oberon Press, →ISBN, page 50:

Its function is to legitimate that particular form of moral tribalism based on the “pedagogy of hatred” that [Evgeny] Zamiatin and [George] Orwell described so brilliantly in their dystopiae.

2003, Luciano Pellicani, Revolutionary Apocalypse: Ideological Roots of Terrorism, Westport, Conn., London: Praeger, →ISBN, page 233:

But you get to the beach via monorail and you get to the sand and look out to the ocean and all you see is oil tankers and factories spewing smoke on the horizon. It was like some sort of futuristic dystopia.

2014 December 11, Megan Willett-Wei, “The 16 Most Disappointing Places To Visit On Earth”, in Business Insider:

Like many dystopiae, it ends up with the lead characters wandering into a sylvan wilderness (an English wood) away from the nasty city.

2017, Kim Newman, Kim Newman’s Video Dungeon: The Collected Reviews, Titan Books, →ISBN:

A miserable, dysfunctional state or society that has a very poor standard of living or severe censorship, oppression, etc.


mechanical

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

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

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

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

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

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

2013, Alan Dean Foster, Greenthieves, →ISBN:

(science fiction) A robot or mechanical creature.


ward

ward (countable and uncountable, plural wards)

→ Swahili: wodi

From Middle English ward, warde, from Old English weard (“watching, ward, protection, guardianship; advance post; waiting for, lurking, ambuscade”), from Proto-West Germanic *wardu, from Proto-Germanic *wardō (“protection, attention, keeping”), an extension of the stem *wara- (“attentive”) (English wary, beware), from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to cover”).
Cognate with German Warte (“watchtower”), warten (“wait for”); English guard is a parallel form which came via Old French.

inh

(fantasy) An enchantment or spell placed over a designated area or social unit, that prevents any tresspasser from entering; approaching; or even being able to locate said protected premises or demographic.


prophet

From Middle English prophete, from Anglo-Norman prophete, from Latin prophēta, from Ancient Greek προφήτης (prophḗtēs, “one who speaks for a god”), from πρό (pró, “before”) + φημί (phēmí, “I tell”). Displaced native Old English wītga.

der

a prophet has no honor in his own country

a prophet is not without honor save in his own country

Someone who predicts the future; a soothsayer.


lover

→ German: Lover

From Middle English lovere, luffer, lufere, equivalent to love + -er.

[…]loue is blinde, and louers cannot ſee / The pretty follies that themſelues commit,[…]

c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene vi], page 170, column 2:

Well there's a wide wide world of noble causes / And lovely landscapes to discover / But all I really want to do right now / Is find another lover

1976, Joni Mitchell (lyrics and music), “Song For Sharon”, in Hejira:

This is for the lover in you (take this ring) / This ring (It means I'll always be true) / This is (how we'll start love anew) This time (were gonna last forever)

1980, Shalamar (lyrics and music), “This Is For The Lover In You”, in Three For Love:

Now, there's one in California who's been cursing my name / 'Cause I found me a better lover in the UK, hey, hey / Until I made my getaway

2014 September 23, Elle King, Dave Bassett, “Ex's & Oh's”, in Love Stuff, performed by Elle King:

We can only hurt each other the way that lovers can / So where do we go, where do we hide now?

2016, David Boulter, Stuart A. Staples (lyrics and music), “Like Only Lovers Can”, in The Waiting Room, performed by Tindersticks:

One who loves and cares for another person in a romantic way; a sweetheart, love, soulmate, boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse.

szerelem (only with possessive suffixes in this sense)


cowabunga

/ˌkæɔəˈbaŋɡə/

/ˌkaʊəˈbʌŋɡə/

/ˌkaʊəˈbʌŋɡə/

Unknown, but was popularized (as Kowa-Bunga) by Chief Thunderthud on the American children's show Howdy Doody in the late 1940s or early 1950s, and became associated with American surfing culture. By the early 1980s, it was used as the catch-phrase of Cookie Monster on the American television show Sesame Street, and gained popularity with a broader audience after its use in the American cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the late 1980s and early 1990s. (For further treatment, see here.)

Cowabunga, dude!

Kowa-Bunga! Then Me Fix You Good! You Be Sorry.

Shouting the surfer's cry ‘Cowabunga!’ they climb a 12-ft. wall of water and ‘take the drop’ off its shoulder.

Both words turn up in the same sentence—as in ‘Cowabunga, it's humongous!’—when the children crowd around some toy.

1991 December 9, The New Yorker, page 115:

(slang, originally US, usually humorous) Expressing amazement, enthusiasm, or joy.

Cookie Monster
Howdy Doody
surfing culture


ufo

Reading of UFO as a word in its own right.


unidentified flying object

en-noun

unidentified flying object (plural unidentified flying objects)

The phrase is usually attributed to US Air Force officer Edward J. Ruppelt (1923–1960) who coined it as a replacement of the terms flying saucer and flying disk.


flying saucer

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

en:Flying saucer (confectionery)
en:flying saucer

Some connect the recent spate of flying saucer sightings with a rumored top-secret military aviation project.

An engram is NOT [...] One of the little green men Americans claim have crashed in flying saucers.

1950 December 6, The Sydney Morning Herald, page 3, column 5:

unidentified flying object
unidentified flying object

(informal) A disc-shaped unidentified flying object or UFO; originally in reference to sightings by aviator Kenneth Arnold in Washington in 1947.

թռչող ափսե

tʻṙčʻoġ apʻse

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


demigod

From demi- + god. Calque of the Latin semideus (“half-god”), which is probably a coining by the Roman poet Ovid for less important gods such as dryads.

"Ah! he is one of your idols, I suppose," said Lord Norbourne, with a slight approach to a sneer. "Youth is prone to admire; but it is odd how, in a few years, we discover the defects of our demigods...

1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Different Views of Youth and Age”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 99:

He finds, not “demigods” but “ a combative group of exhausted, drunken, broken, petty, partisan, scheming, squabbling, bloviating, sensory-deprived, underoxygenated, fed-up, talked-out, overheated delegates so distraught they threatened violence, secession.

2013, The Ultimate Daily Show and Philosophy:

Someone held up for reverence as a supreme example.


bogie

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

All of a sudden he heard a terrible scream ahead, and he thought it must be the bogie singing his dirge.

1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 47:

A ghost, goblin, or other hostile supernatural creature.


bogey

Probably related to or alteration of bogle, akin to or from a variant of Middle English bugge (“frightening specter, scarecrow”) (whence partly bug), of uncertain origin: perhaps from obsolete Welsh bwg (“ghost, hobgoblin”) (compare Welsh bwgwl (“threat”, older “fear”), Irish bagairt (“threat”)), from Proto-Celtic [Term?], or from Proto-Germanic *bugja- (“swollen up, thick”) (compare Norwegian bugge (“big man”), dialectal Low German Bögge and Alemannic German Böögg (“goblin”, “snot”)); see also Proto-Germanic *pūkô (“a goblin, spook”), whence obsolete English puck. Perhaps the Middle English and Welsh words come from a word related to buck and originally referred to a goat-shaped specter. Compare also booger.
The golf sense is from the devil as an imaginary player.


bogey

Alternative spelling of bogie (“one of two sets of wheels under a locomotive or railcar; also, a structure with axles and wheels under a locomotive, railcar, or semi which provides support and reduces vibration for the vehicle”)

bogie

Alternative spelling of bogie (“hand-operated truck or trolley”)

Upgrading the tram bogeys to air-conditioned bogeys costs the State Government approximately INR 25,00,000/- per bogey.

2020 January 30, “Upgrading Kolkata's Tram Network”, in C40 Cities, archived from the original on 2024-02-25:

(British, dated, India, rail transport) Alternative spelling of bogie (“railway carriage”)


cyclops

en-noun

cyclops (plural cyclops or cyclopes or cyclopses)

cyclops (plural)
cyclopes (plural)
cyclopses (plural)

Borrowed from Latin cyclōps, from Ancient Greek Κύκλωψ (Kúklōps, “Cyclops”).

der

(Greek mythology, Roman mythology) A one-eyed giant from Greek and Roman mythology.

(zoology) Any copepod in the genus Cyclops.


Jim Crow

/ˌdʒɪm ˈkɹoʊ/

From the minstrel show song Jump Jim Crow, written in 1828 by Thomas D. Rice, the originator of blackface performance.

Texas stands for segregation—for Jim Crow cars, for eating in separate restaurants, for sitting in separate rail coaches, for doing all the things which make white and black people in the United States realise how different they are.

1950 February, Leonard Lindsay, in John O'London's Weekly, “The Jim Crow Car”, in Railway Magazine, page 126:

Many of us like to ask ourselves, 'What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?

2024 February 26, Courtney Kube, Marlene Lenthang, Corky Siemaszko, quoting Aaron Bushnell, “U.S. Air Force member who set himself on fire outside Israeli Embassy in D.C. has died”, in NBC News:

(historical) Southern United States racist and especially segregationist policies in the late 1800s and early to mid 1900s, taken collectively.


magus

From Latin magus, from Ancient Greek μάγος (mágos, “magician”), from Μάγος (Mágos, “Magian”), of an indeterminate Old Iranian origin (see Μάγος for details). Doublet of mage.

In the middle of the fifth century, Empedocles testified to the vitality of these maguses, who were capable of commanding the winds and of bringing the dead back from Hades and who presented themselves, not as mortals, but as gods.

1987, Jean-Pierre Vernant, translated by Anne Marzin, “Greek Religion”, in edited by Mircea Eliade, The Encyclopedia of Religion, volume 6, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan Publishing Company; London: Collier Macmillan Publishers, →ISBN, page 116, column 1:

It’s from our venerable maguses Gominik Halvor and his son. They’ve cast the runes for our enterprise.

1997, Robert Silverberg, Sorcerers of Majipoor (The Majipoor Cycle), New York, N.Y.: HarperPrism, →ISBN, page 435:

A magician; (derogatory) a conjurer or sorcerer, especially one who is a charlatan or trickster.


smut

en-noun

smut (countable and uncountable, plural smuts)

From Middle English smutten (“to defile, debase”), related to German Schmutz (“filth, dirt, smut”) and schmutzen (“to make dirty, stain”). Doublet of schmutz.
Compare also Old English smitta (“smear; blot; mark; stain; pollution”), Old English besmītan (“to besmut; defile; dirty; pollute; contaminate”).

cog

He does not stand upon decency […] but will talk smut, though a priest and his mother be in the room.

1711 June 5 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “FRIDAY, May 25, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 39; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume I, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC:

(uncountable) Obscene language; ribaldry; obscenity.


philosopher's stone

en-noun

philosopher's stone (plural philosopher's stones)

A misconstruction of philosophers' stone, from Middle English philosophres ston, a calque of Latin lapis philosophōrum.

[…] I entered with the greatest diligence into the search of the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life.

1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter I, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume I, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC, page 54:

1997, Christopher McIntosh, The Rosicrucians: The History, Mythology, and Rituals of an Esoteric Order, Weiser Books, 3rd Revised Edition, 1998, Paperback, page 51,
The Rosicrucianism of the Andreae era was only partly concerned with alchemy, but later revivals of the Rosicrucian idea were to lay great stress on their claims to possess the secrets of transmutation and the knowledge of the Philosopher's Stone or the Elixir of Life.

The Cleopatra of this early alchemical dialogue is not the famous Cleopatra VII (69-30 BC), last queen of the Ptolemy dynasty and lover of Mark Antony. Along with Mary Prophetess and Zosimos's Theosebia, this Cleopatra occupies a high place in alchemical lore as one of very few ancient female adepts who possessed the secret of the philosopher's stone.

2003, Stanton J. Linden, The Alchemy Reader: From Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton, Cambridge University Press, page 44:

sorcerer's stone

putative substance able to turn base metals into gold

(alchemy) A supposed substance able to turn base metals, such as lead or mercury, into gold or silver, also sometimes claimed to cure any illness (as panacea) or confer immortality (as elixir of life), among other functions.


bizarro

bizarro (countable and uncountable, plural bizarros)

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

Often described as "the Citizen Kane of dismemberment movies," this cult-movie masterpiece set the standards for the "bizarros-who-turn-their-home-into-a-human-slaughterhouse" horror genre.

1997, Harold Schechter, The Manly Movie Guide, Boulevard, →ISBN:

Showgirl breasts and round hips that swayed to a sultry beat when she walked and drew heartbreakers and bizarros from the four corners of the earth.

2008, Cindy Gerard, Whisper No Lies, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 1:

BOOM!, he can't walk, can't talk, he's in a ward at a state institution with thirty retarded bizarros, many of them bizzare^([sic]) […]

2009, Martin Drapkin, Now and at the Hour, Dog Ear Publishing, →ISBN, page 1:


monster

→ German: Monster

→ Japanese: モンスター (monsutā)

→ Korean: 몬스터 (monseuteo)

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

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


golem

bor

גולם \ גֹּלֶם

(mythology) A humanoid creature made from clay, animated by magic.

(by extension, fantasy) A humanoid creature made from any previously inanimate matter, such as wood or stone, animated by magic.


ghoul

Portuguese: ghoul

From Persian غول (ğul) from Arabic غُول (ḡūl). Compare French goule, of the same origin.

(derogatory, slang) A person with a callous or uncaring attitude to human life and suffering, particularly when prioritizing economic concerns.


vampire

desc

ভ্যাম্পায়ার

→ Bengali: ভ্যাম্পায়ার (bhêmpaẏar)

→ Irish: vaimpír

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

→ Marathi: व्हॅम्पायर (vhĕmpāyar)

→ Thai: แวมไพร์ (wɛm-paai)

→ Scottish Gaelic: bhampair

→ Swahili: vampiri

→ Turkish: vampir

→ Welsh: fampir

From French vampire, from German Vampir, via Hungarian from a Slavic word, probably Serbo-Croatian вампир (vàmpīr), proposed to be a variant of unattested *upir, from Proto-Slavic *ǫpyrь, ultimately from Proto-Turkic *ōpur (“witch, gluttonous beast”) q.v. Compare Russian упы́рь (upýrʹ), Polish upiór, Polish wąpierz, Turkish obur, Chuvash вупӑр (vup̬ăr), Kazakh обыр (obyr, “tumor, cancer”) etc. Doublet of oupire.

der

[I]n the Village of Medreyga in Hungary, certain dead Bodies (call'd there Vampyres) had kill'd several Persons by sucking out all their Blood: That Arnold Paul, an Heyduke, having kill'd four Persons after he was dead, his Body was taken up 40 Days after, which bled at the Nose, Mouth and Ears: That, according to Custom, they drove a Stake thro' his Heart, at which he gave horrid Groan, and lost a great deal of Blood. And that all such as have been tormented or kill'd by Vampyres, become Vampyres when they are dead.

1732 May 20, The London Journal, page 76, column 1:

The universal belief is, that a person sucked by a vampyre becomes a vampyre himself, and sucks in his turn.

1819, John William Polidori, The Vampyre, London: Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, page xxi:

From my laboratory in the Castle east
To the master bedroom, where the vampires feast
The ghouls all came from their humble abodes
To get a jolt from my electrodes
They did the Mash
They did the Monster Mash.

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

I'm a vampire, baby, sucking blood from the earth / Well, I'm a vampire, baby, sell you twenty barrels worth

1974, Neil Young (lyrics and music), “Vampire Blues”, in On the Beach:

A mythological creature (usually humanoid and undead) said to feed on the blood or life energy of the living.

مَصَّاص دِمَاء

maṣṣāṣ dimāʔ

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

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

Vampire. Vampire. Vampire. Battle stations.

anti-ship missile
anti-ship missile#English

(US naval jargon) Synonym of anti-ship missile (ASM), particularly an incoming hostile one.


Jersey girl

(derogatory) A woman, usually from New Jersey, characterized as loud and wearing bright clothing, excessive make-up, big hair and oversized gaudy earrings.


zed

en-verb

zed (third-person singular simple present zeds, present participle zedding, simple past and past participle zedded)

zeds (present singular third-person)
zedding (participle present)
zedded (participle past)
zedded (past)

From Middle English zed, zedde, zede, from Old French zede, from Late Latin zeta, from Ancient Greek ζῆτα (zêta), from Hebrew ז (zayin) with influence from beta, eta and theta. Letter had rare nonstandard usage in Old English, such as in bezt, where it represented "ts" (compare the German, Italian, and Finnish pronunciation of Z). For the sleep sense, see zzz. The zombie sense comes from the initial letter. Doublet of zeta. Cognate to Spanish zeta, German Zett, French zède, Italian zeta, and perhaps Portuguese zê.

Zedding hogs. Sleep sippers and spitters. Look at 'em cooking in their own snoring heat. One nose after another.

I guess I must have zedded, for I find a police officer, the same one that nicked me, shaking me.

1992, David Robins, Tarnished vision: crime and conflict in the inner city:

"Zedding away." "God, I was having the most awful dream. That you'd got lost by the sea and I couldn't find you and something was chasing me, me and Evie."

(intransitive, informal) To sleep or nap. (Compare zzz, catch some z's.)


flan

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

cog

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


broomstick

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

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

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

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

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

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

2002, Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad, page 97:

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

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

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

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

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


scanlation

en-noun

scanlation (countable and uncountable, plural scanlations)

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

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


Frankenstein

en-proper noun

Frankenstein (countable and uncountable, plural Frankensteins)

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

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

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

Ząbkowice Śląskie
Ząbkowice Śląskie#English

Lower Silesian Voivodeship
Lower Silesian Voivodeship#English

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

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

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


Frankenstein

"Such loveliness as I possess can only truly shine In Hollywood!" Aunt Sponge declared. "Oh, wouldn't that be fine! I'd capture all the nations' hearts! They'd give me all the leading parts! The stars would all resign!" "I think you'd make," Aunt Spiker said, "a lovely Frankenstein."

1961, Roald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach:

Frankenstein's monster//Frankenstein monster//frankenstein monster

(sometimes proscribed) A monster composed of body parts from various corpses attached and brought back to life by a mad scientist, typically strong, unable to speak clearly, and misunderstood.


catoblepas

en-noun

catoblepas (plural catoblepae or catoblepones)

catoblepae (plural)
catoblepones (plural)

Borrowed from Latin catōblepās, from Ancient Greek κᾰτῶβλεψ (kătôbleps), κᾰτωβλέπων (kătōblépōn), κᾰτώβλεπον (kătṓblepon, “down-looker”), from κᾰτᾰβλέπω (kătăblépō, “to look downwards”, from κᾰτᾰ́ (kătắ) + βλέπω (blépō)).

af

κᾰτᾰ́ (kătắ) + βλέπω (blépō)

Behind them, blindfolded and muzzled, came catoblepones.

2019, Joel Puga, The Journeys of the Sorcerer:

The most obvious curseinflicting monsters that came to mind were Basilisks, Cockatrices, and Catoblepones.

2022, Patora Fuyuhara, In Another World With My Smartphone:

A legendary creature from Ethiopia, said to have the body of a Cape buffalo, scales on its back, and the head of a wild boar, which always points downward because of its weight.


yokel

1812, possibly from dialectal German Jokel, diminutive of Jakob, cf. Yankee (“little John”) and jacquerie (“peasant uprising”). Alternatively, from dialectal English yokel, yuckle (“European green woodpecker”), itself probably a variant of hickwall.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

taujà

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


keeper

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

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

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

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


bludger

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


chaser

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

преследва́ч

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

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


beater

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

inh

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


snitch

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

cog

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


seeker

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

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


draconic

en-adj

draconic (comparative more draconic, superlative most draconic)

more draconic (comparative)
most draconic (superlative)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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, scaffolding, contrivance]”), a calque of Ancient Greek ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός (apò mēkhanês theós).

ubor

god from a machine 􂀿i.e., a device, scaffolding, contrivance􂁀

calque

ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός

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

(narratology) 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.


wyvern

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

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

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

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

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

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


hippocampus

en-noun

hippocampus (plural hippocampi or hippocampuses)

hippocampi (plural)
hippocampuses (plural)

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

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

der

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


time travel

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

пътуване във времето

hypothetical or fictional travel to the past or future


wormhole

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

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

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

Wormhole distortion has overloaded main power systems!

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

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

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

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

ثَقْب دُودِيّ

a shortcut between distant parts of space


faster-than-light

en-adj

faster-than-light (comparative form only)

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

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

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


tachyon

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

coin

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


time machine

H. G. Wells
The Time Machine
Time Machine

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

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

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

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


World War III

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

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

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

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

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

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

A hypothetical world war following World War II.

اَلْحَرْبُ اَلْعَالَمِيَّةُ اَلثَّالِثَة


werewolf

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

Near-synonym: dogman

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


lycanthrope

From Ancient Greek λυκάνθρωπος (lukánthrōpos).

der

More generally, any sort of werecreature.


present

en-verb

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


embiggen

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

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

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

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

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

A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.

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

[Page 24] For large P, the three-form fluxes are dilute, and the gradient of the Myers potential encouraging an anti-D3 to embiggen is very mild.
[Page 26] While in both cases for P anti-D3-branes the probe approximation is clearly not good, in the set up of this paper we could argue that there is a competing effect which can overcome the desire of the anti-D3s to embiggen, namely their attraction towards the wrapped D5s.

2007 January 23, Riccardo Argurio, Matteo Bertolini, Sebastián Franco, Shamit Kachru, “Gauge/gravity duality and meta-stable dynamical supersymmetry breaking”, in Journal of High Energy Physics, pages 24, 26:

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

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

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

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

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

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

(nonstandard, usually humorous, ergative) To enlarge; to make or become bigger.

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


tesseract

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

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

af

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

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

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


elixir of life

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


tribble

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


ouroboros

en-noun

ouroboros (plural ouroboroi or ouroboroses)

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

af

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

bor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

أوربوروس

a serpent, dragon or worm that eats its own tail


Trekker

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


undead

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

From Middle English undede, equivalent to un- + dead. The first attestation is from around 1400. The term was revived, popularized, and imbued with supernatural connotations by its usage in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula.

Pertaining to a corpse, though having qualities of life.

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

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

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


undead

en-noun

undead (plural undead or (rare) undeads)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

nemrtvý

those creatures which are dead but still animate


professor

→ Chickasaw: pofessa'

→ Fijian: parofesa

→ Hawaiian: polopeka

→ Hindi: प्रोफ़ेसर (profesar)

→ Malay: profesor

→ Niuean: palōfesa

→ Samoan: polofesa

→ Swahili: profesa

→ Tok Pisin: profesa

→ Tongan: palofesa

→ Urdu: پروفیسر (profesar)

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

der

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

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

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

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

professor

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

dosent

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


phase

en-verb

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

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

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


adamantine

en-adj

adamantine (comparative more adamantine, superlative most adamantine)

more adamantine (comparative)
most adamantine (superlative)

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

adamantine bonds

adamantine chains

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


scientist

→ Cebuano: sayantist, sayantis

→ Malay: saintis

→ Portuguese: cientista

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

coin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

wetenskaplike

one whose activities make use of the scientific method

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

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

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


giant

/ˈd͡ʒʌɪ.ənt/

[ˈd͡ʒəɪ̯(ə)nt]

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

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

(mythology, fantasy) Specifically:
A jotun.

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


haunted

en-adj

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

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

The hotel was haunted by a disembodied spirit.

Of a location, frequented by a ghost or ghosts.


roc

Spanish rocho, ruc, from Arabic رُخّ (ruḵḵ), from Persian رخ (rox).

The Arabian Nights Entertainment. Tale 4. Sinbad. The Second Voyage.
"By this time the sun was about to set, and all of a sudden the sky became as dark as if it had been covered with a thick cloud. I was much astonished at this sudden darkness, but much more when I found it occasioned by a bird of a monstrous size, that came flying toward me. I remembered that I had often heard mariners speak of a miraculous bird called Roc, and conceived that the great dome which I so much admired must be its egg. In short, the bird alighted, and sat over the egg. As I perceived her coming, I crept to the egg, so that I had before me one of the legs of the bird, which was as big as the trunk of a tree. I tied myself strongly to it with my turban, in hopes that the roc next morning would carry me with her out of this desert island. After having passed the night in this condition, the bird flew away as soon as it was daylight, and carried me so high, that I could not discern the earth;

An enormous mythical bird in Eastern legend.


avenger

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

an avenger of blood

intiqamçı

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


geek

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

cog

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

Most famous actors are really theater geeks at heart.

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

geek

person intensely interested in a particular field or hobby


magic wand

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

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


specter

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

der

A specter haunted the cemetery at the old Vasquez manor.

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

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

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


stunner

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

2018, Jonathan Moeller, Silent Order: Omnibus One:

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


kitsune

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


tanuki

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

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


lycanthropy

en-noun

lycanthropy (usually uncountable, plural lycanthropies)

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

uder

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


godfather

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

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


bookworm

Any of various insects that infest books.

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

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


autobiography

en-noun

autobiography (countable and uncountable, plural autobiographies)

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

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

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

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

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


biography

biography (countable and uncountable, plural biographies)

/baɪˈɒɡɹəfi/

/baɪˈɑɡɹəfi/

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

There are many biographies of Benjamin Franklin.

A person's life story, especially one published.


metaverse

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

coin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


mathematician

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

der

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

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

An expert on mathematics; someone who studies mathematics.


ET

en-noun

ET (countable and uncountable, plural ETs)

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


fen

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

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

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

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

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

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


orc

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

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