decimate

en-verb

decimate (third-person singular simple present decimates, present participle decimating, simple past and past participle decimated)

decimates (present singular third-person)
decimating (participle present)
decimated (participle past)
decimated (past)

Borrowed from Latin decimāre (“to take or offer a tenth part”), from decimus (“tenth”). As a noun, via Latin decimatus (“tithing area; tithing rights”).

tertiate

reduce proportionately, by single aliquot part

God sometimes decimates or tithes delinquent persons, and they died for a common crime, according as God hath cast their lot in the decrees of predestination.

Said to have been martyred as a Christian legionary commander of late Roman times for having refused an imperial order to kill one in ten (that is, decimate in the Roman meaning of the word) of the soldiers of another legion which had gone into revolt...

1989, Basil Davidson, “The Ancient World and Africa”, in Egypt Revisited, page 49:

...where Caesar threatened to disband Legio X after a mutiny. The men begged him to decimate them instead, and Caesar relented in the same way that Titus refrained from executing this cavalryman after his comrades’ appeal.

1998, Adrian Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at War, page 263:

Shall we decimate them? That sounds good, nice word. Remove one-tenth of the population!

2007, Russell T. Davies, “The Sound of Drums”, in Doctor Who:

(archaic) To kill one-tenth of (a group), (historical, specifically) as a military punishment in the Roman army selected by lot, usually carried out by the surviving soldiers.

delmar

Roman history: to kill one out of ten men


Troubles

Under McGlinchey's leadership, the INLA committed several atrocities and murders during the Troubles, resulting in the Co Derry native's imprisonment both north and south of the border.

2023 August 1, “Son of slain republicans brings actions”, in The Irish Times, page 4:

(Ireland, historical) The continued violence and terrorist, military and paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland that happened from the mid 1960s to the late 1990s.

na Trioblóidí

violence in Northern Ireland, 1960s–1990s


skull

From Middle English sculle, scolle (also schulle, scholle), probably from a dialectal form of Old Norse skalli (“bald head, skull”), itself probably related to Old English sċealu (“husk”). Compare Scots scull, Danish skal (“skull”) and skalle (“bald head, skull”), Norwegian skalle, Swedish skalle and especially dialectal Swedish skulle.
Alternatively, perhaps from Old Norse skoltr, skolptr (“muzzle, snout”), akin to Icelandic skoltur (“jaw”), dialectal Swedish skult, skulle (“dome, crown of the head, skull”), Middle Dutch scolle, scholle, Middle Low German scholle, schulle (“clod, sod”), and Scots skult, skolt. Compare also Old High German sciula, skiula (“skull”).

(Scotland) A shallow bow-handled basket.


conk

Variant or figurative use of conch. Attested since the nineteenth century.

The shelf- or bracket-shaped fruiting body of a bracket fungus (also called a shelf fungus), i.e. a mushroom growing off a tree trunk.

kääpä

in mycology: the shelf- or bracket-shaped fruiting body of a Bracket fungus


conk

en-verb

conk (third-person singular simple present conks, present participle conking, simple past and past participle conked)

conks (present singular third-person)
conking (participle present)
conked (participle past)
conked (past)

She came skipping to me just now, clapping her little hands and bleating about how very, very happy she was, dear Mrs Travers. The silly young geezer. I nearly conked her one with my trowel. I'd always thought her half-baked, but now I think they didn't even put her in the oven.

1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XVII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:


conk

From congolene, the brand name of a hair-straightening product.

(US, dated) A hairstyle involving the chemical straightening and styling of kinky hair.


conk

The barbecue cook, wearing a dirty white apron, his conked hair reddish and metallic in the pale sun, and a cigarette between his lips, stood in the doorway, watching them.

1957, James Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues”, in Going to Meet the Man, Dial, published 1965:

(US, dated) To chemically straighten tightly curled hair.

kiegyenesít

to chemically straighten tightly curled hair


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


World War II

As students all over the United States knuckle down to learning, the rumble of war drums once more proclaims Mars high man in Europe. Discarding morbid curiosity, every student should consider it vitally necessary to get a general picture of the causes, movements, and possible effects of World War II. The average U. S. citizen's knowledge of World War II will probably decide his role in it.

1939 November 10, “Following The War”, in The Chart, volume I, number 1, Joplin, Missouri: Joplin Junior College, page 4, column 1:

Nothing since the beginning of World War II, a year ago last September, has boosted British morale or given them greater courage to fight on as has this brilliant Libyan campaign.

1941 March, Frederick M. Barrows, “The War in Africa”, in Command and General Staff School Military Review, volume XXI, number 80, →OCLC, page 23, column 1:

If Demandt's essay served as a strident example of the German desire for normalcy, a more subtle example was provided by a brief allohistorical depiction of a Nazi victory in World War II written by German historian Michael Salewski in 1999.

2005 May 23, Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, The World Hitler Never Made: Alternate History and the Memory of Nazism, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 182:

The tiny island of Tinian was the launch point for American planes carrying atomic bombs to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Now a new runway is being carved from the jungle, just south of World War II ruins inked with mildew.

2023 March 25, Damien Cave, “An Anxious Asia Arms for a War It Hopes to Prevent”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-03-25:

(history) The war from 1939 to 1945 of the Allied forces, including the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, the United States, France, and China, against the Axis Powers, including Germany, Italy, and Japan.

מִלְחֶמֶת הָעוֹלָם הַשְּׁנִיָּה \ מלחמת העולם השנייה

Great Patriotic War

primarily in a Soviet or Russian context


cannibalism

en-noun

cannibalism (usually uncountable, plural cannibalisms)

(linguistics) In speech, the occurrence of one word eliding part or all of the next word, because the syllables are the same. For example, "Look, an MIT shirt" for "Look, an MIT T-shirt".


A-bomb

(slang) An atomic bomb; a weapon that derives its energy from nuclear reactions and has enormous destructive power.


belligerent

en-adj

belligerent (comparative more belligerent, superlative most belligerent)

more belligerent (comparative)
most belligerent (superlative)

From Latin belligerans (“waging war”), present active participle of belligerō (“I wage war”), from belliger (“waging war, warlike”), from bellum (“war”) + -ger (from gerō (“I lead, wage, carry on”)).

England were not allowed to give their chariot the momentum it had a week ago. It was stopped dead in its tracks by a belligerent Springboks defence that simply refused to yield.

2019 November 3, Liam de Carme, “Boks, you beauties”, in Sunday Times:

(by extension) Aggressively hostile, eager to fight.


belligerent

The UN sent a treaty proposal to the belligerents.

A state or other armed participant in warfare


beep

Blend of big + jeep. From being bigger versions of the general purpose superlight truck, the Willys MB "Jeep"

(US, military, slang, dated, World War II) A 1/2-ton general purpose military light truck

(US, military, slang, dated, World War II, by extension) A 3/4-ton general purpose military medium truck

(US, military, slang, dated, World War II) Especially, the Dodge WC series U.S. Army WWII military trucks, in 1/2-ton 3/4-ton 1-ton variants


wallop

en-noun

wallop (countable and uncountable, plural wallops)

From Middle English wallopen (“gallop”), from Anglo-Norman [Term?], from Old Northern French walop (“gallop”, noun) and waloper (“to gallop”, verb) (compare Old French galoper, whence modern French galoper), from Frankish *wala hlaupan (“to run well”) from *wala (“well”) + *hlaupan (“to run”), from Proto-Germanic *hlaupaną (“to run, leap, spring”), from Proto-Indo-European *klaub- (“to spring, stumble”). Possibly also derived from a deverbal of Frankish *walhlaup (“battle run”) from *wal (“battlefield”) from Proto-Germanic [Term?] (“dead, victim, slain”) from Proto-Indo-European *wel- (“death in battle, killed in battle”) + *hlaup (“course, track”) from *hlaupan (“to run”). Compare the doublet gallop.

der

(UK, Scotland, dialect) A quick rolling movement; a gallop.


wallop

en-verb

wallop (third-person singular simple present wallops, present participle walloping or wallopping, simple past and past participle walloped or wallopped)

wallops (present singular third-person)
walloping (participle present)
wallopping (participle present)
walloped (participle past)
walloped (past)
wallopped (participle past)
wallopped (past)

Tony got walloped round the face by Mike.

(transitive) To strike heavily, thrash soundly.

Saluting the far loin of his mare[…]with an energy that made all his accoutrements wallop.

The second act commenced, and the old-fashioned sixpenny waves of Drury did their best, and wallopped about, under a canvas blanket representing the sea, and dashed against the rocks and tall cliffs of the scene to admiration.

1872, Joseph C. Hart, Miriam Coffin: Or, The Whale-fisherman, page 208:

To move in a rolling, cumbersome manner; to waddle.


wallop

wallop (third-person singular simple present wallops, present participle walloping, simple past and past participle walloped)

wallops (present singular third-person)
walloping (participle present)
walloped (participle past)
walloped (past)

(Internet) To send a message to all operators on an Internet Relay Chat server.


mechanic

From Middle English mekanyk (“mechanical”), from Old French mecanique, from Latin mechanicus (“of or belonging to machines or mechanics, inventive”), from Ancient Greek μηχανικός (mēkhanikós, “pertaining to machines or contrivance, mechanic, ingenious, inventive”), from μηχανή (mēkhanḗ, “a machine, contrivance”); see machine.

der

But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, Canto V:

(archaic) mechanical; precise but lifeless, as if performed by machine

Mechanic slaves,
With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers.

c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]:

Authors both Sacred and Profane we see complain of the Level of Learning, with Mechanick Ignorance: [...]

1654, Richard Whitlock, Zootomia; Or, Observations on the Present Manners of the English:

But then they did not wrong themſelves ſo much, / To make a God, a Hero, or a King, / (Stripp'd of his golden Crown and purple Robe) / Deſcend to a Mechanick Dialect, / Nor (to avoid ſuch meanneſs) ſoaring high / With empty ſound, and aiery notions fly; [...]

1680, Horace, translated by Earl of Roscommon [i.e., Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon], Horace’s Art of Poetry. […], London: […] Henry Herringman […], →OCLC, page 17:

Sometimes he ply'd the ſtrong mechanic Tool, / Or rear'd the Fabrick from the fineſt Draught; [...]

1748, James Thomson, “Canto II”, in The Castle of Indolence: […], London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, stanza XII, page 47:

(obsolete) Of or relating to a mechanic or artificer, or to the class of artisans; hence, rude; common; vulgar; base.


mechanic

His noble earnestness, his fidelity, his gallant shielding of her, his generous conquest of his own wrong and his own pride for her sake, are simply honourable, manly, and true. Nothing less worthy can be seen through the lustre of such qualities in the commonest mechanic, nothing less worthy can be seen in the best-born gentleman.

1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC:

The lower orders were freer than they had ever been – free […] to choose their own lay preachers, mechanics like the rest of the congregation.

1972, Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down, Folio Society, published 2016, page 77:

(now chiefly historical) A manual worker; a labourer or artisan.

This game has a mechanic where if you run toward a ledge you automatically jump off rather than just falling.

A device, command, or feature which allows someone to achieve a specific task.

I can do other things beside burglarizing. I'm a first-class crap dealer, I'm a pretty good card mechanic, pretty good dice mechanic.

1969, Bruce Jackson, A Thief's Primer, Macmillan, →ISBN, page 91:

It was so obvious. I mean, all of Nicky's half-assed mechanics, they were real signal happy.

1995, Nicholas Pileggi, Martin Scorsese, Casino, spoken by Ace (Robert De Niro):

(gambling) A cheat who manipulates the cards or dice.


stockpile

The noun is derived from stock (“supply of anything ready for use”) + pile (“mass of things heaped together”).
The verb is derived from the noun.

nuclear pile

semantically quite different from a nuclear stockpile

en:stock of nuclear weapons specifically

A supply (especially a large one) of something kept for future use, specifically in case the cost of the item increases or if there a shortage.

(specifically, military, weaponry) A supply of nuclear weapons kept by a country; a nuclear stockpile.


brinkmanship

en-noun

brinkmanship (usually uncountable, plural brinkmanships)

/ˈbɹɪŋk.mənˌʃɪp/

From brink (“border, edge”) + -manship (suffix denoting expertise, involvement, or special status in an area).

suffix

The diplomat accused the other nation’s leader of brinkmanship for refusing to redeploy the troops along their nations’ shared border.

They say that in ancient times the Romans used to take cold showers before deciding on important questions. Perhaps, this should be recommended to some excessively ardent supporters of the policy of brinkmanship.

1959 July, Nikita Khrushchev, “World Affairs”, in [anonymous], transl., Soviet World Outlook: A Handbook of Communist Statements (Department of State Publication; 6836; European and British Commonwealth Series; 56), 3rd edition, Washington, D.C.: Department of State, →OCLC, page 207:

We shall probably have several narrow escapes from Cuban-like brinkmanships, and although these will intensify the realisation of the need for a united world system, the inherent distrust and suspicion with which the present generation has been brought up, coupled with the too slow adaptation of politicians to new situations, will prove too great a hindrance.

1964 June 4, Joseph Rotblat, “Scientists as Peacemakers”, in Nigel Calder, editor, New Scientist, volume 22, number 394, London: Harrison, Raison and Co., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 619, column 2:

Having said this much, perhaps I can ask you in return that these critics should recognize that the administration, which now bears responsibility for the conduct of our foreign affairs, does not admire force for its own sake, or brinkmanship of any sort.

1965 May 17, William Proxmire, quoting McGeorge Bundy in the The New York Times, 17 May 1965, “Vietnam Debate: Democracy at Work”, in Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 89th Congress, First Session: Appendix (United States Senate), volume 111, part 8, Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 10688, column 2:

It is high time to look back from the abyss where we are going to step in and give up the brinkmanship until the point of no return is reached.

1972 April–June, Salil Dutta, “Reviews and Notices of Books: Mahaprolay Ki Ghoney Asche? (Are the Last Days Nearer?) By Jagannath Mukherjee, […]”, in Amalendu Bose, editor, The Calcutta Review, volume III, number 4 (New Series), Calcutta, West Bengal: University of Calcutta, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 324:

The Prime Minister [Tony Blair] is in Belfast today, hoping to repeat his triumph of brinkmanship of last April, when he emerged from an apparent negotiating gridlock with the Good Friday peace agreement.

1999 June 28, Derek Brown, “Brinkmanship in Belfast”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-11-17:

For three months, a battle of brinkmanship has been going on between the government of Alexis Tsipras and its European creditors over a cash-for-reforms plan that would give Greece the €7.2bn worth of rescue funds that it needs to meet its debt payments.

2015 May 6, “The Guardian view on Greece: dangerous brinkmanship: Editorial”, in The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-02-18:

Debt ceiling brinkmanship in 2011 sent stocks tumbling, slowed economic growth and prompted analysts to downgrade the country’s credit rating for the first time.

2021 September 23, David Leonhardt, Ian Prasad Philbrick, “Congressional brinkmanship”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-02-18:

It was an inept piece of brinkmanship from a politician who, while clearly a decent man, has not convincingly navigated his party through ever-choppier waters following the resignation of Nicola Sturgeon last February.

2024 April 29, Editorial, “The Guardian view on Humza Yousaf’s resignation: miscalculation leads to crisis”, in The Guardian, UK, →ISSN:

(chiefly politics) The pursuit of an advantage by appearing to be willing to take a matter to the brink (for example, by risking a dangerous policy) rather than to concede a point.

邊緣政策

pursuit of an advantage by appearing to be willing to take a matter to the brink rather than to concede a point


Cold War

/ˌkəʊld ˈwɔː/

Coined by American journalist Herbert Bayard Swope in 1947, in a speech he wrote for Bernard Baruch (1870–1965), an American financier and adviser to President Woodrow Wilson.

coinage

Well Russia at the present time is at a crossroads. It is often said that the Cold War is over and that the West has won it- that's only half true. Because what has happened is that the communists have been defeated, but the ideas of freedom now are on trial. If they don't work, there will be a reversion to, not communism which has failed, but what I call a new despotism which would pose a mortal danger to the rest of the world because it would be infected with the virus of Russian imperialism which of course has been a characteristic of Russian foreign policy for centuries.

1992 March 30, Richard Nixon, 13:46 from the start, in Richard Nixon on ‘Inside Washington’, Richard Nixon Foundation, via Seoul Broadcasting System, archived from the original on 2017-10-09:

The situation in Berlin had its uses for Moscow, of course, as for others–the city had become the primary listening post and spy center of the Cold War; some 70 different agencies were operating there by 1961, and it was in Berlin that Soviet espionage scored some of their greatest successes.

2005, Tony Judt, “The Politics of Stability”, in Postwar: A history of Europe since 1945, London: Vintage Books, published 2010, →ISBN:

The dynamic tests at Wildenrath use continuous test tracks built on the site of a former Royal Air Force station that was vacated after the end of the Cold War.

2023 November 29, Philip Haigh, “New Piccadilly Line trains put to the test”, in RAIL, number 997, page 26:

(historical) The period of hostility short of open war between the Soviet Bloc and the Western powers, especially the United States, between 1945 and 1991.

Bernard Baruch
International Herald Tribune
Woodrow Wilson

Koue Oorlog

period of hostility short of open war between the Soviet Bloc and the Western powers, 1945–1991


skullcap

(historical) A torture device for compressing the skull.


zombie

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

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

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


headbutt

A sharp blow delivered by driving the head into an opponent or object, generally by lowering the head and charging forward or by rapidly tilting the head backward and then forward.


headbutt

en-verb

headbutt (third-person singular simple present headbutts, present participle headbutting, simple past and past participle headbutted)

headbutts (present singular third-person)
headbutting (participle present)
headbutted (participle past)
headbutted (past)

Then he got down on his hands and knees and pretended to headbutt the cat: 'Come on, come on, little ram! Let's see your horns!'

2019, Vasily Grossman, translated by Robert Chandler and Yury Bit-Yunan, Stalingrad, page 52:

To deliver a sharp blow by driving the head into an opponent or object.


sack

→ Japanese: サック (sakku)

From Middle English sak (“bag, sackcloth”), from Old English sacc (“sack, bag”) and sæcc (“sackcloth, sacking”); both from Proto-West Germanic *sakku, from late Proto-Germanic *sakkuz (“sack”), borrowed from Latin saccus (“large bag”), from Ancient Greek σάκκος (sákkos, “bag of coarse cloth”), from Semitic, possibly Phoenician or Hebrew.
Cognate with Dutch zak, German Sack, Swedish säck, Danish sæk, Hebrew שַׂק (śaq, “sack, sackcloth”), Aramaic סַקָּא, Classical Syriac ܣܩܐ, Ge'ez ሠቅ (śäḳ), Akkadian 𒆭𒊓 (saqqu), Egyptian sꜣgꜣ. Doublet of sac, saccus, saco, and sakkos.
Černý and Forbes suggest the word was originally Egyptian, a nominal derivative of sꜣq (“to gather or put together”) that also yielded Coptic ⲥⲟⲕ (sok, “sackcloth”) and was borrowed into Greek perhaps by way of a Semitic intermediary. However, Vycichl and Hoch reject this idea, noting that such an originally Egyptian word would be expected to yield Hebrew *סַק rather than שַׂק. Instead, they posit that the Coptic and Greek words are both borrowed from Semitic, with the Coptic word perhaps developing via Egyptian sꜣgꜣ.
Sense evolution
* “Pillage” senses from the use of sacks in carrying off plunder. From Middle French sac, shortened from the phrase mettre à sac (“put it in a bag”), a military command to pillage; also parallel meaning with Italian sacco (“plunder”), from Medieval Latin saccō (“pillage”). From Vulgar Latin saccare (“to plunder”), from saccus (“sack”). See also ransack. American football “tackle” sense from this “plunder, conquer” root.
* “Removal from employment” senses attested since 1825; the original formula was “to give (someone) the sack”, likely from the notion of a worker going off with his tools in a sack, or being given such a sack for his personal belongings as part of an expedient severance. Idiom exists earlier in French (on luy a donné son sac, 17c.) and Middle Dutch (iemand den zak geven). English verb in this sense recorded from 1841. Current verb, to sack (“to fire”) carries influence from the forceful nature of “plunder, tackle” verb senses.
* Slang meaning “bunk, bed” is attested since 1825, originally nautical, likely in reference to sleeping bags. The verb meaning “go to bed” is recorded from 1946.
* Slang meaning "scrotum" is an ellipsis of ballsack.

doublet

He twisted his ankle sliding into the sack at second.

(baseball) One of the square bases anchored at first base, second base, or third base.


sack

en-verb

sack (third-person singular simple present sacks, present participle sacking, simple past and past participle sacked)

sacks (present singular third-person)
sacking (participle present)
sacked (participle past)
sacked (past)

уволнявам

informal: to remove from a job or position — see also fire

Sack the homework.

Sack him, let's run.

(Australia, slang, transitive) To give up on, to abandon, delay, to not think about someone or something.


fizzle

fizzle (third-person singular simple present fizzles, present participle fizzling, simple past and past participle fizzled)

fizzles (present singular third-person)
fizzling (participle present)
fizzled (participle past)
fizzled (past)

Attested in English since 1525-35. From earlier fysel (“to fart”). Related to fīsa (“to fart”). Compare with Swedish fisa (“to fart (silently)”). See also feist.
It could also come from old Norse: "fise" simply means "blow," like in "blow in the wind." A weather-exposed community in Rogaland, Norway, is called Fister. (In modern language, the verb "fisle" has the same 3 meanings as in English, see below.)

The entire project fizzled after the founder quit.

And so it fizzled to its close with Gary Cahill galloping around as an extra centre-forward, mutinous chants of “you’re not fit to wear the shirt,” from the England followers and Hodgson’s media staff announcing he would not take any questions.

2016 June 27, Daniel Taylor, “England humiliated as Iceland knock them out of Euro 2016”, in The Guardian, London:

(figuratively, informal) To decay or die off to nothing; to burn out; to end less successfully than previously hoped.


hanging

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

nonlemma

hanging breaking ball

hanging slider

(baseball, slang, of an off-speed pitch) Hittable; poorly executed by the pitcher, hence relatively easy to hit.


hanging

en-noun

hanging (countable and uncountable, plural hangings)

From Middle English hangynge, honginge, equivalent to hang + -ing. Compare Old English hengen (“hanging”) and hōhing (“hanging”).

The various hangings on that Christmas tree look nice.

(countable) Anything that is hung as a decorative element (such as curtains, gobelins, or posters).

條幅

anything wide, high and thin that is hung

I dislike the cramped hanging in the gallery of 18th century painters.

(uncountable) The way in which hangings (decorations) are arranged.


smash

smash (countable and uncountable, plural smashes)

→ Czech: smeč

→ Serbo-Croatian: smeč

→ Turkish: smaç

From a blend of smack + mash. Compare Swedish smask (“to smack with the lips”), dialectal Swedish smaska (“to smack, kiss”), Danish smaske (“to smack with the lips”), Low German smaksen (“to smack with the lips, kiss”).

cog

Then, for Horner's red team, it became just a matter of gaining sufficient smash (airspeed) to convert on them and film them with gun cameras.

2008, Tom Clancy, Chuck Horner, Every Man A Tiger:

(aviation, informal) Airspeed; dynamic pressure.


kneecap

en-verb

kneecap (third-person singular simple present kneecaps, present participle kneecapping, simple past and past participle kneecapped)

kneecaps (present singular third-person)
kneecapping (participle present)
kneecapped (participle past)
kneecapped (past)

The Sinn Féin press officer Richard McAuley freely admitted, “Back four or five years ago, people were getting kneecapped who should not have been kneecapped.”

2020, Liam Kennedy, Who Was Responsible for the Troubles?, McGill-Queen's Press, →ISBN, page 109:

(transitive) To destroy the knees of (a person), usually by shooting at the knees, as a punishment carried out by criminals or terrorists.


rack

rack (third-person singular simple present racks, present participle racking, simple past and past participle racked)

racks (present singular third-person)
racking (participle present)
racked (participle past)
racked (past)
rack (infinitive)

From Old English reċċan (“to stretch out, extend”).

inh

He was racked and miserably tormented.

1563 March 30 (Gregorian calendar), John Foxe, Actes and Monuments of These Latter and Perillous Dayes, […], London: […] Iohn Day, […], →OCLC:

As the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt later recalled, his father, Henry VII's jewel-house keeper Henry Wyatt, had been racked on the orders of Richard III, who had sat there and watched.

2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King, Penguin, published 2012, page 228:


kamikaze

[ˌkʰɑmɪˈkʰɑːzɪi̯]

Borrowed from Japanese 神風(かみかぜ) (kamikaze, “divine wind”).

One who carries out a suicide attack, especially with an aircraft.

Coupled with this were issues involving actually getting enough torpedoes out there to the fleet in the first place! Whilst they were a munition, a torpedo is far more complex and took far longer to build than a shell for a naval gun, even a battleship shell. Torpedoes, remember, are effectively small self-guiding kamikaze submarines, and, so, unless you have a large factory and an extensive production line going, you're only gonna see handfuls produced each year.

2020 February 12, Drachinifel, 8:16 from the start, in The Mark 14 Torpedo - Failure is Like Onions, archived from the original on 2022-11-24:

A vehicle used for a suicide attack, especially an aircraft.

A cocktail made of equal parts vodka, triple sec and lime juice.


kamikaze

en-verb

kamikaze (third-person singular simple present kamikazes, present participle kamikazeing, simple past and past participle kamikazed)

kamikazes (present singular third-person)
kamikazeing (participle present)
kamikazed (participle past)
kamikazed (past)

[ˌkʰɑmɪˈkʰɑːzɪi̯]

(transitive) To destroy (a ship, etc.) in a suicide attack, especially by crashing an aircraft.

(intransitive) To carry out a suicide attack, especially by crashing an aircraft.


ratline

Apparently an alteration of raddling, after rat, line.

Marc Masurovsky, of the European Shoah Legacy Institute, has a remarkable knowledge of the Nazi ratlines and Allied intelligence.

2015, Gerald Posner, God's Bankers, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 515:

(historical, in the plural) A system of escape routes for Nazis and other fascists fleeing Europe in the aftermath of World War II.


behead

behead (third-person singular simple present beheads, present participle beheading, simple past and past participle beheaded)

beheads (present singular third-person)
beheading (participle present)
beheaded (participle past)
beheaded (past)

From Middle English beheden, bihefden, biheveden, from Old English behēafdian (“to behead”), equivalent to be- (“off, away”) + head.

(transitive) To deliberately remove the head of; to cut off (someone's) head.


hermaphrodite

From Hermaphroditus, the mythical son of Hermes and Aphrodite, who merged bodies with a naiad, thereafter having both male and female qualities.

deledash

organism having both male and female gonads

armoured fighting vehicle
armoured fighting vehicle

(World War I military, historical) An armoured fighting vehicle having features of both male tanks and female tanks.


blitzkrieg

blitzkrieg Tanks (canonical)
motor vehicles (canonical)
blitzkriegs (plural)

Unadapted borrowing from German Blitzkrieg (literally “lightning war”).

ubor

I rode a tank, held a general's rank / When the Blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank

1968, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger (lyrics and music), “Sympathy for the Devil”, in Beggars Banquet, performed by Rolling Stones:

A fast military offensive, typically involving a large and highly mobile tank force with air support.


butt

en-verb

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

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

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

һөҙөшөү

(intransitive) to strike bluntly with the head

Teacher! He just butted me!

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

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

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


wreck

From Middle English wrek, from Anglo-Norman wrek, from Old Norse *wrek (Norwegian and Icelandic rek, Swedish vrak, Danish vrag), from Proto-Germanic *wrekaną, whence also Old English wrecan (English wreak), Old High German rehhan, Old Saxon wrekan, Gothic 𐍅𐍂𐌹𐌺𐌰𐌽 (wrikan).

To the fair haven of my native home, / The vvreck of vvhat I was, fatigued I come, […]

1782, William Cowper, “Retirement”, in Poems, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC, page 277:

The remains of something that has been severely damaged or worn down.

[I]n 1952 more than 7,000 were involved in such a "wreck" in Britain and Ireland.

1988, Michael Cady, Rob Hume, editors, The Complete Book of British Birds, page 89:

(ornithology) A large number of birds that have been brought to the ground, injured or dead, by extremely adverse weather.


wreck

en-verb

wreck (third-person singular simple present wrecks, present participle wrecking, simple past and past participle wrecked)

wrecks (present singular third-person)
wrecking (participle present)
wrecked (participle past)
wrecked (past)

check yourself before you wreck yourself

He wrecked the car in a collision.

That adulterous hussy wrecked my marriage!

Supposing that they saw the king's ship wrecked.

1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

(transitive) To destroy violently; to cause severe damage to something, to a point where it no longer works, or is useless.

(transitive, obsolete) To plunder goods from wrecked ships.

(transitive, Australia) To dismantle wrecked vehicles or other objects, to reclaim any useful parts.


whirligig

/ˈwɜː.lɪ.ɡɪɡ/

/ˈwɝ.lɪ.ɡɪɡ/

From Middle English whirlegigge; equivalent to whirl (noun or verb) + gig (“a top”).


duff

en-noun

duff (countable and uncountable, plural duffs)

Representing a northern England and Scots pronunciation of dough.

Later on, all the tinned meat came to an end, likewise the potatoes, and we lived on salt meat, biscuit, and duff; this fare was served out to all the messes on board, and we, I was going to say, saloon-folk, fared no better than the fo'castle hands.

1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 196:

The storekeeper had sent them an unbroken case of canned plum pudding, and probably by this time he was wondering what had become of that blanky case of duff.

1901, Henry Lawson, short story The Ghosts of Many Christmases, published in Children of the Bush http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/7065

Who bravely stuff
Themselves with Duff,
May laugh at Doctor's bills.

1918, Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding, page 87:

Dessert is as substantial as the main course, and none more so than the absolute favorite, guava duff.

A stiff flour pudding, often with dried fruit, boiled in a cloth bag, or steamed.


juke

en-verb

juke (third-person singular simple present jukes, present participle juking, simple past and past participle juked)

jukes (present singular third-person)
juking (participle present)
juked (participle past)
juked (past)

"None of the Latinos liked him."
"So now he's dead."
"So go talk to the other ten thousand people could've juked him."

On the internet that night Asghar told a friend: "I'll bang him and then f*** it man, might as well juke [stab] him up tomorrow."

2007 February 9, “Teenager filmed by friend as he stabbed 16-year-old student to death”, in Mail Online:

He beat me up a couple of times, and I got scared, so one night when he started up again, I just juked him. Three times in the chest, and it still didn't kill him! But I had to go to jail for a whole year.


bolo

(US law enforcement) A request for law enforcement officers to be on the lookout for a suspect.


hurtle

hurtle (third-person singular simple present hurtles, present participle hurtling, simple past and past participle hurtled)

hurtles (present singular third-person)
hurtling (participle present)
hurtled (participle past)
hurtled (past)
hurtle (infinitive)

The verb is derived from Middle English hurtelen, hurtlen (“to cast, hurl, throw; to charge at; to clash in combat, fight; to collide; to injure; to knock down; to propel, push, thrust; to rush; to stumble”) [and other forms], from hurten (“to injure, wound, hurt (physically or figuratively); to damage, impair; to hurt one’s feelings, humiliate; to receive an injury; to collide into; to propel, push, thrust; to stumble”) (see further at English hurt (verb)) + -el-, -elen (frequentative suffix). The English word is analysable as hurt (“(obsolete) to knock; to strike”) + -le (frequentative suffix).
The noun is derived from the verb.

suffix

Yet could not all that force and furie ſhake / The valiant champions, nor their perſons vvound, / Together hurtled both their ſteedes, and brake / Each others necke, the riders lay on ground: / But they (great maſters of vvars dreadfull art) / Pluckt forth their ſvvords and ſoone from earth vp ſtart.

1600, [Torquato Tasso], “The Sixth Booke of Godfrey of Bulloigne”, in Edward Fairefax [i.e., Edward Fairfax], transl., Godfrey of Bulloigne, or The Recouerie of Ierusalem. […], London: […] Ar[nold] Hatfield, for I[saac] Iaggard and M[atthew] Lownes, →OCLC, stanza 41, page 101:

Of a person or thing: to collide with or hit another person or thing, especially with force or violence; also, of two people or things: to collide together; to clash.

törmätä

of a person or thing: to collide with or hit another person or thing, especially with force or violence


Tory

From Irish tóraí (“pursuer”), from tóir (“pursuit”). The first recorded use in English is from a 1646 letter by James Butler ("Earl of Ormond") to a Colonel O' Brien, describing bandits and thieves on main roadways.

(US, historical) A Union sympathizer in the Confederate States during the American Civil War.


berserker

Illustrations of Northern Antiquities
Swedish History Museum
Torslunda plates
Walter Scott

Borrowed from Old Norse berserkr (“Norse warrior who fights with frenzy”), probably from bjǫrn (“bear”) + serkr (“coat; shirt”), referring to the bearskins worn by the warriors. Bjǫrn is possibly ultimately derived from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH- (“brown”); and serkr from Proto-Indo-European *ser- (“to bind, tie together; thread”). Alternatively, it has been suggested that the first element of the word is from berr (“bare, naked”), suggesting warriors who went into battle without armour, but this is now thought unlikely. Doublet of berserk.
The word was introduced in English by the Scottish author and historian Walter Scott (1771–1832) in Illustrations of Northern Antiquities (1814) (spelled berserkir), and in his novel The Pirate (1822) (spelled berserkar). Sense 3 (“type of von Neumann probe whose mission is to exterminate alien lifeforms”) was coined by the American author Fred Saberhagen (1930–2007) in 1963 in his Berserker series of novels and short stories.
cognates
* Icelandic berserkur
* Swedish bärsärk

ref

From the collection of the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm, Sweden.

coinage

(science fiction) A type of von Neumann probe whose mission is to exterminate alien lifeforms.


wrest

en-verb

wrest (third-person singular simple present wrests, present participle wresting, simple past and past participle wrested)

wrests (present singular third-person)
wresting (participle present)
wrested (participle past)
wrested (past)

From Middle English wresten, wrasten, wræsten, from Old English wrǣstan (“to twist forcibly, wrench”), from Proto-Germanic *wraistijaną, (compare Proto-Germanic *wrīhaną (“to turn, wind; to cover, envelop”), *wrīþaną (“to weave, twist”), Old Norse reista (“to bend, twist”)), from a derivative of Proto-Indo-European *wreiḱ-, *wreyḱ- (“to bend, twist”), *wreyt- (“to bend”). See also writhe, wry.
The noun is derived from the verb.

cog

(transitive) To pull or twist violently.

He wrested the remote control from my grasp and changed the channel.

[D]id not ſhe / Of Timna [Delilah] firſt betray me, and reveal / The ſecret wreſted from me in her highth / Of Nuptial Love proteſt, carrying it ſtrait / To them who had corrupted her, my Spies, / And Rivals?

1671, John Milton, “Samson Agonistes, […].”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC, page 42:

Does the devil strive to keep Christ out of men's hearts, and to preserve his own influence over them, by the weapon of ignorance? Christ wrests it from him by letting in a stream of light.

1858, James Foote, “Lecture LVIII. Luke XI. 14–26.”, in Lectures on the Gospel According to Luke. … In Two Volumes, 3rd edition, volume I, Edinburgh: Ogle & Murray, and Oliver & Boyd; London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co., →OCLC, page 689:

Despite this short shrift from descendants and historians, the Jewish peddler was a valued person in rural life. Besides bringing much-needed goods and a break for those exhausted from plowing or laboriously wresting turpentine from pine trees, the visiting peddler was often respected by those God-fearing southerners for what they believed was his direct connection to the Old Testament stories they revered.

2015, Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett, “A New Life and a New Cause in Dixie”, in Carolina Israelite: How Harry Golden Made Us Care about Jews, the South, and Civil Rights, Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, →ISBN, page 103:

(transitive) To obtain by pulling or violent force.


wrest

Whereas therefore it is concluded out of theſe ſo weak Premiſſes, that the retaining of divers things in the Church of England, which other Reformed Churches have caſt out, muſt needs argue that we do not well, unleſs we can ſhew that they have done ill; what needed this wreſt to draw out from on an accuſation of forein Churches?

1676, Richard Hooker, Izaak Walton, “Book IV. Concerning Their Third Assertion, that Our Form of Church-Polity is Corrupted with Popish Orders, Rites and Ceremonies, Banished out of Certain Reformed Churches, whose Example therein We Ought to have Followed”, in The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine, Mr. Richard Hooker, in Eight Books of Ecclesiastical Polity, Compleated out of His Own Manuscripts; with Several Other Treatises by the Same Author, and an Account of His Life and Death [by Izaak Walton], London: Printed by R. White, for Rob[ert] Scott, Tho[mas] Basset, John Wright and Rich[ard] Chiswell, and are to be sold by Robert Boulter at the Turks Head in Cornhil, →OCLC, page 181:

The act of wresting; a wrench or twist; distortion.

(obsolete, rare) Short for saw wrest (“a hand tool for setting the teeth of a saw, determining the width of the kerf”); a saw set.


damnation

en-noun

damnation (countable and uncountable, plural damnations)

From Middle English dampnacioun, from Old French dampnacion, from Latin damnatio.

The state of being damned; condemnation; openly expressed disapprobation.

проклятие

(religion) Condemnation to everlasting punishment in the future state, or the punishment itself.


damnation

Oh damnation! The window doesn't shut!

Expressing annoyance or disappointment; damn; dammit.


assault

assault (countable and uncountable, plural assaults)

From Middle English assaut, from Old French noun assaut, derived from the past participle of the verb assalir, from Late Latin assalīre, from Latin ad (“at, towards”) + salīre (“jump”). See also assail. Spelling Latinized around 1530 to add an l.

(criminal law) An attempt to commit battery: a violent attempt, or willful effort with force or violence, to do hurt to another, but without necessarily touching the person, such as by raising a fist in a threatening manner, or by striking at the person and missing.

pahoinpitelyn yritys

legal: violent attempt, or willful effort with force or violence to hurt another


flagellation

flagellation (countable and uncountable, plural flagellations)

From French flagellation, from Latin flagellatio, from flagellare, from flagellum, diminutive of flagrum (“whip”).

/ˌflæd͡ʒəˈleɪʃən/

A beating consisting of lashes, notably as corporal punishment or mortification, such as a whipping or scourging.


combat

combat (countable and uncountable, plural combats)

16th century, borrowed from Middle French combat, deverbal from Old French combatre, from Vulgar Latin *combattere, from Latin com- (“with”) + battuere (“to beat, strike”).

"My tastes," he said, still smiling, "incline me to the garishly sunlit side of this planet." And, to tease her and arouse her to combat: "I prefer a farandole to a nocturne; I'd rather have a painting than an etching; Mr. Whistler bores me with his monochromatic mud; I don't like dull colours, dull sounds, dull intellects;[…]."

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

In less than eight weeks, five divisions of United States troops have moved into combat, some of them from bases more than 6,000 miles away. More men are on the way. Fighting in difficult country under every kind of hardship, American troops have held back overwhelming numbers of the communist invaders.

1950 September 1, Harry S. Truman, 0:56 from the start, in MP72-73 Korea and World Peace: President Truman Reports to the People, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives Identifier: 595162:

Conditions were horrendous aboard most British naval vessels at the time. Scurvy and other diseases ran rampant, killing more seamen each year than all other causes combined, including combat.

2012 March 5, William E. Carter, Merri Sue Carter, “The British Longitude Act Reconsidered”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 87:

A battle, a fight (often one in which weapons are used).


flap

en-verb

flap (third-person singular simple present flaps, present participle flapping, simple past and past participle flapped)

flaps (present singular third-person)
flapping (participle present)
flapped (participle past)
flapped (past)

From Middle English flappen (“to flap, clap, slap, strike”), related to Dutch flappen (“to flap”), German Low German flappen (“to flap”), German flappen (“to flap”), Dutch flabberen (“to flit, flap”). Probably ultimately imitative.

onomatopoeic

imitative

The flag flapped in the breeze.

Former Turkey goalkeeper Rustu Recber flapped at his first Delap throw but was given a soft free-kick by referee Antony Gautier.

2011 September 29, Tom Rostance, “Stoke 2 - 1 Besiktas”, in BBC Sport:

(intransitive) To move loosely back and forth.


onslaught

From on- + slaught. Formed after Middle Dutch aenslag, aenslach, equivalent to aen + slag, although slaught corresponds to Middle Dutch slacht; slag is cognate with the English weaving term sley. Compare Dutch aanslag and German Anschlag.


slayer

From Middle English slear, sleere, sleare, slaare, dissimilated from Old English slaga (“slayer”), equivalent to slay + -er.


core

non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger

Rossiter W[orthington] Raymond
w:Rossiter W. Raymond

A miner's underground working time or shift.


secondary

From Middle English secundarie, from Latin secundārius (“of the second class or quality”), from secundus (whence the English second) + -ārius (whence the English suffix -ary), equivalent to second + -ary; compare the French secondaire, the Italian secondario, the Occitan secundari, the Portuguese secundario, and the Spanish secundario.

der

English numerals#Ordinal numbers
secondary

(ornithology) Any flight feather attached to the ulna (forearm) of a bird.

thermonuclear weapon
thermonuclear weapon

(military) The second stage of a multistage thermonuclear weapon, which generates a fusion explosion when imploded as an indirect result of the fission explosion of the primary, and which, in a few extremely large weapons, itself implodes a fusion tertiary.

secondary colour
secondary colour#English


slam

en-noun

slam (countable and uncountable, plural slams)

From Middle English *slammen (not recorded), apparently from a Scandinavian source ultimately from Old Norse slæma, slœma (“to slam, swing a weapon, strike an object out of reach”), related to Old Norse slamra, slambra (“to slam”). Cognate with Norwegian Bokmål slamre (“to slam”), Swedish slamra (“to pound, beat, make a clatter, rattle”), Norwegian Nynorsk slamra (“to sway, dangle”).


riot

en-noun

riot (countable and uncountable, plural riots)

From Middle English riot (“debauched living, dissipation”), from Old French riote (“debate”), from rioter (“to quarrel”), perhaps related to riboter or from Latin rugio (“I roar”).
Compare French riotte and Occitan riòta.

inh

The protests began peacefully but turned into riots after several days.

A tumultuous disturbance of the public peace by a large group of people, often involving violence or damage to property.


have at

en-verb

have at (third-person singular simple present has at, present participle having at, simple past and past participle had at)

has at (present singular third-person)
having at (participle present)
had at (participle past)
had at (past)

A huge dish of food was served, and we had at it.

(transitive, figurative) To take on; to begin dealing with.


U-boat

(military, nautical, historical) Any German submarine of the First or Second World War, or any Austro-Hungarian submarine of the First World War.

U-Boot

any German submarine of the First or Second World War, or any Austro-Hungarian submarine of the First World War


WMD

weapon of mass destruction
weapon of mass destruction#English

Initialism of weapon of mass destruction.

ADM

initialism — see also weapon of mass destruction


Star Wars

[ˈstɑɹ ˈwɔɹz]

[ˈstɑ˞ ˈwɔɹz]

From the original name of the science fantasy motion picture Star Wars (1977).

Strategic Defense Initiative
Strategic Defense Initiative

(informal, military) The United States Strategic Defense Initiative.


Sheol

Borrowed from Hebrew שְׁאוֹל, שְׁאֹל (sheól, “abode of the dead, underworld, netherworld, etc.”).

bor

Hebrew שְׁאוֹל

(Old Testament) The realm of the dead, the common grave of mankind, Hell. In older English translations of the Bible, notably the Authorized Version or King James Bible, this word sheol is translated inconsistently and variously as grave (31 times), pit (3 times) or hell (31 times: e.g., De. 32:22; 2Sa. 22:6; Job 11:8; Ps. 9:17).


Tartarus

From Latin Tartarus, from Ancient Greek Τάρταρος (Tártaros).

[…] them with Fire and hoſtile Arms / Fearleſs aſſault, and to the brow of Heav'n / Purſuing, drive them out from God and bliſs, / Into thir place of puniſhment, the Gulf / Of Tartarus, which ready opens wide / His fiery Chaos to receave thir fall.

1667, John Milton, “Book VI”, 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 50–55:

(Greek mythology, Roman mythology) A dark and gloomy part of the realm of Hades, reserved for the damned and the wicked, such as the Titans; an equivalent of hell in Greek and Roman mythology.


pelt

The noun is inherited from Middle English pelt (“skin of a sheep, especially without the wool”); further etymology uncertain, possibly:
* from Middle English pellet (“skin of an animal, especially a sheep”), from Anglo-Norman pelette, pellet, and Old French pelete, pelette (“thin layer, film, skin; epidermis; foreskin”), from pel (“skin; garment made of animal skin, pelisse”) (from Latin pellis (“animal skin, hide, pelt; leather; garment made of animal skin”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pel- (“to cover; to wrap; hide; skin; cloth”)) + -ete (diminutive suffix); or
* from Late Latin peletta, pelleta, pelletta (“skin of an animal, especially a sheep”).
The verb is derived from the noun.
cognates
* Norwegian Bokmål pels (“fur; fur coat”)
* Norwegian Nynorsk pels (“fur; fur coat”)

cog

Put on your dress, ye shameless witch, standin' there in your pelt I'll take a strap to, for havin' the conceit out of you, for by your idling had lost me the sup of gin to keep the breath of life in me. Cover your scut, or I'll welt the skin off it.

1938, Norman Lindsay, chapter XVII, in Age of Consent, London: T[homas] Werner Laurie […], →OCLC, page 177:

(chiefly Ireland, humorous, informal) Human skin, especially when bare; also, a person's hair.

huid

(humorous, informal) human skin, especially when bare — see also skin

tukka

(humorous, informal) person’s hair — see also hair


pelt

en-verb

pelt (third-person singular simple present pelts, present participle pelting, simple past and past participle pelted)

pelts (present singular third-person)
pelting (participle present)
pelted (participle past)
pelted (past)
pelt (infinitive)

The verb is derived from Late Middle English pelt, pelte; further origin uncertain, probably a variant of Late Middle English pilten (“to push, thrust; to strike; to cast down, humble; to incite, induce; to place, put; to extend, reach forward with”) [and other forms], possibly from Old English *pyltan, from Late Latin *pultiare, from Latin pultāre (“to beat, knock, strike”), the frequentative of pellere, the present active infinitive of pellō (“to drive, impel, propel, push; to hurl; to banish, eject, expel, thrust out; to beat, strike; to set in motion”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pel- (“to beat; to drive, push”).
The noun is derived from the verb.

nb...

pilt, pilte, pilton, (chiefly Southwest England, Southwest Midlands) pult, pulte

heitellä päin

The Biſhop, and the Duke of Gloſters men, / Forbidden late to carry any VVeapon, / Haue fill'd their Pockets full of peeble ſtones; / And banding themſelues in contrary parts, / Doe pelt ſo faſt at one anothers Pate.

1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i], page 106, column 1:

[T]heſe light armed refuters vvould have don pelting at thir three lines utterd vvith a ſage delivery of no reaſon, but an impotent and vvors then Bonner-like cenſure, […]

1645 March 14 (Gregorian calendar), J[ohn] M[ilton], Colasterion: A Reply to a Nameles Answer against The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. […], [London?: s.n.], →OCLC, page 2:

Arch-biſhop [John] VVhitgifts [prelates], much Pen-perſecuted, and pelted at vvith Libellous Pamphlets, but ſupported by Queen Elizabeths Zeal to maintain the Diſcipline etabliſhed, […]

a. 1662 (date written), Thomas Fuller, “Since the Reformation”, in The History of the Worthies of England, London: […] J[ohn] G[rismond,] W[illiam] L[eybourne] and W[illiam] G[odbid], published 1662, →OCLC, page 17:

(archaic, also figuratively) Chiefly followed by at: to bombard someone or something with missiles continuously.


pelt

[D]azed and blinded, she bent her head as if to let the pelt of jagged hail, the drench of dirty water, bespatter her unrebuked.

1927 May, Virginia Woolf, chapter 6, in To the Lighthouse, London: Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, […], →OCLC, page 54:

Kas is awakened by the furious pelts of rain hitting the tin roof, and he rolls over, pulling his sleeping wife tightly into his arms.

2013 July 15, Karen-Anne Stewart, chapter 19, in Healing Rain (The Rain Trilogy; 2), Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 134:

A beating or falling down of hailstones, rain, or snow in a shower.


pelt

pelts (present singular third-person)
pelting (participle present)
pelted (participle past)
pelted (past)

Uncertain; possibly related to palter (“to talk insincerely; to prevaricate or equivocate in speech or actions; to haggle; to babble, chatter; (rare) to trifle”), further etymology unknown. The Oxford English Dictionary takes the view that any relation to pelting (“mean, paltry”) (obsolete) and paltry (“of little value, trashy, trivial; contemptibly unimportant, despicable”) is unlikely.

(intransitive, obsolete) To bargain for a better deal; to haggle.


slap

en-noun

slap (countable and uncountable, plural slaps)

From Middle English slappen, of uncertain origin, possibly imitative. Compare Low German Slappe (“slap”), whence also German Schlappe (“defeat”). Compare also Italian sleppa (“slap”).

onomatopoeic

imitative

the slap of my feet on the bathroom tiles

(countable) A sharp percussive sound like that produced by such a blow.

Havens goes into the terrific Freedom for an encore, which will turn out to be a highlight of the movie; its chopped guitar and conga slaps pre-empt late 90s R&B.

2019 August 15, Bob Stanley, “'Groovy, groovy, groovy': listening to Woodstock 50 years on – all 38 discs”, in The Guardian:

(countable, music) The percussive sound produced in slap bass playing.

Well, she schlumphed her Vera down the screech at a rate of knots, zhooshed up the riah, checked the slap in the mirror behind the bar, straightened up one ogle fake riah that had come adrift, and bold as brass orderlied over as fast as she could manage in those bats and, in her best lips, asked, if she could parker the omi a bevvy.

1997, James Gardiner, Who's a Pretty Boy Then?, page 123:

If you had too much slap on when you went out . . . your mates say too much slap on your ecaf. Yeah. Oh really girl? Yes . . . Go in the lavs here and have a look.

Quoted in 2006, Matt Houlbrook, Queer London (page 151)


slap

imitative

He tossed the file down slap in the middle of the table.

You just take my orders, Cap’n Hawkins, and we’ll sail slap in and be done with it.

1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC:

They called the tom-cat to the trap, / Who molrowed as he smelt at the door, O— / Opened his mouth and swallowed him slap, / All the while most profanely he swore, O!

1864, Tony Pastor, John F. Poole, Tony Pastor's Complete Budget of Comic Songs, page 63:


the bomb

en-noun

the bomb (usually uncountable, plural the bombs)

Attested in reference to nuclear weapons or the capacity to use them since 1932; see quotations, below. As slang for something excellent, the phrase is attested since the 1960s; compare go down a bomb, UK theatre slang during the 1950s meaning “be a major success”. For further etymology see bomb.

Pakistan and India both have the Bomb now.

The Cabinet, when faced with this proffered omnipotence, had recoiled in fear. True it was that their acute distaste for the bomb[…] did credit to their humanity, to their state of civilization.

1932, Harold Nicolson, “Public Faces”, in The Spectator, volume 149, page 558:

In my view, the tensions which have produced the “World with the Bomb” can be divided into roughly four classes.

1962, Kwame Nkruma, The World Without the Bomb: Selections from the Papers of “the Accra Assembly”, page 3:

First we got the bomb and that was good,
'Cause we love peace and motherhood.
Then Russia got the bomb, but that's O.K.,
'Cause the balance of power's maintained that way!

1965, Tom Lehrer (lyrics and music), “Who's Next” (track 5, side 2), in That Was The Year That Was:

(informal, often capitalized) The atomic bomb; the capability to launch a nuclear attack.


Hades

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek ᾍδης (Hā́idēs).

lbor

(Greek mythology) The underworld, the domain of Hades, by transference from its god.

(specifically, chiefly Eastern Orthodoxy) Hell as a waiting place for damned souls before the Last Judgement, after which they may be cast in Gehenna.


weapon of mass destruction

en-noun

weapon of mass destruction (plural weapons of mass destruction)

First attested in 1937 in referring to bombing campaigns during the Spanish Civil War.

Any human-made weapon causing indiscriminate large-scale death or destruction, especially a biological weapon, chemical weapon, nuclear weapon or radiological weapon.

Spanish Civil War
weapon of mass destruction

arma e shkatërrimit në masë

weapon causing large-scale death or destruction

大规模杀伤性武器

daai⁶ kwai¹ mou⁴ saat³ soeng¹ sing³ mou⁵ hei³


ripper

(computing) Software that extracts content from files or storage media.


clothesline

Coordinate term: clotheshorse

Hang this towel out on the clothesline for me.

A rope or cord tied up outdoors to hang clothes on so they can dry.

A structure with multiple cords for the same purpose, such as a Hills hoist.

(Canada, US, informal) The act of knocking a person over by striking his or her upper body or neck with one's arm, as if he or she had run into a low clothesline.


clothesline

en-verb

clothesline (third-person singular simple present clotheslines, present participle clotheslining, simple past and past participle clotheslined)

clotheslines (present singular third-person)
clotheslining (participle present)
clotheslined (participle past)
clotheslined (past)

The referee called a personal foul, when he clotheslined the running back.

One beast jams out its arm, as if to clothesline me, jagged claws poised to take my head off at the neck. I let my feet fall from under me, throwing my legs forward, praying for some momentum, ducking and sliding, a mad limbo to freedom.

2014, Jonathan Wood, No Hero, Titan Books, →ISBN:

"I turned around and the next thing I was taken out by this big guy. I'm not sure if he punched me or clothes-lined me," he said.

2014 February 21, “Ear-bite actor Clive Mantle was like 'big monster', court told”, in BBC News:

(Canada, US, informal, transitive) To knock (a person) over by striking his or her upper body or neck with one's arm, as if he or she had run into a low clothesline.


assassinate

From assassin + -ate (noun-forming suffix)

Yet again, many of them deſperat hairebraines, raſh, careleſſe, fit to be Aſſaſinates, as being voide of all Feare and Sorrow […]

1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Symptomes of the minde”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 1, section 3, member 1, subsection 2, page 164:


Battle of Britain

(historical) A series of air engagements between the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and the German Luftwaffe during World War II for air superiority over southern England and the English Channel prior to any German invasion of the British Isles.

Slag om Brittanje

series of air engagements between the British Royal Air Force and the German Luftwaffe during World War II


scalp

scalp (third-person singular simple present scalps, present participle scalping, simple past and past participle scalped)

scalps (present singular third-person)
scalping (participle present)
scalped (participle past)
scalped (past)

From Middle English scalp, skalp, scalpe (“crown of the head; skull”). Originally a northern word, and therefore probably from a North Germanic source, although the sense-development is unclear; compare Sylt North Frisian Skolp (“dandruff”), Old Norse skálpr (“sheath”), Old Swedish skalp, Dutch schelp (“shell”).

(finance) On an open outcry exchange trading floor, to buy and sell rapidly for one's own account, aiming to buy from a seller and a little later sell to a buyer, making a small profit from the difference (roughly the amount of the bid/offer spread, or less).


plunder

plunder (third-person singular simple present plunders, present participle plundering, simple past and past participle plundered)

plunders (present singular third-person)
plundering (participle present)
plundered (participle past)
plundered (past)

Recorded since 1632 during the Thirty Years War, native British use since the Cromwellian Civil War. Borrowed from German plündern (“to loot”), from Middle High German, from Middle Low German plunderen. Cognate with Dutch plunderen, West Frisian plonderje, Saterland Frisian plunnerje. Probably denominal from a word for “household goods, clothes, bedding”; compare Middle Dutch plunder, German Plunder (“stuff”), Dutch and West Frisian plunje (“clothes”).

The mercenaries plundered the small town.

The shopkeeper was plundered of his possessions by the burglar.

Now Azaēlos, the king of Syria, made war on the Israelites and their king Jehu, and ravaged the eastern parts of the country across the Jordan […] spreading fire everywhere and plundering everything and inflicting violence on all who fell into his hands.

1937, Josephus, Ralph Marcus, transl., chapter VIII, in Josephus: With an English Translation (Loeb Classical Library), volume VI (Jewish Antiquities), London: William Heinemann Ltd.; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, published 1958, →OCLC, book IX, paragraph 1, page 87:

(transitive) To pillage, take or destroy all the goods of, by force (as in war); to raid, sack.

سَلَبَ

to take all the goods of, by force (as in war) (transitive)


IBM

en-noun

IBM (countable and uncountable, plural IBMs)

/ˈˌʌɪbiːˈɛm/

Alternative form: ICBM

They see this last possibility in an international agreement to stop further atomic and thermonuclear bomb tests and halt the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (IBMs).

1956 June, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, volume 12, number 6, page 186:

Today we need a defense against IBM attack. When as chief of R&D I urged Army Ordnance to develop an antimissile missile, I heard repeatedly that you can't hit a bullet with a bullet, so it is impossible to develop such a missile.

1987, Kenneth David Nichols, The Road to Trinity, page 294:

Thus, they limit to a strictly defined number the quantity of armed IBMs in the USSR and the United States, as well as ballistic missiles of submarines.

1990, William Elliott Butler, Perestroika and International Law, page 155:

(weaponry) Initialism of intercontinental ballistic missile.


assail

en-verb

assail (third-person singular simple present assails, present participle assailing, simple past and past participle assailed)

assails (present singular third-person)
assailing (participle present)
assailed (participle past)
assailed (past)

From Middle English assailen, from Old French assaillir, assalir, from Late Latin assalīre, from Latin ad (“at, towards”) + salīre (“jump”). See also assault.

Muggers assailed them as they entered an alley.

Our ears were assailed by her joyous efforts on her new saxophone.

With greedy force he gan the fort assayle,
Whereof he weend possesse soone to bee,
And win rich spoile of ransackt chastitee.

1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, pages 76-77:

[…] let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,
What we two nights have seen.

c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:

“[…] for the next six months or so those children will assail her in public with demands for an improper story!”

1897, Saki, “The Story-teller”, in Beasts and Super-beasts, London: John Lane, published 1914, page 238:

We got married immediately after I finished my work […] which should have been the happiest day of my life. […] ¶ But, it was not my happiest day. I was assailed by doubts.

1942, Zora Neale Hurston, chapter 14, in Dust Tracks on a Road, New York: Arno Press and The New York Times, published 1969, page 258:

2007, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Wizard of the Crow, Nairobo: East African Educational Publishers, Book 2, Chapter 3, p. 64,
He did not like being in crowds, foul smells galore assailing his nostrils.

(transitive) To attack with harsh words or violent force (also figuratively).


SMERSH

Borrowed from Russian СМЕРШ (SMJeRŠ), an acronym of «Смерть шпионам!» («Smertʹ špionam!», “Death to spies!”).

(historical) Counter-intelligence organisation attached to Russian army units during World War II.

施密爾舒

WWII-era Russian counter-intelligence organisation


cuff

From Middle English cuffe, coffe (“glove, mitten”), of obscure origin. Perhaps from Old English cuffie (“hood, cap”), from Medieval Latin cofia, cofea, cuffa, cuphia (“helmet, headdress, hood, cap”), from Frankish *kuf(f)ja (“headdress”), from Proto-West Germanic *kuffju, from Proto-Germanic *kupjō (“cap”). Cognate with Middle High German kupfe (“cap”).

The end of a shirt sleeve that covers the wrist.


cuff

cuff (third-person singular simple present cuffs, present participle cuffing, simple past and past participle cuffed)

cuffs (present singular third-person)
cuffing (participle present)
cuffed (participle past)
cuffed (past)

1520, “to hit”, apparently of North Germanic origin, from Norwegian kuffa (“to push, shove”) or Swedish kuffa (“to knock, thrust, strike”), from the Proto-Germanic base *skuf- (skuƀ), from Proto-Indo-European *skewbʰ-, see also Lithuanian skùbti (“to hurry”), Polish skubać (“to pluck”), Albanian humb (“to lose”).
Germanic cognates include Low German kuffen (“to box the ears”), German kuffen (“to thrash”). More at scuff, shove, scuffle.

der

While the peers cuff to make the rabble sport.

1693, Decimus Junius Juvenalis, John Dryden, transl., “[The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis.] The Eighth Satyr”, in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English Verse. […] Together with the Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus. […], London: Printed for Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC:

(intransitive) To fight; to scuffle; to box.

cuffed by the gale

1855, Alfred Tennyson, “Maud”, in Maud, and Other Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 24:


hammer and sickle

en-noun

hammer and sickle (plural hammers and sickles)

The symbol was developed by Yevgeny Kamzolkin in 1917, based on antetypes like hammer and pick (symbol of mining). The hammer represents workers, while the sickle represents farmers.

He remembers the [train] journeys fondly—the vast expanses of the Soviet empire rolling by, the glasses of tea served in metal cup holders embossed with the hammer and sickle.

December 7 2022, Simon Shuster, “2022 Person of the Year: Volodymyr Zelensky”, in Time:

A depiction of a sickle crossed with a hammer, used as a symbol of communism and the Soviet Union.


poppy

poppy (countable and uncountable, plural poppies)

→ Japanese: ポピー (popī)

Beckwithshaw
In Flanders Fields
John McCrae
Moina Michael

PIE word
 *péh₂wr̥
The noun is derived from Late Middle English poppy, Middle English popy, popi, popie (“plant of the genus Papaver; poppy seeds used as a spice”) [and other forms], from Old English popiġ (“poppy”), Early Old English popeġ, popaeġ, popæġ, popei [and other forms], perhaps from Late Latin *papavum, popauer, from Latin papāver (“poppy”), which may be from a reduplication of Proto-Indo-European *péh₂wr̥ (“bonfire”). Doublet of papaver.
Sense 3 (“artificial poppy flower to remember those who died in the two World Wars and other armed conflicts”) reflects the efforts of American professor and humanitarian Moina Michael (1869–1944) to popularize the wearing of artificial poppies in remembrance of those who fought and died in World War I; she was inspired by the poem “In Flanders Fields” (1915) by the Canadian poet and soldier John McCrae (1872–1918): see the quotation.
The adjective is derived from the noun.

nb...

pape, papie, papy, papye, popẹ̄, poppei, popye, (Early Middle English) papig, popi, popig

blue poppy

Meconopsis, especially Meconopsis betonicifolia

Troops from the garrison town formed a guard of honour for both sets of players, who emerged for the national anthem with poppies proudly stitched into their tracksuit jackets.

2011 November 10, Jeremy Wilson, “England under 21 5 Iceland under 21 0: Match report”, in Tony Gallagher, editor, The Daily Telegraph, London: Telegraph Media Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2011-11-11:

(chiefly Australia, British, Canada) A simple artificial poppy flower worn in a buttonhole or displayed in other contexts to remember those who died in the two World Wars and other armed conflicts, especially around Remembrance Day/Remembrance Sunday.


warfare

en-noun

warfare (usually uncountable, plural warfares)

From war + fare; perhaps a shortening of Middle English werre-faringe, werfarynge (“waging war, warfare”, literally “going to war”).

The Philistines gathered their armies together for warfare, to fight with Israel.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Samuel 28:1:

The waging of war or armed conflict against an enemy.

вядзенне вайны

the waging of war or armed conflict against an enemy

Military operations of some particular kind e.g. guerrilla warfare.

военна операция

military operations of some particular kind


warfare

en-verb

warfare (third-person singular simple present warfares, present participle warfaring, simple past and past participle warfared)

warfares (present singular third-person)
warfaring (participle present)
warfared (participle past)
warfared (past)

To lead a military life; to carry on continual wars.


deicide

en-noun

deicide (countable and uncountable, plural deicides)

(Christianity, theology) The crucifixion of Jesus, viewed as a crime.


terminator

[ˈtɜː.mɪ.næɪ.ɾə]

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

Someone who terminates or ends something, especially (in later use) an assassin or exterminator.

(computing) A text character or string that serves to mark the end of a document or transmission.

(biochemistry) A DNA sequence that causes RNA transcription to cease and an mRNA transcript to break off.

(electronics) An electrical device that absorbs reflection at the end of a transmission line.

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


zigzag

Attested from 1712. Borrowed from French zigzag (attested from 1662), possibly from a Germanic source via Walloon ziczac (although German Zickzack is attested only from 1703). Also, possibly from the shape of the letter Z, which appears twice in the word.


Nagasaki

Borrowed from Japanese 長崎(ながさき) (Nagasaki).

Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

VINCENT: Tens of thousands killed before sundown; nobody's killed people that fast since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

2004, Stuart Beattie, Collateral, DreamWorks Pictures:

A port city, the capital and largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture, in southwestern Kyushu, Japan, famous as the country's early modern entrepot and for its nuclear bombing on 9 August 1945 at the end of World War II.


issue

From Middle English issue, from Old French issue (“an exit, a way out”), feminine past participle of issir (“to exit”), from Latin exeō (“go out, exit”), from prefix ex- (“out”) + eō (“go”).

drain

small incision etc. to drain excess bodily fluid

The bloody sergeant snaffled our whole issue of booze, dammit.

Someone or something that flows out or comes out, particularly:

(figuratively, originally World War I military slang, usually with definite article) The entire set of something; all of something.


Iron Age

/ˈʌɪən eɪdʒ/

From iron + age, in the mythological sense a calque of Latin saecula ferrea, aetas ferrea; in the archaeological sense a calque of Danish jernalder.

(archaeology) A level of culture in which humans used iron and the technology of ironworking. (Estimated to have begun in Europe about 1100BC)


assassination

The assassination of the king occurred at night.

Liu's agents pursued him and he escaped assassination only by throwing his clothing away by the Chʻien-tʻang River near Hangchow, thus suggesting suicide.

1963, “Introduction”, in Wing-tsit Chan, transl., Instructions for Practical Living and Other Neo-Confucian Writings by Wang Yang-ming, Columbia University Press, →LCCN, →OCLC, page xxiv:

The murder of a person, especially for political reasons or for personal gain.


yield

en-verb

yield (third-person singular simple present yields, present participle yielding, simple past yielded or (obsolete) yold, past participle yielded or (obsolete) yolden)

yields (present singular third-person)
yielding (participle present)
yielded (past)
yold (obsolete past)
yielded (participle past)
yolden (obsolete participle past)

From Middle English yielden, yelden, ȝelden (“to yield, pay”), from Old English ġieldan (“to pay”), from Proto-West Germanic *geldan, from Proto-Germanic *geldaną (“to pay”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰeldʰ- (“to pay”).
Cognates
Cognate with Scots yield (“to yield”), North Frisian jilden (“to pay”), Saterland Frisian Saterland Frisian jäilde (“to be valid; matter; count; be worth”), West Frisian jilde (“to pay”), Low German Low German gellen, Dutch gelden (“to apply, count, be valued, be regarded”), German gelten (“to apply, count, be valued, be regarded”), Icelandic gjalda (“to pay, yield, give”), Danish gælde (“to apply, count, be valued, be regarded”), Norwegian Bokmål gjelde.

cog

to end all resistance because of loss of hope

because of helplessness and extreme weakness

Indo-European p- yields Germanic f-.

(linguistics) To produce a particular sound as the result of a sound law.


yield

en-noun

yield (countable and uncountable, plural yields)

From Middle English ȝeld, from Old English ġield, from Proto-West Germanic *geld, from Proto-Germanic *geldą (“reward, gift, money”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰeldʰ- (“to pay”).
Cognates
Compare West Frisian jild, Dutch geld, Low German and German Geld, Danish gæld, Swedish gäld, Icelandic gjald. See also geld.

inh

A product; the quantity of something produced.

(engineering, material science) yield strength of a material.

The explosive energy value of a bomb, especially a nuke, usually expressed in tons of TNT equivalent.


tertiary

English numerals#Ordinal numbers
Peterhouse, Cambridge
University of Cambridge

PIE word
 *tréyes
Borrowed from the Latin tertiārius (“of the third part or rank”), from tertius (“third”) (from Proto-Indo-European *tr̥tyós, whence English third) + -ārius (whence the English suffix -ary); compare the French tertiaire.

bor

a tertiary alcohol, amine, or salt

If, on the other hand, we remember that a tertiary monoamine, such as must be formed by the final methylation of the ammonia fragment in aniline when submitted to the action of an alcohol chloride, is invariably converted into an ammonium compound it must appear rather strange that in the process above alluded to only tertiary, and never any quartery bases are observed.

1873 January 3, A[ugust] W[ilhelm von] Hofmann, “Synthesis of Aromatic Monoamines by Intramolecular Atomic Interchange”, in William Crookes, editor, The Chemical News and Journal of Physical Science: A Journal of Practical Chemistry in All Its Applications to Pharmacy, Arts, and Manufactures, volume XXVII, number 684, London: Henry Gillman, Boy Court, Ludgate Hill, E.C., →OCLC, page 1, column 1:

(chemistry) Possessing some quality in the third degree; especially having been subjected to the substitution of three atoms or radicals.


tertiary

English numerals#Ordinal numbers
Lay Carmelites
Peterhouse, Cambridge
Saint-Étienne Cathedral
University of Cambridge

My principal objection is against the compound or derivative tints, given under the denominations of secondaries and tertiaries.

1817 August 16, Thomas Hargreaves, “XXI. On the Work Entitled ‘Chromatics;’ or, An Essay on the Analogy and Harmony of Colours. By Mr. T. Hargreaves.”, in Alexander Tilloch, editor, The Philosophical Magazine and Journal: Comprehending the Various Branches of Science, the Liberal and Fine Arts, Geology, Agriculture, Manufactures and Commerce, volume 50, number 232, London: Printed by Richard and Arthur Taylor, Shoe Lane […], →OCLC, page 128:

[Rudolf] Arnheim suggested that the capacity of activating tensions is to be found in the tertiary hues, which are unbalanced mixtures of primaries that are present in different quantities. This peculiar relationship between tertiaries must be distinguished from the interaction of complementary colors that occurs when primaries and secondaries are coupled.

1993, Augusto Garau, “Introduction: A Theory of Color Mixtures”, in Nicola Bruno, transl., Color Harmonies, Chicago, Ill., London: University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 3:

A gigaton-scale weapon would of necessity be a three-stage design (incorporating a fusion tertiary - likely with its own massive fission tamper - in addition to the fission primary and fission-jacketed fusion secondary), as a reasonably-sized primary would likely have difficulty imploding to ignition the enormous secondary that would be required to reach a one-gigaton yield with a two-stage thermonuclear.

(military) A large stage in some extremely powerful thermonuclear weapons (resembling a greatly-enlarged secondary) which is compressed by the explosion of the secondary until ignition of nuclear fusion takes place, in much the same manner as the secondary is imploded by the primary, and which can allow for the attainment of yields of many tens or even hundreds of megatons, and likely even greater; not used in modern weapons due to a greater focus on the accurate use of sub-megaton weapons, the tremendous size of weapons incorporating a tertiary, and the lack of targets whose destruction would necessitate the use of a three-stage weapon.

Tertiaries living in places where there is no Church of the Order or of the Third Order can gain all the indulgences they would gain visiting such a church, by visiting their respective parish church, or, where there is no parochial church, by visiting another church or public oratory, and fulfilling the other conditions.

1952, Dominican Tertiaries’ Manual: For the Daily Use of Private and Fraternity Tertiaries of the Third Order of St. Dominic, 1st rev. edition, New York, N.Y.: Third Order of St. Dominic, published 1954, →OCLC, page 362:

Immediately after her arrival in Ferrara, while she was still striving to secure the foundation of her exemplary reformed community of Dominican tertiaries, [Lucia] Brocadelli also renewed her attempts to enhance [Girolamo] Savonarola's saintly reputation.

2008, Tamar Herzig, “The Power of Visions: Lucia Brocadelli and Osanna Andreasi”, in Savonarola’s Women: Visions and Reform in Renaissance Italy, Chicago, Ill.; London: University of Chicago Press; large print edition, Richmond, B.C.: ReadHowYouWant.com Ltd., 2010, page 146

(Roman Catholicism) A member of a Roman Catholic third order; a layperson who participates in activities similar to those engaged in by men and women who take religious vows (respectively the first and second orders), and who may wear some elements of an order's habit such as a scapular.

terziario

Roman Catholicism: member of a third order


wipe out

en-verb

wipe out (third-person singular simple present wipes out, present participle wiping out, simple past and past participle wiped out)

wipes out (present singular third-person)
wiping out (participle present)
wiped out (participle past)
wiped out (past)

They tried hard to hang on, but the Great Depression wiped them out.

Unexpected big-ticket expenses wiped out his bank balance.

(transitive, informal) To bankrupt (a person or company); to empty (a bank account); to erase (a bank balance).


world war

Their lips met in one long silent kiss, and a moment later he had gone to strike the first blow in the coming world-war, and to bring the beginning of sorrows on the Tyrant of the North.

1894, George Griffith, The Angel of the Revolution, page 69:

[…] Armageddon, that world war with which the Second Coming is to be so closely associated.

1921, Aldous Huxley, chapter 9, in Crome Yellow, London: Chatto & Windus:

A war involving the major nations of the world.

luftë botërore

a war involving the major nations of the world

тӗнче вӑрҫи

tĕnč̬e vărś̬i


bunker

→ Catalan: búnquer

desctree

→ German: Bunker
→ Polish: bunkier
→ Romanian: buncăr

The origin of the noun is uncertain; the earliest sense is sense 6.1 (“box or chest, the lid of which serves as a seat”), from Scots bunker (“bench; pew; window-seat; sand pit (especially in golf); coal receptacle; sleeping berth, bunk”), from Early Scots bunker, bunkur, bonker (“a chest or box, often serving as a seat”), probably from Old Norse bunki (“a heap”) (probably whence bunk (“sleeping berth in a ship, train, etc.”)), from Proto-Germanic *bunkô (“a heap, pile; a bump, lump, a crowd”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *bʰenǵʰ- (“thick”) or *bʰeg- (“to billow, swell; to arch, bend, curve (?)”). Compare Middle Low German bunge (“drum, container”), Middle High German bunge (“drum”). Sense 1 (“hardened shelter designed to protect the inhabitants from falling bombs or other attacks”) was derived from German Bunker during World War II, which was itself from bunker (“large bin or container for storing coal”) (sense 5).
The verb is derived from the noun.

cog

Among tank engines, the 0-6-2 wheel arrangement was by far the most numerous, there being nearly 450 of this arrangement, which offers the advantage of good power and adhesive weight, coupled with adequate tank and bunker capacity, within a limited compass.

1939 September, D. S. Barrie, “The Railways of South Wales”, in The Railway Magazine, Westminster, London: IPC Transport Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 161:

The bunkers of these engines hold enough coal for one round journey of 120½ miles, and water is taken in each direction at Hexham.

1941 December, “Notes and News: A Tank Engine's 241-mile Day”, in Railway Magazine, page 569:

(rail transport) The coal compartment on a tank engine.

(paintball) An obstacle used to block an opposing player's view and field of fire.


bunker

en-verb

bunker (third-person singular simple present bunkers, present participle bunkering, simple past and past participle bunkered)

bunkers (present singular third-person)
bunkering (participle present)
bunkered (participle past)
bunkered (past)

попадам в пясъчника

to hit (a golf ball) into a bunker; to place (a golfer) in the position of having a golf ball in a bunker

As troops swarmed the streets below and gun battles continued to rage, I bunkered in a room on the top floor of a building in the middle of the red zone. Redshirt spokesman Sean Boonpracong sought refuge there too. Protesters burned a train station below, hurling tyres on to an already roaring blaze across the tracks.

2010 May 19, Ben Doherty, “Thai soldiers arrest protest leaders in bloody 'final crackdown'”, in The Guardian:

More than 10,000 people were bunkering in 20 emergency shelters across the disaster zone, not all of them cyclone-rated.

2012 September 17, Michael McKenna, Tony Koch, “Cyclone Yasi crosses coast in North's darkest hour”, in The Australian:

The Kyiv Zoo staff and their families are bunkering at the zoo as they care for the animals housed there amid the war in Ukraine.

2022 March 6, Heather Hamilton, “Kyiv Zoo staff and families care for nearly 4,000 animals amid war in Ukraine”, in Washington Examiner:

(intransitive) Often followed by down: to take shelter in a bunker or other place.


scuffle

A Dutch hoe, manipulated by both pushing and pulling.


rampage

rampage (third-person singular simple present rampages, present participle rampaging, simple past and past participle rampaged)

rampages (present singular third-person)
rampaging (participle present)
rampaged (participle past)
rampaged (past)

/ˈɹæmpeɪd͡ʒ/

From Middle English ramp (“rave, rush wildly about”), from Old French ramper.

der

It is a sunny morning in Amman and the three uniformed judges in Jordan’s state security court are briskly working their way through a pile of slim grey folders on the bench before them. Each details the charges against 25 or so defendants accused of supporting the fighters of the Islamic State (Isis), now rampaging across Syria and Iraq under their sinister black banners and sending nervous jitters across the Arab world.

2014 November 27, Ian Black, “Courts kept busy as Jordan works to crush support for Isis”, in The Guardian:


Iron Curtain

/ˌaɪən ˈkɜːtn̩/

A specialized use of iron curtain (“(figurative) impenetrable barrier”), probably partly a calque of German eiserner Vorhang which was used in speeches in the 1940s that were translated into English. The English term appeared in telegrams from the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874–1965) to the President of the United States Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) in 1945, before being popularized in a speech given by Churchill at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, on 5 March 1946: see the quotations.

We liked the plain people of Russia wherever we met them. […] We were behind the "iron curtain" at last!

1920, Mrs. Philip Snowden [i.e., Ethel Snowden], “Making Our Plans”, in Through Bolshevik Russia, London; New York, N.Y.: Cassell and Company, →OCLC, pages 31 and 32:

In the east the iron curtain behind which, unseen by the eyes of the world, the work of destruction goes on, is moving steadily forward.

1945 May 3, Court Schwerin von Krosigk [i.e., Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk], “New foreign minister broadcasts”, in [anonymous], transl., The Manchester Guardian, number 30,757, Manchester: […] John Russell Scott for the Manchester Guardian & Evening News, […], →OCLC, page 5, column 6:

An iron curtain is drawn down upon their [Russia's] front. We do not know what is going on behind.

1945 May 12, Winston Churchill, “No. 6: Leahy Papers: Telegram: Prime Minister Churchill to President [Harry S.] Truman”, in Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers: The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam Conference) 1945 […] (86th Congress, 1st Session, House Document; no. 161, vol I; Department of State Publication; 7015), volume I, Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, published 1960, →OCLC, paragraph 3, page 9:

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.

1946 March 5, Winston Churchill, “The Sinews of Peace”, in Westminster College Bulletin: World Spotlight Turns on Westminster, series 46, number 1, Fulton, Mo.: Westminster College, published April 1946, →OCLC, column 1:

Indeed, rail traffic of all kinds is developing through the Iron Curtain – for instance, last year a total of 6,445 wagons controlled by Interfrigo, the international company for refrigerated transport, passed between East and West; […]

1960 March, “Talking of Trains: London–Paris in Four Hours”, in Trains Illustrated, London: Ian Allan Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 134:

Justice is giving ground to the forces of evil. These developments have confused the camp of freedom and abetted the growth of Communism. Even so, the fierce struggle for freedom of the people shut behind the Iron Curtain and the support for their emancipation provided by peace-loving people outside the Iron Curtain have never ceased despite the buffeting from waves of appeasement.

1973 July 17 (date delivered), Chiang Kai-shek, “President Chiang Kai-shek’s Message to the Mass Rally Supporting Captive Nations Week”, in L. Y. Chen, editor, Free China Weekly, volume XIV, number 28, Taipei, Taiwan: Chung Hwa Information Service, published 22 July 1973, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 1, columns 1–2:

Now, we are not in a new Cold War. We don't see the descending of a new Iron Curtain, but we have moved back very, very sharply in the wrong direction. We must work with the many Russian democrats still functioning in and out of government, in and out of Parliament, in and out of the business community, to make the dream of a Russian democracy become a reality.

2007 May 17, Tom Lantos, Chairman, Russia: Rebuilding the Iron Curtain: Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Tenth Congress, First Session […] (Serial No. 110-65), Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, →ISBN, page 3:

[…] Christopher Hill, one of the Western critics whose works were cited and appreciated behind the Iron Curtain throughout the decades of state socialism.

2022, Miklós Péti, “Samson: An Unlikely Hero of Socialism”, in Timothy Mathews, editor, Paradise from behind the Iron Curtain: Reading, Translating and Staging Milton in Communist Hungary (Literature and Translation), London: UCL Press, →DOI, →ISBN, page 68:

(historical) Chiefly preceded by the: the dividing line between Western Europe and the Soviet controlled regions, especially during the Cold War (1947–1991).


torturer

I play the torturer by ſmall and ſmall / To lengthen out the worſt that muſt be ſpoken: […]

1595 December 9 (first known performance), [William Shakespeare], The Tragedie of King Richard the Second. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Valentine Simmes for Androw Wise, […], published 1597, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii], signature F3, recto:

My destruction might indeed arrive a few months sooner; but if my torturer should suspect that I postponed it, influenced by his menaces, he would surely find other, and perhaps more dreadful means of revenge.

1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter V, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume III, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC, page 102:


Anzac Day

April 25, a public holiday in Australia and New Zealand that originally commemorated the sacrifices made by members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli against the Ottoman Empire during World War I, and now honours people from those countries who have served in all wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations.

澳新軍團日

public holiday in Australia and New Zealand on April 25


hydrogen bomb

A thermonuclear bomb that derives its destructive power from the fusion of isotopes of hydrogen (deuterium and tritium).


irenic

en-adj

irenic (comparative more irenic, superlative most irenic)

more irenic (comparative)
most irenic (superlative)

From Ancient Greek εἰρηνικός (eirēnikós, “characterized by peace, peaceful”) + English -ic (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘of or pertaining to’). Εἰρηνικός (Eirēnikós) is derived from εἰρήνη (eirḗnē, “peace”) (possibly from εἴρω (eírō, “to fasten together”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ser- (“(verb) to bind, tie together; (noun) thread”)), or εἴρω (eírō, “to say, speak”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *werh₁- (“to say, speak”))) + -ῐκός (-ikós, suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘of or pertaining to’).

der

Plato and the Athenians must have felt almost as uncomfortable with Xenophon's irenic intervention as one feels at times in an argument when—just as the point in dispute, precisely by being brought to a head, begins to be interesting—a helpful third party kindly takes it upon himself to reconcile the disputants, to take the whole matter back to a triviality

1989 [1830 October 30], Søren Kierkegaard, translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, →ISBN:

The idea that the Jews of the region are not genetically distinct from other peoples of the area should be an irenic insight.

2001 November 30, Hywel Williams, “God the state-builder”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2021-05-06:

The philosophes contrasted their own irenic calls for tolerance with the church's historical record as the perennial source of cruelty and fanaticism.

2002, Colin Jones, “An Enlightening Age”, in The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon 1715–99, New York, N.Y., Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page 199:

The current comity between the United States and China, which have little in common except a river of manufactured goods in one direction and dollars in the other, is a recent reminder of the irenic effects of trade.

2011, Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined, New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books, published 2012, →ISBN, page 343:

(chiefly theology) Promoting or fitted to promote peace or peacemaking, especially over disputes; conciliatory, non-confrontational, peaceful.

миротворен

promoting or fitted to promote peace or peacemaking, especially over disputes — see also conciliatory


whoop

From Middle English whopen, whowpen, howpen, houpen (“to whoop, cry out”), partially from Old French houper, hopper, houpper (“to shout”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwōpan, from Proto-Germanic *hwōpaną (“to boast, threaten”) (compare Gothic 𐍈𐍉𐍀𐌰𐌽 (ƕōpan, “to boast”), Old English hwōpan (“to threaten”)); and partially from Middle English wop (“weeping, lamentation”), from Old English wōp (“cry, outcry, shrieking, weeping, lamentation”), from Proto-West Germanic *wōp, from Proto-Germanic *wōpaz (“shout, cry, wail”) (compare Old Norse ópa (“to cry, scream, shout”), Gothic 𐍅𐍉𐍀𐌾𐌰𐌽 (wōpjan, “to cry out”)).

inh

[A] great whoop of victory sounded as finally they carried the fish up the beach.

1983, The Fisherman Who Laughed, page 30:

The key to jamming through the whoops is to keep your weight to the back of the quad […] and keep the front wheels high […]

2006, Steve Casper, ATVs: Everything You Need to Know, page 104:

The “98 MPH” sign used to be on a set of particularly vicious whoops at one of John's favorite racetracks.

2009, Lee Klancher, Kevin Cameron, Motorcycle Dream Garages, page 184: