tag team

Probably from tag (“children’s chasing game in which one player (known as ‘it’) attempts to touch another, who then becomes ‘it’; (baseball) instance of touching the baserunner with the ball or the ball in a gloved hand to rule him ‘out’”) + team.

compound

According to Ms. Haney, "Heather and I work best as a tag team. We are aware of our confrontational weaknesses and limits, and use each other to fill in the needed strengths."

2004, Glenda Beamon Crawford, “Believing Less is More and Positive is Better”, in Managing the Adolescent Classroom: Lessons From Outstanding Teachers, Thousand Oaks, Calif., London: Corwin Press, Sage Publications, page 104

She says her secret to her success really isn't a secret: by surrounding herself with other people who cared about and supported her, there was no way she could fail. Whether your vision for the future is starting a rock band, opening an art gallery, designing a new videogame, or losing forty pounds and keeping it off, your tag team will make reaching that vision easier and more likely.

2007, Jason Ryan Dorsey, “Secrets to Building Your Real-world Dream Team”, in My Reality Check Bounced! The Twentysomething’s Guide to Cashing In on Your Real-world Dreams, New York, N.Y.: Broadway Books, page 111

Two or more people acting alternately to accomplish some task.

tiimi

two or more people acting alternately to accomplish some task

After downing a few drinks, the two Marines had vaginal and anal intercourse with her simultaneously, then took turns with her as the other watched. They referred to the former practice as "scrogging"; they called the later activity "tag team".]

[1989, Ronald Kessler, “Happy Birthday”, in Moscow Station: How the KGB Penetrated the American Embassy, New York, N.Y.: Scribner, part I, page 199

"He's the rapper J [Jalil Hutchins]/I'm the rapper Ecs [Ecstasy, i.e., John Fletcher]/We're known for playing tag-team sex," they declare. For guys who dedicate their albums to their wives and first loves, this is a surprising revelation.

1991, Havelock Nelson, Michael A. Gonzales, “Whodini”, in Bring the Noise: A Guide to Rap Music and Hip-hop Culture, New York, N.Y.: Harmony Books, pages 280–281

Adrian's own auto-erotic fantasies take him, for several nights of each week, to an imaginary America—a now fully eroticised version of the same space in Tamarisk Row—where he copulates frenziedly with tag-teams of female film-stars.

1993, Imre Salusinszky, Gerald Murnane, Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University Press, page 26

Men on campus began to view my sexuality as some sort of kinky sex game in which they either wanted to be the referee or a tag-team partner.

2000 April, Sapphrodykie [pseudonym], “The Iconoclast”, in Kim Howard, Annie Stevens, editors, Out & About Campus: Personal Accounts by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgendered College Students, Los Angeles, Calif.: Alyson Books, page 136

He merely wants to obtain some quantitative information about the rate at which married couples have sexual intercourse and he is not interested in passing judgment or evaluating their techniques or even serving as a tag-team member in any unique marital games.

2001, Jefferson Hane Weaver, “Sex in America”, in What are the Odds?: The Chances of Extraordinary Events in Everyday Life, Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, page 38

A male that sees another male ahead of him going up the hill speeds up to overtake him, "just in case" a female actually is there. Hence the apparent tag teams! Many insects, including both diurnal and nocturnal moths, use airborne sex-attractant chemicals (pheromones) to facilitate mate location.

2007, Arthur M. Shapiro, Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions (California Natural History Guides; 92), Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, page 56

I'm considering an alternative therapy and might try losing myself in deep erotic abandonment with a squad of muscular, tanned firemen. […] Properly rude sexual experimentation. Tag-team intercourse, no holds barred physical gratification with no thought to the consequences.

2008, Mike Maddox, chapter 3, in Jonathan Oliver, editor, The Worm that Wasn’t (Dreams of Inan), Oxford, Oxfordshire: Abaddon Books

(slang, vulgar, also attributively) An act of two or more people having sex with one person who is the focus of the sexual activity; a gangbang (sense 1); also, the people having sex with the person who is the focus of the sexual activity regarded as a group.


home straight

(by extension) The final part of something, especially the final part with respect to time of a long process.


brim over

en-verb

brim over (third-person singular simple present brims over, present participle brimming over, simple past and past participle brimmed over)

brims over (present singular third-person)
brimming over (participle present)
brimmed over (participle past)
brimmed over (past)

When he proposed, my heart brimmed over.

(intransitive, by extension) To experience a very strong emotion; to be overcome with emotion.


chase down

chase down (third-person singular simple present chases down, present participle chasing down, simple past and past participle chased down)

chases down (present singular third-person)
chasing down (participle present)
chased down (participle past)
chased down (past)

(by extension) to investigate the cause of something


mark time

mark time (third-person singular simple present marks time, present participle marking time, simple past and past participle marked time)

marks time (present singular third-person)
marking time (participle present)
marked time (participle past)
marked time (past)

Monday noon I chased over to the Auditorium and they was only about eighty in line ahead o' me[…] While I was markin' time I looked at the pitchers o' the different actors,

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

“If I can put money in their pockets and play some New Orleans music, that’s what I can do.” But he’s only marking time until he can return to New Orleans.

2005 September 8, Keith Spera, “Katrina Blues”, in LA Weekly

She had met plenty of lazy professionals in her time, people content to mark time until retirement, but none of them had still been athletic in their mid forties.

2009, Matthew Hall, The Coroner, Pan Macmillan

Chelsea are in the bottom half of the Premier League, out of the Champions League and will not be in it next season while Lampard is now effectively marking time and filling the manager's office until a new occupant can be found.

2023 April 18, Phil McNulty, “Chelsea Champions League exit: Where do 'disjointed, broken' Blues go from here?”, in BBC Sport

(by extension, figuratively) To stop making progress temporarily; to wait or stand still.


hot ticket

In a subculture that idealizes youth, being gay and gray does not exactly make one a hot ticket. Older gays and lesbians often relegate themselves to separate and unequal meeting places.

2004, Betty Berzon, Permanent Partners: Building Gay & Lesbian Relationships That Last, page 20

(by extension) A thing that is currently enjoying great popularity.


Valhalla

From New Latin, from Old Norse Valhǫll (from valr (“dead warriors”) + hǫll (“hall”)).

der

You will all go directly to your respective Valhallas / Go directly, do not pass 'GO', do not collect two hundred dollars

1959, Tom Lehrer (lyrics and music), “We Will All Go Together When We Go”

Like Philip's, Franco's autarchy was shrouded in religiosity—not Christianity alone, but also a sort of dim Wagnerian vision of hero-gods and Valhallas, a gloomy level of devotion on which paganism, Catholicism and the apotheosis of the State could conveniently be mingled.

1964, Jan Morris, “Envoi: State of Being”, in Spain, Faber and Faber, published 2008

(by extension) An abode of the gods or afterlife in general.


lignify

en-verb

lignify (third-person singular simple present lignifies, present participle lignifying, simple past and past participle lignified)

lignifies (present singular third-person)
lignifying (participle present)
lignified (participle past)
lignified (past)

(intransitive, by extension) To become rigid or fixed, like something made of wood.


bullseye

→ German: Bullauge (calque)

→ Esperanto: bovokulo (calque)

From bull's + eye. May have come from the practice of English archers shooting an arrow through the eye socket of a bull's skull as a test of skill. The connection to philately comes from the shape of the key plate or vignette.

(military, by extension) A commonly-known reference point used when indicating the location or direction of something.


bullseye

—Did John steal the petty cash? —Bullseye.

(by extension) A response to a totally accurate statement.

oikein

response when someone makes an accurate statement


Tarzan

Dutch: Tarzan

Swedish: Tarzan

Coined by Edgar Rice Burroughs. A name created by Burroughs for his fiction.
Means "white skin" in the apes' fictional language; possibly echoic in its phonetics of various "exotic" names (see Orientalism).

There was nothing really statuesque about him; this wasn't a kind of Tarzan, with massive shoulders and great muscles and limbs as strong as a beast's, but a tall, lean, handsome man, who moved with superlative ease.


hors d'oeuvre

en-noun

hors d'oeuvre (plural hors d'oeuvre or hors d'oeuvres)

hors d'oeuvre (plural)
hors d'oeuvres (plural)

(by extension) Anything of secondary concern; not the primary thing.


weapons-grade

The idea that texts or facts speak for themselves —interpret me no interpretations—is weapons-grade stupidity.

2007, Tad Waddington, Lasting Contribution: How to Think, Plan, and Act to Accomplish Meaningful Work, Agate Publishing, page 75

Three or four women sat on their own, each with a thick layer of make-up and weapons-grade hairspray.

2013, Andy McNab, Silencer, Transworld Publishers, page 111

“Ryan is hot by the way, and by hot I am talking weapons-grade sex appeal. […]

2015, Sarah Morgan, First Time in Forever, HQN, page 138


litmus test

Coordinate term: acid test

Temple, under its new coach, Ray Morrison, formerly of Vanderbilt, will be put to the blue litmus test Friday night when it takes on Georgetown.

1940 October 2, Allison Danzig, “Leading Elevens Face Stern Threats in Saturday's Games”, in New York Times, page 27

For good reasons or bad, early membership of the currency union has become the litmus test of being a "good European."

1998 February 16, “Baby-Boomer Bonding”, in Newsweek

He opposes a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage—a litmus test for many social conservatives

2004 November 15, Matthew Cooper, “Candidates In the Wings”, in Time, archived from the original on 2013-02-20

For years, quoting lines from “Manhattan” or another film by Mr. Allen on a date could be a romantic litmus test, a way to find out if a potential partner also loved E. E. Cummings, Paris, 1930s jazz and the sophisticated, cultured world the films often came to represent.

2018 March 1, Steven Kurutz, quoting Lisa Schwarzbaum, “How Do You Solve a Problem Like ‘Manhattan’?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

"[…] I don't know National Rail numbers, but I do know that after the pandemic I used to go round a lot of the London stations, and they had far more locations shut than I did at St Pancras. That was very much my litmus test."

2024 January 24, Dyan Perry talks to Nick Brodrick, “The industry has given me so much”, in RAIL, number 1001, page 44

(figuratively, by extension) Any test which produces a binary, decisive result (for example, determining whether to appoint someone to a job) by measuring a single indicator.


scathe

en-verb

scathe (third-person singular simple present scathes, present participle scathing, simple past and past participle scathed)

scathes (present singular third-person)
scathing (participle present)
scathed (participle past)
scathed (past)
scathe (infinitive)

From Middle English scathen, skathen (“to harm; to cause loss; to assail, attack; to make war on; to defeat”) [and other forms], from Old Norse skaða (“to damage, harm; to hurt, injure”), from Proto-Germanic *skaþōną (“to damage, harm; to injure”) (whence Old English sceaþian, scaþan (“to harm, hurt, injure, scathe”)), from *skaþô (“damage, scathe; one who causes damage, injurer”, noun); see further at etymology 1.
Sense 2 (“to harm, injure, or destroy (someone or something) by fire, lightning, or some other heat source”) appears to derive from Paradise Lost by the English poet John Milton (1608–1674), perhaps influenced by scorch: see the 1667 quotation.
cognates
* Albanian shkathët (“adept, clever, skilful”)
* Danish skade (“to hurt, injure”)
* Dutch schaden (“to injure”)
* Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌰𐌸𐌾𐌰𐌽 (skaþjan, “to harm, injure; to do wrong”)
* Ancient Greek ἀσκηθής (askēthḗs, “unhurt”)
* Old Frisian skathia (“to injure”)
* Old High German skadôn (Middle High German schaden, German schaden (“to damage, harm, hurt; to be harmful”))
* Old Norse skeðja (“to hurt”)
* Old Saxon scaðon (“to slander”)
* Swedish skada (“to hurt, injure”)

nb...

scaith, scaithe, scath, scathe, sckathe, skaithe, skathe; (chiefly Scotland) skayth, skaythe

skade

to harm or injure (someone or something) physically

Winter and summer / That wood beeth changeless / Starr'd with rich stores; / Shriveleth never / Leaf under loft / Nor lightning it scatheth, […]
Translated from a 10th- or 11th-century text.

1844, George Stephens, transl., The King of Birds; or, The Lay of the Phœnix; an Anglo-Saxon Song of the Tenth or Eleventh Century. […], London: […] J[ohn] B[owyer] Nichols and Son, […], →OCLC, page 9

[The sun] with vertical and torrid rays / Scathest the middle zone, and equallest the days.

1853, Mary Benn, “[Part the First]”, in The Solitary; or A Lay from the West; with Other Poems, […], London: Joseph Masters, […]; Dublin: James McGlashan, […], →OCLC, 1st part, stanza 127, page 49

'Tis the wild stream of hell! oh it burneth the soul, / It scatheth, and blighteth, and killeth the whole; […]

1855, James Avis Bartley, “The Spirit of Poesy”, in Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems, Richmond, Va.: J. W. Randolph, →OCLC, page 141

(by extension, chiefly literary and poetic) To harm, injure, or destroy (someone or something) by fire, lightning, or some other heat source; to blast; to scorch; to wither.


coryphaeus

en-noun

coryphaeus (plural coryphaeuses or coryphaei)

coryphaeuses (plural)
coryphaei (plural)

/ˌkɔɹəˈfiːəs/

/ˌkɒɹɪˈfiːʌs/

Borrowed from Latin coryphaeus, from Ancient Greek κορυφαῖος (koruphaîos, “leader of the chorus in an Ancient Greek drama”), from κορυφή (koruphḗ, “top of the head, crown”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₂- (“head, top; horn”)) + -ῐος (-ios, suffix forming adjectives meaning ‘belonging to, pertaining to’).

der

Of the work which I have done, it becomes me not here to speak, save only as relates to the Satanic School, and its Coryphæus, the author of Don Juan.

1822, Robert Southey, Mr. Southey's Reply to Lord Byron: Blackwood's Magazine, volume 11, page 94

1986, Ladislav Matejka, I. R. Titunik, Translators' Preface, V. N. Vološinov, Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, page vii,
Among those rare exceptions, fortunately, was that coryphaeus of modern thought in the humanities, Professor Roman Jakobson.

1997, Ignaz Goldziher, Wolfgang Behn (editor and translator), The Zāhirīs: Their Doctrine and Their History, page 123,
Indeed, when we make a comparative study of the Zāhirite school's known coryphaei of the different periods for their dogmatic point of view, we shall soon find out that the most divergent, diametrically opposed dogmatic branches could be combined as belonging to the Zāhirite fiqh school.

My dad was a highly active member of Zoryaniy Shlyah—Kyiv’s possibly first (and possibly only, at the time) sci-fi fan club—the name means "Star Trek" in Ukrainian, unsurprisingly. He translated some Stansilaw Lem (of Solaris and Futurological Congress fame) from Polish to Russian in the early 80s and was generally considered a coryphaeus at ZSh.

2023 July 30, Max Levchin, “Shamir Secret Sharing”, in Too Long to Tweet (blog), archived from the original on 2024-03-27

(by extension) The chief or leader of an interest or party.


boarding school

en-noun

boarding school (plural boarding schools)

(by extension) A boarding school in which a dominant or colonial culture whitewashes a subordinate one deculturizing the students of their native language, customs, religion, and culture.


guidepost

(by extension) Anything that provides guidance; a guideline.


onside

[Verse 2:Kano]:On-sight, thought he was onside, innit. Saw them guys, no shots fired innit. If you ain't real then don't ride, innit. That postcode, that's offside, innit.

2016 March 4, “3 Wheel-Ups” (track 4), in Made in the Manor, performed by Kano (British musician),Giggs (rapper),Wiley (musician)


buttress

From Old French ars bouterez (noun, literally “supporting arcs”), from bouterez (adj), oblique plural of bouteret (rare in the singular), from Frankish *botan, from Proto-Germanic *bautaną (“to push”). Ultimately cognate with beat.

der

(by extension) Anything that serves to support something; a prop.

նեցուկ

anything that serves to support something


buttress

en-verb

buttress (third-person singular simple present buttresses, present participle buttressing, simple past and past participle buttressed)

buttresses (present singular third-person)
buttressing (participle present)
buttressed (participle past)
buttressed (past)

Buttressed by elaborate account statements and a deep reservoir of trust from his investors and regulators, Mr. Madoff steered his fraud scheme safely through a severe recession in the early 1990s, a global financial crisis in 1998 and the anxious aftermath of the terrorist attacks in September 2001.

2021 April 14, Diana B. Henriques, “Bernard Madoff, Architect of Largest Ponzi Scheme in History, Is Dead at 82”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

(figurative, by extension) To support something or someone by supplying evidence.


hot off the press

In hot-metal printing, newly printed material is warm

(by extension, of news) so interesting or sensational that its publication cannot be delayed


bucket brigade

(by extension) Any process in which something is passed along a chain.


hot seat

Now just a minute. You turn up out of nowhere, a routine space shot goes wrong, a new planet appears and you tell us you know all about it. That puts you slap bang in the hot seat, right?

1966 October 8, Kit Pedler, “The Tenth Planet, episode 1” (19:29 from the start), in Doctor Who, season 4, episode 5, spoken by General Cutler (Robert Beatty), via BBC


piggy in the middle

en-noun

piggy in the middle (countable and uncountable, plural piggies in the middle)

(by extension) Keeping something between one's own group, away from others.


packaging

packaging (usually uncountable, plural packagings)

Do Amaral seems to belong more to a Europian tradition than to any of the artistic pigeonholes currently in vogue in the States. His failure to show allegiance to any one medium makes him resistant to the relentless packaging that is a feature even of much avant garde American art.

1982 December 18, Rob Schmieder, “A Welcome Anomaly”, in Gay Community News, volume 10, number 22, page 10

(by extension) The manner in which a person or product is promoted.

asu

the manner in which a person or product is promoted


kavya

(by extension) poetry (especially in a classical style) in the literatures of India's modern languages


new math

She quickly calculated the tip to be $45.00 on the restaurant tab of $110.50, apparently using new math.

(derogatory, by extension) The methodology used to arrive at an unreasonably incorrect answer for a mathematical calculation.


shitten

(by extension) disgusting; contemptible.


thunderbox

From thunder + box. Senses 1 and 2 (“portable commode; any lavatory or toilet”) are probably because of the noises that may be made while using it, especially while defecating.

(outhouse):

Meantime the ICE [Institute of Consumer Ergonomics] experts are poring over their photographs, and making measurements, which, presumably, will go into a computer, and out will come the specification for the perfect thunderbox.

1974 June 13, Donald Gould, “A Groundling’s Notebook: Ice Waterloo”, in Bernard Dixon, editor, New Scientist, volume 62, number 902, London: IPC Magazines, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 708, column 2

In the old days, when there was a corrugated iron thunderbox, the Holts' guests were told to approach it with caution: where other thunderboxes had redback spiders, the local ones tended to have taipans.

1979, The Bulletin, volume 100, Sydney, N.S.W.: Australian Consolidated Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 35, column 1

It's an invaluable open-sided box with no bottom and a hole in the top. Perch this over a hole in the ground and voila! you have a thunder box. Comfy to sit on and handsome as well.

1992, Gerald Durrell, “Crystal Country and beyond”, in The Aye-aye and I: A Rescue Mission in Madagascar, London: BCA, page 94

A more macabre exercise in historical reconstruction follows the fate of those who, on the eve of the Great War, scrawled their names on the plaster of the ‘thunder box’—the toilet next to the dark house.

1998, Raphael Samuel, “The Lost Gardens of Heligan”, in Alison Light, with Sally Alexander and Gareth Stedman Jones, editors, Island Stories: Unravelling Britain: Theatres of Memory, Volume II, paperback edition, London, New York, N.Y.: Verso, published 1999, part II (English Journeys), page 128

There are basically three types of toilets in provincial and national parks. The first are the pit toilets—"thunderboxes"—boxes painted white inside, centrally located in various sections of the campground. The second type of toilet looks like a thunderbox but houses an odour-free flushing toilet.

2004, Jayne Seagrave, “How to Be a Happy Camper”, in Terri Elderton, Karla Decker, editors, Camping With Kids: The Best Family Campgrounds in British Columbia and Alberta, Surrey, B.C.: Heritage House, page 20

He [John Blashford-Snell] boobytrapped the ‘thunderbox’ and the next guardsman who sat down was met by a deafening blast. The guardsman and plastic loo seat were hurled one way, the loo paper another, but there were no injuries.

2005 May, Benedict le Vay, “Eccentric Pastimes”, in Eccentric Britain: The Bradt Guide to Britain’s Follies and Foibles, 2nd edition, Chalfont St. Peter, Buckinghamshire: Bradt Travel Guides; Guilford, Conn.: Globe Pequot Press, part 1 (Eccentric Things We Do), page 57

And finally he pointed to an old thunderbox and shovel. 'Our toilet block.' Everyone except Fly stared at that old thunderbox like it was from Mars.

2007, Shelley Birse, Blue Water High, Sydney, N.S.W.: Pan Macmillan Australia, page 230

We did not have any toilet facilities inside the building. However, after searching, we found small groups of thunderboxes over pits down on the slope in front of the building. These lonely thunderboxes had no protection from the weather, not even a hessian screen.

2013, Frederick Rennie From, “The German Barracks”, in That’s Enough, Freddy From!, Houston, Tex.: Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Co., page 234

(by extension, chiefly Australia, British, slang) Any lavatory or toilet, especially a rudimentary outdoor latrine or toilet, or an outhouse.


cran

Evidently from, or at least influenced by Goidelic; compare Scottish Gaelic crann (“lot, measure of herring, tree, etc.”).

cog

(obsolete, rare, by extension) A barrel made to hold such a measure.


nuncio

From Spanish nuncio,
from Latin nūntius (“envoy”).

Altho at this distance you had no early Account or Particular of his Death; yet your Affection may cease to wonder that you had not some secret Sense or Intimation thereof by Dreams, thoughtful Whisperings, Mercurisms, Airy Nuncio’s, or sympathetical Insinuations, which many seem to have had at the Death of their dearest Friends.

1672, Thomas Browne, A Letter to a Friend, § 2

(by extension) One who bears a message; a messenger.


Red Sea

From Middle English Red See, Reede See, Rede See, reade sea, from Old English Rēad Sǣ, a calque of Latin Mare Rubrum, itself a calque of Ancient Greek Ἐρυθρᾱ̀ θάλασσα (Eruthrā̀ thálassa); equivalent to red + sea.

der

Ἐρυθρᾱ̀ θάλασσα

Oyl-steep'd Anchovie, landed from his brine, Came freely swimming in red seas of wine.

1645, Francis Quarles, The Shepheards Oracles: Delivered in Certain Eglogues, vii, 83

[…] will not get them gone for plain English, we will have one of Father Bacon's pupils from Oxford, to conjure [troublesome thoughts] away with logic and with Hebrew — Or, what say you to laying them in a glorious red sea of claret, my noble guest?

1821, Walter Scott, Kenilworth. The pirate, published 1877, page 15

(more generally) A great quantity of reddish liquid, such as wine.


catwalk

→ Norwegian Bokmål: catwalk

→ Norwegian Nynorsk: catwalk

(by extension, "the catwalk") The business of making clothes for fashion shows.


pandect

Antiochus of Palestine
Lawrence Torrentinus
Russian Museum

Sense 3 (“comprehensive treatise”) is from Latin pandectēs (“book that contains everything, encyclopedia”), from Ancient Greek πανδέκτης (pandéktēs, “encyclopedia”, literally “all-receiver”), from παν- (pan-, prefix meaning ‘all’) (from πᾶς (pâs, “all”)) + δέκτης (déktēs, “receiver, recipient”) (from δέχομαι (dékhomai, “to receive”) (from Proto-Indo-European *deḱ- (“to take; to perceive”)) + -της (-tēs, suffix forming agent nouns)).
Sense 1 (“compendium of writings on Roman law”) in the plural form Pandects is from Late Latin pandectae (“the Pandects”), the plural of pandectēs, modelled after (Byzantine) Ancient Greek πανδέκται (pandéktai, “the Pandects”), the plural of πανδέκτης (pandéktēs): see further above.

refn

From the collection of the Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

der

Give me the Pandects of the Law Divine, / Such was the Law made Moſes face to ſhine.

1682, Thomas Flatman, “The Review. Pindaric Ode to Dr. W. S.”, in Poems and Songs, 3rd edition, London: Printed for Benjamin Tooke, […], →OCLC, stanza IX, page 21

(by extension, rare) Also in the plural form pandects: a comprehensive collection of laws; specifically, the whole body of law of a country; a legal code.

The table of contents which we inſert here will give a juſt idea of the method with which this ſmall pandect of morality is compoſed.

1750 November, “Art. XV. The Œconomy of Human Life, Translated from an Indian Manuscript, Written by an Ancient Bramin; to which is Prefixed an Account of the Manner in which the Said Manuscript was Discovered. […] [book review]”, in The Monthly Review; or, New Literary Journal. […], volume IV, London: Printed for R[alph] Griffiths, […], →OCLC, page 64

During a visit to Rome in 679–80, the Anglo-Saxon monk Ceolfrith from Northumbria acquired a magnificent pandect, an entire Bible bound as one volume, and brought it back to England with him, to his monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow. We now know that the book that Ceolfrith bought in Rome was the so-called Codex Grandior, a pandect written under the supervision of Cassiodorus, the scholar-monk founder of Vivarium, in Calabria in the sixth century.

2003, Carmella Vircillo Franklin, “Bilingual Philology in Bede’s Exegesis”, in Richard F. Gyug, editor, Medieval Cultures in Contact (Fordham Series in Medieval Studies; 1), New York, N.Y.: Fordham University Press, →ISSN, page 3

At 8.330–2, which will be treated again below, Virgil seems to be offering some guidance about part of this tangle of 'problems' (although he was at the same time a pandect when it came to the Tiber and its nomenclature).

2006, Francis Cairns, “The Nomenclature of the Tiber in Virgil’s Aeneid”, in Joan Booth, Robert Maltby, editors, What’s in a Name?: The Significance of Proper Names in Classical Latin Literature, Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales, page 68

Pandects, manuscript-volumes containing all the books of the Old and New Testaments, were enormous and very rare.

2006, Mary Dove, “The Middle Ages”, in John F. A. Sawyer, editor, The Blackwell Companion to the Bible and Culture (Blackwell Companions to Religion), Oxford: Blackwell Publishing; republished Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012, page 39

(by extension, also figuratively) A treatise or similar work that is comprehensive as to a particular topic; specifically (Christianity) a manuscript of the entire Bible.

pandecte

treatise or work comprehensive as to a particular topic


fire in the hole

Before screaming “Fire in the hole!” and detonating a cache of confiscated fireworks on a residential street two years ago, Los Angeles police Det. Damien Levesque repeatedly walked away from critical discussions about the safety of the operation.

2023 July 14, Brittney Mejia, Libor Jany, Richard Winton, “LAPD refused to ID officers behind a huge fireworks explosion. Now we have their names”, in Los Angeles Times

(loosely, by extension, humorous) A warning of any imminent explosive detonation.


mumbo jumbo

en-noun

mumbo jumbo (countable and uncountable, plural mumbo jumbos)

/mʌmbəʊˈdʒʌmbəʊ/

Probably from Mandinka maamajomboo (“mask; masked dancer”); or perhaps from /l/-vocalization in the words "mumble" and "jumble".

bor

Football lingo is mumbo jumbo to me.

When it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole, / Reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more / Than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians:

1985, Robert Hayden, “Frederick Douglass”, in Collected Poems

He also said Britain would be “governed by science, not mumbo-jumbo” when looking at whether imported food was acceptable for consumption in the UK.

2020 February 3, Rowena Mason, “Boris Johnson hints at allowing GM food imports from US”, in The Guardian

(by extension) Any confusing or meaningless speech; nonsense, gibberish.


Twinkie defence

en-noun

Twinkie defence (plural Twinkie defences)

From the 1979 trial of defendant Dan White for the murders of San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk and mayor George Moscone. White's defense was that he suffered diminished capacity as a result of his depression; his change in diet from healthy food to Twinkies and other sugary food was said to be a symptom of this depression.

(by extension) Any spurious legal defense.


evangelicalism

evangelicalism (countable and uncountable, plural evangelicalisms)

(by extension, imprecise) Christian fundamentalism.


canonize

en-verb

canonize (third-person singular simple present canonizes, present participle canonizing, simple past and past participle canonized)

canonizes (present singular third-person)
canonizing (participle present)
canonized (participle past)
canonized (past)

From Late Middle English canonizen (“to declare as a saint; to appoint to an ecclesiastical office”), from Old French canonisier (modern French canoniser (“to canonize”)), or from its etymon Medieval Latin, Late Latin canōnizāre, the present active infinitive of Latin canōnizō (“to recognize as a saint, canonize; to declare as authoritative or official”), from Latin canōn (“measuring line; (figurative) precept, rule, canon; authorized catalogue”) + -izō (suffix forming verbs). The English word is analysable as canon (“general principle, rule; authoritative group of works; catalogue of saints canonized in the Roman Catholic Church”) + -ize.

affix

To these errors the Middle Ages contributed not a little by canonizing all the ancient authorities so that when modern historical criticism came into vogue the reaction against authority went too far and skepticism overleaped the mark.

1930, Tenney Frank, “Republican Historiography and Livy”, in Life and Literature in the Roman Republic, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Calif., London: University of California Press, published 1971, page 169

[I]n canonizing horror films and ranking serial killers among the entertainment elite, have we made the perilous environment that lies just beyond the coursing marquee lights and pale glow of the video monitor an even more dangerous space?

1994, Jonathan Lake Crane, “Terror and Everyday Life”, in Terror and Everyday Life: Singular Moments in the History of the Horror Film, Thousand Oaks, Calif., London: SAGE Publications, page 1

(by extension) To regard (an artistic or written work or its creator) as one of a group that are representative of a particular field.


glatt

Borrowed from Yiddish גלאַט (glat, “smooth”). Doublet of glad.

bor+

(Yinglish, by extension, of food, Judaism) Having no ingredients from animals that are not glatt.


carbonara

en-noun

carbonara (countable and uncountable, plural carbonaras)

/ˌkɑːbəˈnɑːɹə/

/ˌkɑɹbəˈnɑɹə/

/ˌkɑɹbəˈnæɹə/

From the Italian carbonara, shortening of alla carbonara (literally “in the manner of charcoal burners”, or “in the manner of the Carbonari”), ultimately from carbone (“coal”).

(by extension) A spaghetti dish made using such a sauce.

(by extension, sometimes proscribed) A spaghetti dish made using a similar sauce made from a different type of cured pork than guanciale (such as bacon, pancetta, lardons, gammon or ham).


fauteuil

/ˈfəʊ.tɜː.ɪ/

Unadapted borrowing from French fauteuil. Cognate to faldistory.

ubor

(by extension) Membership in the Académie française.


jimsonweed

en-noun

jimsonweed (countable and uncountable, plural jimsonweeds)

(US, by extension, proscribed) Any poisonous plant of the genus Datura.


parterre

Borrowed from French parterre (“on the ground”), from par (“on”) + terre (“ground”).

Brussels
Buckinghamshire
Cliveden
Parterre
Parterre (theater audience)
Taplow

(theater, by extension) That part of a theater audience seated in the parterre, sometimes regarded as belonging to a lower social class.


hieroglyphic

/ˌhaɪɹəˈɡlɪfɪk/

First coined 1726, from French hiéroglyphique, from Latin hieroglyphicus, from Ancient Greek ἱερογλυφικός (hierogluphikós), from ἱερογλυφέω (hierogluphéō, “to represent hieroglyphically”), from ἱερός (hierós, “sacred, holy”) + γλύφω (glúphō, “to carve, to engrave, to cut out”). By surface analysis, hiero- + glyphic.

der

ἱερογλυφικός

Above all, the 48-page timetables of the new service, which have been distributed free at every station in the scheme, are a model to the rest of B.R. For the first time on British Railways, so far as we are aware, a substantial timetable has been produced, not only without a single footnote but also devoid of all wearisome asterisks, stars, letter suffixes and other hieroglyphics.

1960 December, “The Glasgow Suburban Electrification is opened”, in Trains Illustrated, page 714

(by extension) Undecipherable handwriting or secret symbol.


clarion

The noun is derived from Middle English clarion, clarioun (“trumpet with a narrow tube and a shrill sound, clarion; clarion player”) [and other forms], from Old French claron, clarïon (“clarion”) [and other forms], from Medieval Latin clāriōn, clario, clārōn (“clarion; trumpet”), from Latin clārus (“audible; clear, distinct, loud; (visually) bright, clear”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kelh₁- (“to call, summon; to cry”).
The adjective is from an attributive use of the noun.

nb...

clarionne, clarioune, claryon, claryoun, claryoune, claryounn, claryounne, claryowne

der

(poetic) The sound of a clarion (sense 1), or any sound resembling the loud, high-pitched note of a clarion.

klarinon ääni

sound of a clarion, or any sound resembling the loud, high-pitched note of a clarion

(music) An organ stop consisting of pipes with reeds giving a high-pitched note like that of a clarion (sense 1).


calcify

en-verb

calcify (third-person singular simple present calcifies, present participle calcifying, simple past and past participle calcified)

calcifies (present singular third-person)
calcifying (participle present)
calcified (participle past)
calcified (past)

(figuratively, by extension) To make or become rigid or inflexible; to ossify.


ragout

en-noun

ragout (countable and uncountable, plural ragouts)

Borrowed from French ragoût. Compare ragù of the same origin, borrowed from Italian.


screening

screening (countable and uncountable, plural screenings)

→ German: Screening

→ Spanish: screening

(by extension, uncountable) The examination of any material or persons to detect problems through any of various testing, checking, or filtering processes, as:

(medicine) Identifying cases of a disease in a population of asymptomatic persons.

скрининг

medicine: method to identify a disease in a non-symptomatic population

(business) Identifying latent unsuitabilities in business propositions, job applicants, or investment opportunities.

due diligence

performing the work needed to uncover latent problems

The airports are slow now because the pre-boarding screening is so inefficient.

This train of thought led the Company's Safety Directorate towards the revised standard […] of October 1993, which cemented a national scheme of testing for alcohol and drugs following safety-critical incidents or on suspicion of unfitness for duty, unannounced drugs screening for staff in safety-critical posts, a fixed standard for alcohol/blood levels, and clear guidelines for lunch breaks.

2023 September 6, Greg Morse, “One more for the road?”, in RAIL, number 991, page 49


sibylline

From Latin sibyllinus, Sibillinus, from Sibylla.

Of or pertaining to or resembling a sibyl or female oracle, especially the Cumaean Sibyl and the Sibylline Books.

(by extension) Having oracle-like predicting powers, clairvoyant.


calcine

en-verb

calcine (third-person singular simple present calcines, present participle calcining, simple past and past participle calcined)

calcines (present singular third-person)
calcining (participle present)
calcined (participle past)
calcined (past)
calcine (infinitive)

The verb is derived from Late Middle English calcinen (“(alchemy, medicine) to heat (something) until it turns to powder; to change the nature of (something) by heating”) [and other forms], from Old French calciner (modern French calciner (“to calcinate; to calcine”)) and from its etymon Medieval Latin calcināre (“(alchemy) to burn like lime; to reduce to calx”), from Late Latin calcīna (“inorganic material containing calcium, lime”) + -āre (suffix forming present active infinitive forms of verbs). Calcīna is derived from Latin calcis, the genitive singular of calx (“chalk; limestone”), possibly from Ancient Greek χᾰ́λῐξ (khálix, “small stone, pebble; gravel, rubble”); further etymology unknown, possibly Pre-Greek.
The noun is derived from the verb.

nb...

calcene, calcenen, calciene, calcyne, calsinen

der

(by extension) To heat (something) to dry and sterilize it.


knee-high

John Fred Gourrier had been listening to Fats Domino, Smiley Lewis, and the Spiders since he was knee-high.

1990, Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, page 207


money shot

(moment in film): So named because it is often considered the most important part of the film, and often an actor who is unable to provide the shot goes unpaid.

(pornography, slang, by extension) The release of semen on the partner's body, especially on the face or in the eye.


roughshod

She proved to be completely defenseless against her husband, both because of her own culture that demanded abject submission to the male, and because of her fearful reaction to his roughshod behavior toward her.

1995, Leanne Payne, “Matthew's Story: Identity Crisis”, in The Broken Image: Restoring Personal Wholeness through Healing Prayer, Hamewith Books, Baker Publishing Group, page 36

In the roughshod horny world of boys, I had studied my companions closely to make sure that I wasn't being too "queer" for them.

2005 June 13, Edmund White, “My Women”, in The New Yorker, volume 81, New York, N.Y.: F-R Publishing Corporation, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 120

A story about the way he handled a threatened strike at his Hawthorne track was indicative of the roughshod way he did business. He invited four strike negotiators to his office, where he dealt a knockout blow to each, laying them out unconscious on the floor. Then he went outside and announced that the pending strike was off.

2010, Maryjean Wall, “Old Money Meets the Arrivistes”, in How Kentucky Became Southern: A Tale of Outlaws, Horse Thieves, Gamblers, and Breeders, Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, page 145


obliquity

en-noun

obliquity (countable and uncountable, plural obliquities)

From Middle French obliquité, from Latin oblīquitās, from oblīquus (“oblique”). Corresponding to oblique + -ity.

Calculating by spherical trigonometry, and assuming the same obliquity, I obtain 3 dundas and 40 pulas for the ascensional arc, giving a difference in time of 3 pulas, or about one of our minutes; an error so small, that even were the Indian astronomer aware of its existence he would disregard it, satisfied that the practical purposes which his labours subserve, are, notwithstanding, carried out with sufficient accuracy.

1839 October, J.J. Middleton, “Description of an Astronomical Instrument presented by Raja Ram Sing, of Khota, to the Government of India”, in Journal of the Asiatic Society, volume 8, number 94, page 837

(astronomy, by extension, of a planet) Axial tilt.


burnt offering

/bɜːnt ˈɒfəɹɪŋ/

/bɝnt ˈɔfəɹɪŋ/

PIE word
 *h₁epi
From Middle English brend offring, brend offringe, from brend (past participle of brennen (“to burn”)) + offring, offringe (“presentation of something as a religious offering; offering presented to God or another deity”), used in biblical texts to translate Late Latin holocaustum (“burnt offering wholly consumed by fire”) in the Vulgate version of the Bible. The English term is analysable as burnt + offering.

noncog

(religion, by extension) Any similar sacrifice to a deity or deities, or to a deceased person.

polttouhri

any similar sacrifice to a deity or deities, or to an deceased person


fiddly

en-adj

fiddly (comparative fiddlier, superlative fiddliest)

fiddlier (comparative)
fiddliest (superlative)

See, Barbados, like certain other fiddly little islands— Antigua, Saint Lucia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Japan, Great Britain, Australia— is filled with a genus of hotspurs fiercely dedicated to motoring on the wrong side of the road.

1988, Road & Track - Volume 40, page 119

But the draping roses, and the double bell of dress and overskirt — fiddly, too bloody fiddly!

2004, John Charalambous, Furies, page 189

Plate after plate of fiddly Lebanese mezes that tasted of lemon and breadcrumbs and chopped coriander rather than the tidbits of lamb and beef and prawns that they covered, the whole tedious meal made only bearable by a very creditable Château Musar.

2012, Martin O'Brien, The Dying Minutes, page 182

The cover, which was also the title page, promised an exhaustive collection of lists, tables, “extraordinary matches” and “other interesting information”, but the most cursory flick-through revealed only a sequence of cricket scorecards and a summary of the game's already fiddly laws.

2013, Robert Winder, The Little Wonder: The Remarkable History of Wisden

(by extension) Having many small bits or embellishments.


silverback

Courageously (given Ranger's status in Mugabe's Zimbabwe, and his status as a silverback in North Atlantic Academe), Kriger dissents from their arguments.

2001, Peter Burke, New Perspectives on Historical Writing, page 145

"Have you met Professor Dolan, Bishop Blackie?" an Asian child with a beatifically innocent face asked me. "Is he that skinny silverback ape down on the first floor?"

2003, Andrew W. Greeley, The Bishop goes to the University, page 121

"That's peanuts. I'm talking about real money," replied [Senator] Ted [Kennedy], who in fact had no idea how much the developer would pay, as that detail had yet to be worked out. / "What are your other main reasons?" Liedell asked, persisting with the old silverback.

2008, Wendy Williams, Robert Whitcomb, Cape Wind: Celebrity, Energy, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future, page 127

(informal, by extension) A dominant older human male.


blip

Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group 1

There's a chance this is just a viral blip, an intermittent spike of low-level virus that just happens in people on successful HIV treatment.

2003, Brett Grodeck, The First Year—HIV: An Essential Guide for the Newly Diagnosed (First Year Series), New York, N.Y.: Marlowe

As a cell moves through the aperture it causes a blip (a brief change) in the voltage when the nonconductive cell briefly displaces the conductive medium.

2003, Dany Spencer Adams, Lab Math: A Handbook of Measurements, Calculations, and Other Quantitative Skills for Use at the Bench, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press

Barack Obama had become exasperated by the propensity of the party establishment to panic at every psephological blip.

2010 February 28, Gary Younge, “The Tea Party is a dynamic force, but it is still unruly and incoherent”, in The Guardian, London, archived from the original on 2016-03-16

[…] and therefore it’s too soon to say if the supposed “long peace” we’ve been enjoying since the end of the second world war is a blip or a sustained trend.

2021 November 7, Laura Spinney, “Can history teach us anything about the future of war – and peace?”, in The Guardian

(by extension) A brief and usually minor aberration or deviation from what is expected or normal.


exaptation

en-noun

exaptation (countable and uncountable, plural exaptations)

Elisabeth Vrba
Stephen Jay Gould
exaptation

Blend of ex- + adaptation. Coined 1982 by palaeontologists Stephen Jay Gould and Elisabeth Vrba to avoid the perceived teleological baggage of the existing term preadaptation.

The process Haiman focuses on is exaptation, which he defines as "the promotion of meaningless or redundant material so that it does new grammatical (morphosyntactic or phonological) or semantic work" (p52).

2017, Eric Haeberli, Review of Ledgeway & Roberts (eds.) (2017), Cambridge Handbook of Historical Syntax, Journal of Historical Syntax, Volume 3, Article 4, 2019, PDF edition page 2

(linguistics, by extension) The promotion of meaningless or redundant material so that it does new grammatical (morphosyntactic or phonological) or semantic work.


slipstream

slipstream (countable and uncountable, plural slipstreams)

Compound of slip + stream. Fiction sense coined by cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling in 1989.

coin

The Republicans, who in fact quintessentially represent what I understand to be private and special interests of a narrow economic kind, have nevertheless managed, flying in the slipstream of Ronald Reagan’s rhetoric, to look like the true guardians of the nation’s public interest.

2012, Benjamin Barber, “Liberal Values in the Age of Interdependence”, in Logos: A Journal of Modern Society and Culture

(figurative, by extension) A generated advantage which makes forward movement easier.


air out

en-verb

air out (third-person singular simple present airs out, present participle airing out, simple past and past participle aired out)

airs out (present singular third-person)
airing out (participle present)
aired out (participle past)
aired out (past)

(by extension) To discuss in the open; to address an issue or conflict that has long been avoided.


dishwater

en-noun

dishwater (usually uncountable, plural dishwaters)

This season's offerings are nothing but dishwater.

(by extension) Anything dull and lacking interest or flavour.


Union Jack

Settlers already fearing the possibility of seeing their 1600, sometimes 1700 percent, profit margins stripped from them by London’s abolitionism saw no other option but to secede from the Union Jack.

2019, Danny Haiphong, Roberto Sirvent, chapter 3, in American Exceptionalism and American Innocence, New York: Skyhorse Publishing, page 81


ambulance chaser

ambulance chaser (plural ambulance chasers)

The origins of this phrase date from 1897, from newspaper articles about attorneys seeking clients through targeted mail solicitation. “Ambulance chasing” was one of the descriptive phrases employed by the media for this activity. It later became a derogatory term for direct advertising.

(by extension) An attorney who engages in unethical behavior.


puppyhood

puppyhood (countable and uncountable, plural puppyhoods)

(by extension) Youth and adolescence, especially that of a conceited and impertinent young man.


völva

From Old Norse vǫlva (völva in modern Icelandic).

(by extension) Any prophetess, sooth-sayer, or witch.


crew neck

(by extension) A shirt, sweater, or similar garment with such a neckline.


smoke test

(by extension) Such an initial test on some other (not necessarily electronic) system, such as a computer program, again, not to perform any exhaustive tests of functionality, but simply to make sure that the system will not catastrophically fail on activation.


foursquare

en-adj

foursquare (comparative more foursquare, superlative most foursquare)

more foursquare (comparative)
most foursquare (superlative)

From Middle English foure square; equivalent to four + square.

Standing foursquare in the heart of the town, at the intersection of the two main streets, a "jog" at each street corner left around the market-house a little public square, which at this hour was well occupied by carts and wagons from the country and empty drays awaiting hire […].

1900, Charles W. Chesnutt, chapter I, in The House Behind the Cedars

It is surprising to find white wine of apparently low acidity keeping well at all. Yet at ten years (a good age for it today) it has a haunting combination of foursquare breadth and depth with some delicate, intriguing, lemony zest.

1983, Hugh Johnson, Hugh Johnson's modern encyclopedia of wine

Another initially foursquare wine that develops lovely fruit in the glass, with a toasty-biscuity finish beginning to build.

1999, Tom Stevenson, Christie's world encyclopedia of champagne and sparkling wine


flyspeck

From the foothills below, Jean, Jan, and James were mere flyspecks, easily lost among the straggly pines that formed the treeline.

We passed through some flyspeck town, barely more than a gas station and a stoplight, but I never saw the name.

(by extension) Anything tiny or insignificant.


frogman

From frog + man, after the fact that frogs are amphibious.

(by extension) A member of a naval special operations unit.


unharness

en-verb

unharness (third-person singular simple present unharnesses, present participle unharnessing, simple past and past participle unharnessed)

unharnesses (present singular third-person)
unharnessing (participle present)
unharnessed (participle past)
unharnessed (past)


gigantomachy

en-noun

gigantomachy (countable and uncountable, plural gigantomachies)

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek Γιγαντομαχία (Gigantomakhía), from Γίγας (Gígas, “giant”) + μάχη (mákhē, “battle”) + -ια (-ia). Compare Titanomachy, Typhonomachy, centauromachy.

lbor

Γιγαντομαχία

Giants (Greek mythology)#The Gigantomachy

Giant and dragon interchange as opponents of god or hero in folklore; in the gigantomachies we have evidence of their near-identity.

1974, Joseph Eddy Fontenrose, Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins, Biblo & Tannen, page 56

Beginning with the presentation of the giants in c.m. 53, supported by the Greek Gigantomachia and the recurring giant theme from the De Raptu Proserpinae, it is then possible to analyse the construction of the Visigothic leader Alaric to demonstrate the way in which he, in particular, is depicted as a monster figure and his assault on Roman land as a new gigantomachy.[…]To write a gigantomachy is to engage with a long tradition associated with the theme.

2018, Clare Coombe, Claudian the Poet, Cambridge University Press, page 95

(by extension) Any battle envisaged as being waged by giants against gods or against an established universal order.


box-ticking

(British, figurative, by extension) Completion of bureaucratic processes of little practical use.


unfiltered

en-adj

unfiltered (comparative more unfiltered, superlative most unfiltered)

more unfiltered (comparative)
most unfiltered (superlative)

(by extension) unrestrained, unrestricted, frank


one-trick pony

en-noun

one-trick pony (plural one-trick ponies)

He's a one-trick pony / One trick is all that horse can do / He does one trick only / It's the principal source of his revenue

1980, Paul Simon (lyrics and music), “One-Trick Pony”

(idiomatic, by extension) A person or group noteworthy for only a single achievement, skill, or characteristic.


torrefaction

torrefaction (countable and uncountable, plural torrefactions)

They now began by a change of diet and other precautions to prepare themselves to encounter the torrefaction of a tropical climate, and in somewhat more than a fortnight arrived in Carlisle Bay in the island of Barbadoes, which was appointed the general rendezvous of the expedition.

1806, The Critical Review, Or, Annals of Literature, page 387

The walls of the stomach are lined with a nerve-interwoven delicat membrane, which suffers from scalding fluids as much as any other tegumental tissues of the body, and by daily torrefactions becomes either callous or chronically inflamed, and in either case less fit for the performance of its important functions.

1883, The Popular Science Monthly - Volume 23, page 314

Men of both these types abound in medicine especially, aside from the great mass of the unlearned, who, if perchance they have heard some mechanistic explanation of Descartes's and badly comprehended it (for indeed the whole system of Descartes is far above their heads), or if (bemused by the tricks of certain smoke-peddlers) they have learned to make some trifle at great cost with the aid of an evil-smelling torrefaction, they declare themselves not merely philosophers but the only wise men and cultivators of true medicine.

1967, Henry Oldenburg, Alfred Rupert Hall, Marie Boas Hall, 1667-1668, page 360

And in spite of all our professors of torrefaction — to borrow a phrase from Grant Allen — and our demonstrations of cookery, not one woman in fifty can boil rice, or be trusted to grill a chop when it is easier to fry it.

1986, Noel George Butlin, R. H. Scott, V. W. Fitzgerald, The Australian Economist: 1893-1898 - Volumes 2-6, page 481

The face of the man was withered and blackened as by the torrefaction of a thousand flames; his beard was grey as ashes; and his eyes were expiring embers.

2013, Clark Ashton Smith, Told in the Desert

(more generally) The act or process of subjecting something to heat or to highly acidic substances.


Jeeves

Originally a surname derived from a Middle English diminutive of Genevieve.

When you name a baby Jeeves, you've pretty much mapped out his future, wouldn't you say?

1993, Seinfeld, season 4, episode 24, Jerry Seinfeld (actor)

(by extension) A valet, butler or helper who fulfills the model of a helpful servant.


unassailable

en-adj

unassailable (comparative more unassailable, superlative most unassailable)

more unassailable (comparative)
most unassailable (superlative)

She won the debate with her unassailable logic.

(by extension) Undeniable, incontestable or incontrovertible.

неопровержим

undeniable, incontestable or incontrovertible


wifelet

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

From wife + -let (diminutive suffix). Sense 3 (“long-term girlfriend; mistress”) is said to have been coined in the 1960s by Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath (1932–2020) in reference to his numerous mistresses.

(informal, by extension) A wife who is of small stature.

The Marquess [Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath], now 74, who is best known for his remarkably unorthodox dress sense, his pornographic murals and his series of wifelets, is fixing me with a priapic eye while slurping wine from a beer glass. "I need some more," he declares loudly. "Wine?" I inquire. "No, wifelets, of course."

2007 March 30, Petronella Wyatt, “The Marquess of Bath – on the prowl for ‘wifelet 76’”, in Daily Mail, London: DMG Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2016-04-04

The multi-millionaire [Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath] named his numerous girlfriends wifelets when he embarked on his "polyamorous" lifestyle shortly after marrying in 1969. [...] The trouble between two of the women erupted on Sunday night as a fight broke out in his Wiltshire stately home, Longleat – famed for its safari park lions. As the wifelets fought for his affections Lord Bath retired to his bedroom, which is decorated with murals inspired by the Kama Sutra, the Indian sex manual.

2011 June 11, Sara Dixon, “Police called over love-tussle for the Loins of Longleat”, in Hugh Whittow, editor, Daily Express, London: Express Newspapers, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2015-09-27

The polyamorous lifestyle of Alexander Thynn, the 7th Marquess, has been scarcely concealed by the Marquess himself and well documented in the press, who had sunk their teeth into the latest episode just weeks before this ride. The nose of a well-proportioned lady with the remarkably appropriate name of Trudi Juggernauth-Sharma, believed to be wifelet number 68, allegedly came into close physical contact with the fist of Amanda Doyle, an Irish singer and also a wifelet (sequential number unknown), after an exchange of words about the prospects of Mr Thynn, 79 at the time, fathering a child with Ms Doyle.

2013, Richard Guise, “Stage 6: Prohibited Activities”, in A Wiggly Way through England, [s.l.]: Richard Guise, page 71

Now 83, he [Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath] has a fortune of more than £150 million and famously lives on the estate with several girlfriends who he refers to as ‘wifelets’.

2016 June 2, Alice Vincent, “We hope to move Glastonbury to Longleat by 2019, says Michael Eavis”, in Chris Evans, editor, The Daily Telegraph, London: Telegraph Media Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2019-07-27

(informal, by extension) A long-term girlfriend; a mistress (the “other woman” in an extramarital relationship).


Wild West

In the wild west of the Internet, states have been reluctant to work together for this common purpose. One example of closer state coordination came in 2011 at the London Conference on Cyberspace […]

2012, Peter M. Haas, John A. Hird, Controversies in Globalization: Contending Approaches to International Relations, page 229

In the Wild West of “influencer” marketing, there are few protections and plenty of easy marks.

2018 November 16, Taylor Lorenz, “How Hackers Are Stealing High-Profile Instagram Accounts”, in The Atlantic, retrieved 2023-05-29

(by extension) A place or situation in which disorderly behavior prevails, especially due to a lack of regulatory oversight or an inadequate legal system.

det vilde vesten

place or situation in which disorderly behaviour prevails


bedfellow

From Middle English bedfelawe, equivalent to bed + fellow.

They say that "misfortune makes men acquainted with strange bedfellows". The old hereditary Whig Cabinet ministers must, no doubt, by this time have learned to feel themselves at home with strange neighbours at their elbows.

1873, Anthony Trollope, chapter 40, in Phineas Redux

Certain aspects of reprint publishing are more akin to university press publishing than to any other sector of the publishing industry, but the relationships between the two frequently create unwilling bedfellows.

1972, Carol A. Nemeyer, Scholarly Reprint Publishing in the United States, New York, N.Y.: R. R. Bowker Co., page 8

Statistics and truth can be uneasy bedfellows when it comes to football, but one fact could not be ignored: neither side has a player with more than seven goals to his name.

2011 February 12, Les Roopanarine, “Birmingham 1 - 0 Stoke”, in BBC

(by extension) An associate, often an otherwise improbable one.

petikaveri

an associate, often an otherwise improbable one


weather eye

(by extension) An ability to detect undercurrents and subtleties in a situation.


fairy dust

Based on the story of the fictional character Peter Pan, see quotations.

(by extension) Any apparently magical ingredient or effect; a panacea.

keijupöly

any apparently magical ingredient or effect


beardless

beardless (comparative more beardless, superlative most beardless)

more beardless (comparative)
most beardless (superlative)

From Middle English bērdlēs, from Old English beardlēas (“beardless”), from Proto-West Germanic *bardalaus (“beardless”), equivalent to beard + -less. Cognate with Scots berdles (“beardless”), Saterland Frisian boartloos (“beardless”), West Frisian burdleas (“beardless”), Dutch baardeloos (“beardless”), German Low German baartlos (“beardless”), German bartlos (“beardless”).

cog

shall a beardless boy,
Cocker’d silken wanton, brave our fields,
And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,
Mocking the air with colours idly spread,
And find no check?

1596, Shakespeare, King John, Act 4, Scene 1

(by extension, of a male) Not having reached puberty or manhood; youthful.


black spot

(by extension) A dangerous place or area.


box out

en-verb

box out (third-person singular simple present boxes out, present participle boxing out, simple past and past participle boxed out)

boxes out (present singular third-person)
boxing out (participle present)
boxed out (participle past)
boxed out (past)

(transitive, figurative, by extension) To arrange a situation so as to exclude (someone).


offline

offline meetings

offline dating

Thousands of violent videos are still available on the internet, according to Alexander, who claims they lead to an escalation in offline tensions between rival gangs. "I believe some young people are losing their lives as result of this material on the internet," she said.

2012 April 19, Josh Halliday, “Free speech haven or lawless cesspool – can the internet be civilised?”, in the Guardian

(by extension) Happening in the physical world (the real world) as opposed to on the internet.


in bed

You've been in bed with the opposite party all year and that's why you keep saying we need to compromise.

(idiomatic) Regarding sexual activities.

(by extension) Cooperating with, as if for an illicit reward; in league with.


center stage

In terms of pure screen time and action, Helena often takes center stage in a film that should by all accounts belong to Indy, meaning Dr. Jones ends up feeling oddly secondary in a story that’s supposed to be his grand finale.

2023 June 28, Lauren Coates, “Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny review: Harrison Ford goes to the whip”, in AV Club

(by extension) An important or prominent position.


unorthodox entrepreneur

en-noun

unorthodox entrepreneur (plural unorthodox entrepreneurs)

(by extension) Anyone who carries on an illegal business; e.g., a drug dealer or prostitute.


matchmaker

(by extension) Someone who arranges professional boxing matches.


Harley Street

After Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer (1869-1741).

(by extension) The English medical profession (especially the private sector) as a group.


cheaply

en-adv

cheaply (comparative more cheaply, superlative most cheaply)

more cheaply (comparative)
most cheaply (superlative)

(cricket, by extension) For a low score.


gasbag

(by extension) A lighter-than-air aircraft; a balloon or dirigible.


sounding board

Missandei had little interiority beyond being Dany’s sounding board and Grey Worm’s lover, and she had to die to give them both a reason to keep killing, even though you’d think the looming Last War is reason enough.

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

(by extension) Any device or means used to spread an idea or point of view.


pensioner

→ Welsh: pensiynwr

From Middle English pensioner, from Anglo-Norman pensionner and Old French pensionnier, from Medieval Latin pēnsiōnārius. By surface analysis, pension + -er.

(by extension) Someone who is at the age at which one typically receives a pension; an elderly person.


boa constrictor

en-noun

boa constrictor (plural boa constrictors)

Unadapted borrowing from New Latin Boa constrictor.

ubor

We found boa constrictors or pythons, whip snakes, the handsome but deadly tiger snake, so called from the peculiar marks on its skin[.]

1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 95


photo finish

(by extension) Any competition with a very close outcome.


soak up

en-verb

soak up (third-person singular simple present soaks up, present participle soaking up, simple past and past participle soaked up)

soaks up (present singular third-person)
soaking up (participle present)
soaked up (participle past)
soaked up (past)

Tan was not at Stamford Bridge and Mackay's tactics proved effective as his side soaked up Chelsea's attacks despite conceding the majority of possession, and frequently threatened on the break.

(figurative, by extension) To absorb or deflect a series of actions; to endure a behavior from someone.


X-ray vision

(fiction, by extension) The ability or superpower to see through most or all solid objects as if they were transparent.


agentic

en-adj

agentic (comparative more agentic, superlative most agentic)

more agentic (comparative)
most agentic (superlative)

Most individuals can be easily triggered to enter, and be comfortable in the agentic state.

Milgram (1974) suggested that one factor contributing to the maintenance of obedience was that the individual in the obedience situation entered into an agentic state, which involves a person's giving up his or her normal moral and ethical standards in favor of those of the authority figure.

2013, Kenneth S. Bordens, Irwin A. Horowitz, Social Psychology

(psychology, by extension, of a psychological state of a person) That obeys authority (introduced in Milgram's theory).


Galilean

Originated 1605–15 from Latin Galilaea, from Galilee + -an.

(by extension, sometimes derogatory) A Christian.


vest-pocket

From vest + pocket, referring to the pockets of a suit vest, which are only sized to hold watches, handkerchiefs, wallets, and similarly small items.

Levi's apartment was a vest-pocket Graceland; every inch of wall and shelf space was covered by Elvis memorabilia.

(by extension) Smaller than would ordinarily be expected.


ginch

The unquenchable Hagen of the Screw Shack prowls the Stampede for ginch ahoof and comes back to the bus with nice little girl with lips as raunchy as a swig of grape soda, tender in age but ne'mind, ready to go, and she is on the bus, christened Anonymous, down to her bra and panties, which she prefers.

1968, Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

What reason would he have to try it, even, except to show off for this ginch?

2014, R. V. Cassill, The Happy Marriage: And Other Stories

I mean, it was possible—theoretically, like Art always says—that Lisa had just lucked out, that Leslie Plunkett just happened to be on the Bad Boy's shitlist, all unbeknownst to his pet ginch, and that the Bad Boy had, conveniently for her, eliminated the little shyster.

(by extension) A woman, viewed as a potential or actual sexual partner.

But, you know, she's struggling, she's got a kid. Just don't be a ginch, all right?" So, of course, you don't want anyone to think you're a ginch, plus maybe you're not particularly thrilled about the idea of using a hooker either.

2000, Andrew Klavan, Hunting Down Amanda, page 11


tee off

en-verb

tee off (third-person singular simple present tees off, present participle teeing off, simple past and past participle teed off)

tees off (present singular third-person)
teeing off (participle present)
teed off (participle past)
teed off (past)

Reyes teed off on a hanging curve to give the Cardinals a 3-1 lead.

(baseball, by extension) To hit the ball very hard, especially for a home run.


leave for dead

leave for dead (third-person singular simple present leaves for dead, present participle leaving for dead, simple past and past participle left for dead)

leaves for dead (present singular third-person)
leaving for dead (participle present)
left for dead (participle past)
left for dead (past)

However, the hosts hit back and hit back hard, first replacement hooker Andrew Hore sliding over, then Williams careering out of his own half and leaving several defenders for dead before flipping the ball to Nonu to finish off a scintillating move.

2011 September 16, Ben Dirs, “Rugby World Cup 2011: New Zealand 83-7 Japan”, in BBC Sport

(figurative, by extension, transitive) To disregard or bypass as unimportant.


walloping

For forgetting to pick up the package again, my boss gave me a walloping.

(figuratively, by extension) Verbal abuse.

(figuratively, by extension) A thrashing, serious defeat.


bedwarmer

"You speak of lowly! You, once a slave whore whose only purpose wad bed hopping! You, a Cultellrin whore! You may be a queen, but that ends now! This moment! From now on you are nothing more than my bedwarmer! You'd better pray to your god that I never tire of you, for if I do, I'll split your gut all the way up to your neck!"

unknown year, His Bedwarmer's Wife, Red Auza
"Nah, I'ts fine, Ley. Because from now on I won't bring any woman here. You will be my bedwarmer."

You're more than my bed-warmer. If you decide to stay with me, I'll keep you safe and give you room to grow into the incredible woman I know you can be, […]

"But my appetite for other delights has just awoken, so if you will excuse me Brothers, I shall take a bottle of brandy and my bed-warmer for tonight, and I shall you all In the morning." and turning to Theresa he grabbsed her arm roughly and dragged her to her feet, […]

2015, Andy Lang, Finding Justine: Libertine


Bermuda Triangle

en-noun

Bermuda Triangle (plural Bermuda Triangles)

The dryer is a Bermuda Triangle for socks.

The south polar region of Promethei Planum developed a Bermuda Triangle reputation. Satellites detected intermittent mass concentrations and magnetic field shifts. In 2148, prospectors working near Deseado Crater discovered an underground complex: a Prothean observation post. The odd phenomena were generated by the operation and discharge of a mass effect core, struggling to function despite fifty millennia of neglect.

2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Protheans: Mars Ruins Codex entry

(by extension) Any place where objects mysteriously disappear.

Bermudan kolmio

any area where things mysteriously disappear


mother lode

Probably a calque of Spanish veta madre (“mother lode”).

calque

It is also letting them probe the genomes of other organisms for DNA that could turn out to be a mother lode for medicine.

2000 April 10, Dick Thompson, “The Feds Step Up the Pace”, in Time

Emerging, but No Longer a Mother Lode of Profits [title]

2014 March 4, Landon Thomas Jr., “Emerging, but No Longer a Mother Lode of Profits”, in New York Times

(idiomatic, by extension) Any source of valuable or useful material.


it is what it is

(by extension) Synonym of let it be: that is, because this concern is a constraint rather than a problem that can be solved (see "Lord grant us the wisdom to know the difference"), further analysis and discussion of it is unproductive, so let it be; accept the fact and let the matter rest.

let it be

But more important, while I am aware that "it is what it is" can be used in the "que sera sera" way, I do not agree that my interpretation of it is therefore incorrect. Rather, it is an example of how common it is in language for words and expressions to have more than one meaning, despite the fact that we rarely notice it. […] Regarding my troubles, he detachedly intoned, "Well, it is what it is." […] I recounted thinking: What a gorgeously chilly way of saying "Your problems don't matter to me." He was not using the phrase's other, "que sera sera" meaning, counseling me to accept how things unfold in a Zen-like way. / Those who think of the Zen version of "it is what it is" aren't wrong, however: It is often used that way when referring to oneself, for example. But those who agree with me that the expression can be dismissive are also correct in thinking of dismissive exchanges such as my own. "It is what it is" has two meanings. / The issue here is language change. The expression "it is what it is" began as counsel about coping. However, an implication floats over the proactive, constructive intent of the phrase: its element of distance, coolness, indifference. Implications like this can take over the word or expression's meaning and create either a new meaning or at least an alternative, 2.0 version.

2023 September 12, John McWhorter, “What Is 'It Is What It Is'?”, in New York Times, retrieved 2023-09-13

(by extension, sometimes) Synonym of who cares or synonym of I don't care


hark back

en-verb

hark back (third-person singular simple present harks back, present participle harking back, simple past and past participle harked back)

harks back (present singular third-person)
harking back (participle present)
harked back (participle past)
harked back (past)

From hark (“to listen attentively”) + back (“to or in a previous condition or place”, adverb), originally a hunting command to hounds meaning “Listen! Go back!”.

(by extension) To return to where one has previously been; to retrace one's steps.


uncircumcised

From Middle English uncircumcised, equivalent to un- + circumcised. Subsidiary definitions are much influenced by traditions of the Abrahamic religions.

Even to-day the Turk hurls abuse at the Christian by calling him "an uncircumcised dog."

1939, Katherine Jones translation of Sigmund Freud, Moses and Monotheism, Chapter II

This passage says that all goyim are uncircumcised and all the House of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart. Being uncircumcised means being non-Jewish and hostile.

2011, Benedikt Eckhardt, Jewish Identity and Politics between the Maccabees and Bar Kokhba

Whatever the basis upon which he distinguishes between Israelite and non-Israelite circumcision, Jeremiah can claim that Egypt, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and the Arabs are circumcised and yet foreskinned. The statement that these nations are uncircumcised cannot be dismissed as "hyperbolisch," as Friedrich Nötscher has claimed, but rather serves as a declaration that what they have done to their penises is distinct from what the Israelites have done to theirs. It is for this reason that the Egyptians, Edomites, Ammonites, Moabites, and Arabs can be foreskinned despite their circumcision. Judah's allies belong to the same category as Babylon: that is, they belong among the uncircumcised.

2011, Matthew Thiessen, Contesting Conversion

We can see in Isaiah 52:1 that the uncircumcised (Gentiles) were termed unclean by the same definition with which God termed swine to be unclean.

2014, Cornie Banman, Traditional Anti-Torah Church Doctrines: The Curses of Our Fathers

(by extension) Not Jewish or Muslim; gentile.


alarums and excursions

From a Shakespearean stage direction, indicating that soldiers should march across the stage, blowing bugles and beating drums, etc.

He had been well aware ever since his coming to Hathelsborough of an atmosphere of intrigue and mystery; every development that occurred seemed to thicken it. . . . It puzzled him, being still a stranger to the habits and customs of these people, to see that life in Hathelsborough went on, amidst all these alarums and excursions.

1922, J. S. Fletcher, chapter 19, in In the Mayor's Parlour

The various alarums and excursions in The Rock that early evening did not dent attendance at these meetings very much […]

(idiomatic, by extension) Any frantic activity.


embattled

en-adj

embattled (comparative more embattled, superlative most embattled)

more embattled (comparative)
most embattled (superlative)

From embattle (“to furnish with battlements”) + -ed.

suffix

Coordinate term: counterembattled

(by extension, heraldry) Having an upper edge or outline of alternating square indentations and extensions like battlements, unless the embattled item is a pale, cross or saltire, in which case it has the crenelations on all sides.

tindesnit

having an edge or outline of alternating square indendations and extensions like battlements


topological space

en-noun

topological space (plural topological spaces)

(topology, formally) An ordered pair (X, τ), where X is a set and τ, called the topology, is a collection of subsets of X which satisfies certain axioms and whose elements are called the open sets (or alternatively, for a different set of axioms, the closed sets);

An ordered pair (X, τ), where X is a set and τ, called the topology, is a collection of subsets of X which satisfies certain axioms and whose elements are called the open sets (or alternatively, for a different set of axioms, the closed sets);
(loosely) the set X.


milksop

From Middle English milksop, mylk sop, mylke soppe, equivalent to milk + sop.

(by extension, derogatory) An easily frightened, ineffectual, or weak person.


discalced

Borrowed from Ecclesiastical Latin discalceātus (“barefoot”) + -ed, rendering French déchaussé. By surface analysis, dis- + calced.

bor

(formal, more generally) Shoeless; without shoes on; barefoot, or wearing sandals rather than shoes.


pumped-up

en-adj

pumped-up (comparative more pumped-up, superlative most pumped-up)

more pumped-up (comparative)
most pumped-up (superlative)

The stalked 'periscope' eyes of the Fiddler crab, which give it a panoramic view all the better to appreciate the outrageously pumped-up left claws of its waving fellows.

2012, Caspar Henderson, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, page 107

(of a tyre etc) inflated
(by extension) oversized


gunslinger

The perception of the hedge fund world is that of gunslingers and traders who manage billions of dollars by the seat of their pants.

2005, Daniel A. Strachman, Getting Started in Hedge Funds, page 3

(by extension) A person who behaves with the reckless bravado expected of someone who would duel with guns.


Grand Guignol

Popular form of Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol.

I may remark, in passing, that I did not go to see any bullfights... . But if I had preferred a Grand Guignol thrill to a great experience of a great nation,... .

1926 June 19 [U.S. publication date in the Illustrated London News], G. K. Chesterton, "Spain and the Color Black", reprinted in, 1991, the Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton, volume XXIV, The Illustrated London News, 1926-1928, Ignatius Press, pages 112-113

Hence the incomparably strange reincarnation of the cultural figure of the male homosexual as a predatory, determined invert, wrapped in a Grand Guignol cloak of degeneracy theory, and casting his lascivious eyes-and hands-out from the pages of Victorian sexology manuals and onto "our" children, and above all onto "our" sons.

1987, Simon Watney, "The Spectacle of AIDS", reprinted as chapter 13 of, 1993, Henry Abelove, Michèle Aina Barale, and David M. Halperin (eds.), The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, Routledge, page 206

Everything quickly gets impossibly sensitive, aesthetic, ethereal, and opaquely lovely, yet there is a Grand Guignol thread running through it all that results in constant ominous tension, as though something dreadfully beautiful is going to happen at any moment-i.e., the author is going to turn queer.

1993, Florence King, Southern Ladies and Gentlemen, St. Martin's Press,, page 147

Should we be surprised? It is not as though we haven't seen this stuff before in glossy, grand guignol crime series such as Luther and Ripper Street, with their artful depictions of lady corpses, all alabaster skin and wonkily splayed limbs, as men stand over them stifling their erections.

2018 June 16, Fiona Sturges, “Cattleprods! Severed tongues! Torture porn! Why I’ve stopped watching the Handmaid’s Tale”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2020-02-05

(by extension) That which thrives on grotesquery and gore.


jovially

en-adv

jovially (comparative more jovially, superlative most jovially)

more jovially (comparative)
most jovially (superlative)

From jovial + -ly (suffix forming adverbs from adjectives). Jovial is borrowed from French jovial (“jolly, jovial”), from Italian gioviale (“jolly, jovial; (obsolete) born under the influence of the planet Jupiter”), from Latin ioviālis (“relating to the Roman god Jupiter”), from Iuppiter, Iovis (“the Roman god Jove or Jupiter, counterpart of the Greek god Zeus”) (from Proto-Indo-European *dyew- (“to be bright; heaven, sky”)) + -ālis (suffix forming adjectives of relationship).

der

Life there was at its usual nocturnal ferment. A few of the men were jovially drunk, a few of them savagely so.

1887, Edgar Fawcett, chapter II, in The Confessions of Claud: A Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Company, →OCLC, page 38

He greeted Milo jovially each time they met and, in an excess of contrite generosity, impulsively recommended Major Major for promotion.

1955 (date written), Joseph Heller, “Major —— de Coverley”, in Catch-22 (A Dell Book), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing, published 1961 (October 1962 printing), →OCLC, page 140

(by extension) In a jovial (“cheerful and good-humoured”) manner; jollily, merrily.


Samson

From Middle English Sampson, Sampsoun, Samson, from Latin Samson, from Ancient Greek Σαμψών (Sampsṓn), from Hebrew שִׁמְשׁוֹן.

Hebrew שִׁמְשׁוֹן


jugglery

en-noun

jugglery (countable and uncountable, plural juggleries)

From Old French juglerie, jouglerie, from jouglere (“juggler”).

What they call the Great War is over […] and yet what do we see around us? Nothing but strife and juggleries and hatred and contempt and discord wherever you look.

1942, Walter de la Mare, “All Hallows”, in Best Stories of Walter de la Mare

(by extension) Trickery or deception in general, or an instance of such.


votary

From Latin
 votus, past participle of vovere (“to vow, to devote”).

[…] But it is not simply of the progress of luxury that we have to complain: did its votaries keep in their own sphere of thoughtless dissipation, we might despise them without emotion; but the frivolous pursuits of pleasure are mingled with the most important concerns of the state; […]

1771, Henry Mackenzie, The Man of Feeling, London: Cassell, published 1886, pages 61–62

He is such a votary of the modern that he was inevitably interested in the girl of the future and had matched one reform with another, being ready to marry without a penny, as the clearest way of expressing his appreciation, this favourable specimen of the type.

1893, Henry James, Collaboration, archived from the original on 2006-10-13

The indulgence of illicit pleasures, says Dr. S. Pancoast, sooner or later is sure to entail the most loathsome diseases on their votaries.

1920, B. G. Jefferis, J. L. Nichols, “Sexual Proprieties and Improprieties”, in Searchlights on Health

(by extension) Someone who is devoted to a particular pursuit etc.


misprision

misprision (countable and uncountable, plural misprisions)

From Late Middle English misprision, mesprision (“criminal offence or illegal action, especially one committed by a public official”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman misprision, mesprision, mesprison (“criminal offence or illegal action; error, mistake, specifically an error by a court”) [and other forms] (whence Late Latin mesprisio, misprisio), and Old French mesprison, from mespris (“contempt, disdain”) (modern French mépris) + -ion (suffix indicating a condition or state). Mespris is the past participle of mesprendre (“to misunderstand”), from mes- (prefix meaning ‘badly; wrongly’) + prendre (“to take”) (from Latin prēndere, the present active infinitive of prēndō, a variant of prehendō (“to seize, take”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʰed- (“to find; to seize, take; to hold”)).

nb...

mesprisoun, mispresyon, mysprecion, mysprision, mysseprision

mesprisioun, mesprisiun, mesprisoun, mesprisun

der

/ˌmɪsˈpɹɪʒn̩/

[T]hey [women] have what men call self-belief and blame you for your misprisions in their dreams, they are conspiracy theorists, benevolent dictators […]

1984, Martin Amis, Money: A Suicide Note, London: Penguin Books, published 1985, page 331

(uncountable) Misinterpretation or misunderstanding; (countable) an instance of this; a mistake.

méprise

misinterpretation or misunderstanding; an instance of this — see also misinterpretation, mistake, misunderstanding

(uncountable) Incorrect or unfair suspicion; (countable) an instance of this.


scansion

en-verb

scansion (third-person singular simple present scansions, present participle scansioning, simple past and past participle scansioned)

scansions (present singular third-person)
scansioning (participle present)
scansioned (participle past)
scansioned (past)

From Late Latin scansiōnem, accusative singular of scansiō (“the act of climbing”), from scandō (“I climb”).

The fine zigzag and diagonal interweavings, the nuances of varying intervals between the scansioned dots, show the enormous time and effort Polke invested in his complex, manual transfer method.

1999, Margit Rowell, Michael Semff, Bice Curiger, Sigmar Polke: Works on Paper 1963-1974, page 27

And it saw the concept of an historical time in linear development as depriving it of the reassuring repetitions of a circular form of chronology that was connected to the seasons and to the cycle of agricultural work; which in turn was scansioned by rituals that reasserted its continuity with the world of myth.

2003, Luigi Zoja, Growth and Guilt: Psychology and the Limits of Development, page 106

Scansioning the walkway face of the garden wall like an unfolding scroll, he strolled south as far as the narrow arched doorway to the belltower. Mad for abstracting patterns and images from the masonry, at first the hues and linear lay-up of the stone wall appeared haphazard as nature.

2009, Mathew Kinsella, The California Tales: A Novel


flooded

en-adj

flooded (comparative more flooded, superlative most flooded)

more flooded (comparative)
most flooded (superlative)

Our phones were flooded with calls after the controversial broadcast.

(by extension) Overwhelmed with too much of something.


netherworld

From nether- (“beneath, lower”) + world.

Flicks is a large bar which has been in some conflict since it opened […] The nature of that conflict has been characterized as gay-straight, by the bar managers; as crazies-sane, by some residents; as predators-prey, by some bar patrons; and as "netherworld"-respectable, by some bureaucrats.

1975 December 20, Joe Beckmann, “The Vara Bars--What Solution”, in Gay Community News, volume 3, number 25, page 3

Richard had been initiated into the netherworld of dog racing by his father, and knew all the popular greyhound performance-enhancing drugs.

(by extension) A hidden, shadowy, or sinister subculture, such as that of organized crime.

Hades

subterranean region for spirits of the dead


warmed-over

(by extension) clichéd, overused or stale


spear carrier

A case sitting quietly in the Supreme Court’s in-basket promises to tell us more than almost any other about John G. Roberts Jr. and his evolution from spear carrier in the Reagan revolution to chief justice of the United States.

2009 January 8, Linda Greenhouse, “Opinion: The Chief Justice on the Spot”, in New York Times, retrieved 2014-03-19

Britain is now widely dismissed—more often in sorrow than in anger—as just an American spear-carrier without any real force of its own.

2010 February 26, Adrian Hamilton, “Can we halt our slide to the margins?”, in The Independent, UK, retrieved 2014-03-19

(idiomatic, by extension) One who serves in a subordinate or menial role.


staging

en-noun

staging (countable and uncountable, plural stagings)

Ranging along a continuum of degrees of "realism," each of these tourist sites embraces particular conceptions of animal subjectivity, notions of authenticity, and models of human-animal relationships. Each represents a different relationship to the concept of "situ." The higher the perceived realism quotient for each site, the more difficult it is to detect the staging of the natural.

1999, Jane Desmond, Staging Tourism: Bodies on Display from Waikiki to Sea World

Staging often raises the value of a property by reducing the home's flaws, depersonalizatin, de-cluttering, cleaning, and making it look its best with furniture placement, lighting, color, and much more.

2011, Christine Rae, Jan Saunders Maresh, Home Staging For Dummies

The representation and staging of reconstruction, of architectural design and of planning models, in particular, played a prominent role in the visual imagery and promotional discourse on both sides.

2013, Claire Colomb, Staging the New Berlin, page 1957

What about all the homicides staged as interrupted robberies, home invasions, burglaries, suicides, accidents, drowning, car accidents, household falls, and other types of incidents resulting in victims' deaths that were ruled suicide, accident, natural, or otherwise that were really murders? The red flags of staging were missed and victims were not served justice.

2015, Laura Gail Pettler, Crime Scene Staging Dynamics in Homicide Cases, page 24

(by extension) The arrangement or layout of something in order to create an impression.


butchered

a butchered translation of Horace

(by extension) Taken apart, destroyed or (figurative) distorted beyond recognition.


forlorn hope

/fəˌlɔːn ˈhəʊp/

Peninsular War
Siege of San Sebastián
William Barnes Wollen

Sense 1 (“troop of soldiers picked to make an advance attack, or the first attack”) is a mistranslation of Dutch verloren hoop (literally “lost troop”): verloren (“lost”, adjective) + hoop (“(obsolete) unit of soldiers, contingent; heap, pile, stack”), mistaking the latter word for the homograph hoop (“hope”). Verloren is the past participle of verliezen (“to lose (possession); to be defeated, to lose (a game)”) (ultimately from Proto-Germanic *fraleusaną (“to cease to have, lose”), from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“before, in front; first”) + *lewH- (“to cut, sever; to separate; to loosen; to lose”)), while hoop is ultimately from Proto-Germanic *haupaz (“a crowd, throng; a heap, pile”), from Proto-Indo-European *kouHp-nó- or *keHup-.
Sense 2 (“dangerous or hopeless venture”) is either an extension of the meaning of sense 1, or from the literal meaning of the words forlorn and hope.

ref

From Archibald Forbes, G[eorge] A[lfred] Henty, Arthur Griffiths [et al.] (1901) Battles of the Nineteenth Century, London: Cassell and Company, →OCLC.

der

These cases form the forlorn hope in surgery; all saved are snatched from nearly certain death. [From the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions.]

1841 June 23, Rutherford Alcock, “On Injuries of the Joints”, in Jerome V[an] C[rowninsfield] Smith, editor, The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, volume XXIV, number 20, Boston, Mass.: D. Clapp, Jr., […], →OCLC, page 329

Astrological medicine for the sick, indeed, was often the forlorn hope of the art, and the wise man expected it to function primarily as a system of preventative and explanatory physic.

1979, Allan Chapman, “Astrological Medicine”, in Charles Webster, editor, Health, Medicine and Mortality in the Sixteenth Century, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, page 275

[H]e was not so much stalking us as clinging importunately, frantically, a mortal cripple, to us, as his only distant forlorn hope of help, and by his very silence sending out an imploring Mayday stating that he could neither answer nor surface, was marooned in the deep.

1988, William Brinkley, “The Companion”, in The Last Ship: […], New York, N.Y.: Plume, published 2013, book III (The Search), page 171

Finally, on June 7, after steaming about in the vicinity of Cuba with some forlorn hope of gaining entry to a U.S. port, the ship began a return voyage.

2014, Fred Schruers, “Living Here in Levittown”, in Billy Joel: The Definitive Biography, New York, N.Y.: Three Rivers Press, part I (Origins: The Ballad of Billy the Kid), page 15

(by extension) Any dangerous or hopeless venture.


propine

en-verb

propine (third-person singular simple present propines, present participle propining, simple past and past participle propined)

propines (present singular third-person)
propining (participle present)
propined (participle past)
propined (past)

Latin propinō, Ancient Greek προπῑ́νω (propī́nō, “to drink to someone's health”).

der

(by extension) To give in token of friendship.


Mount Rushmore

/ˌmaʊnt ˈɹʌʃmɔː(ɹ)/

Named after businessman Charles E. Rushmore (1857–1931).

named-after

In the long run, the companies behind all this technology could emerge from the pandemic as an even greater force in our lives. So said a Mount Rushmore of Times tech reporters: Daisuke Wakabayashi, Jack Nicas, Steve Lohr and Mike Isaac.

2020 March 27, Cade Metz, “The Week in Tech: We’re Testing How Much the Internet Can Handle”, in New York Times

(by extension) The four most important people in a particular field or category.


foot soldier

(figurative, by extension) A rank and file member of an institution, or supporter of a cause.


buskin

Apparently from Old French bousequin, variant of brousequin (compare modern French brodequin), probably from Middle Dutch broseken, of unknown origin.


fundie

He's a Jewish fundie, keeps everything really kosher.

(by extension, derogatory, slang) A religious fundamentalist of any faith.


moleskin

en-noun

moleskin (countable and uncountable, plural moleskins)

→ Catalan: molesquí

→ French: moleskine

→ German: Moleskin

→ Japanese: モールスキン (mōresukin)

→ Polish: moleskin

→ Spanish: moleskine

(by extension, in the plural) Clothing made of this fabric.


houri

From French houri, from Persian حوری (hurî), from Arabic حُورِيّ (ḥūriyy) and Arabic حُورِيَّة (ḥūriyya), adjective and feminine singulative of حُور (ḥūr) from Classical Arabic حُورٌ عِينٌ (ḥūrun ʕīnun, “fair maidens, black-eyed ones”). See أَحْوَر m (ʔaḥwar), حَوْرَاء f (ḥawrāʔ) for the base adjective.

(by extension) Any voluptuous, beautiful woman.


hobgoblin

From hob (“elf”, from Hob, a variant of Rob, short for Robin Goodfellow, an elf in German folklore) + goblin.

af

a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.

1841, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”, in Essays: First Series

Under "Fallacies of Danger," then, is listed the subhead of "The Hobgoblin Argument, or, No Innovation, in which the hobgoblin in question is anarchy; which tremendous spectre has for its forerunner the monster innovation." A hot button like this would presumably elicit a visceral response even from Hamilton whose aversion to the hobgoblin of parliamentary reform was apparently his sole unreasoning reflex.

2004, James Mulvihill, Upstart Talents: Rhetoric and the Career of Reason in English Romantic Disccourse 1790-1820, page 55

However, the public seems to have been able to retain much of its sense of alarm about internal attacks even when the al-Qaeda hobgoblin doesn't actually carry any out.

2011, John Mueller, Mark G. Stewart, Terror, Security, and Money: Balancing the Risks, Benefits, and Costs of Homeland Security, page 190

(by extension) A source of dread, fear or apprehension; a bugbear.


greenie

From green + -ie. Environmentalist sense first attested in Australia in 1973, referring to trade unionists who supported green bans.

(Australian politics, informal, by extension) A member of the Green Party.


moth-eaten

en-adj

moth-eaten (comparative more moth-eaten, superlative most moth-eaten)

more moth-eaten (comparative)
most moth-eaten (superlative)

(figurative, by extension) Old and in poor condition.


off-key

off-key (comparative more off-key, superlative most off-key)

more off-key (comparative)
most off-key (superlative)

(by extension) Not harmonious, or out of accord.


off-ramp

And at least for now, there is no discernible off-ramp for the Russian leader short of declaring a cease-fire or pulling back his forces — steps he has so far shown no interest in taking.

2022 March 4, David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt, Julian E. Barnes, “Washington’s Newest Worry: The Dangers of Cornering Putin”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

An adviser to the Ukrainian government said the comments showed that attempts to negotiate with Putin or find an “off-ramp” from the conflict for Putin, as French president, Emmanuel Macron, has sought to do, were misguided.

2022 June 10, Andrew Roth, “Putin compares himself to Peter the Great in quest to take back Russian lands”, in The Guardian

Mr. Katzenberg, who moonlights as a top Biden official and has worked with Mr. Clooney on philanthropy for decades, reached out to him to see if there was an off-ramp, according to three people familiar with the matter.

2024 July 11, Theodore Schleifer, Jacob Bernstein, Reid J. Epstein, “How Biden Lost George Clooney and Hollywood”, in The New York Times, →ISSN


endgame

Being stuck with two V tiles can make for an awkward Scrabble endgame.

(by extension) The final stage of any game.


popeyed

popeyed (comparative more popeyed, superlative most popeyed)

more popeyed (comparative)
most popeyed (superlative)


growing pains

(by extension) difficulties that arise in the early stages of any project


moonscape

In the Australian outback, industrial activity — notably open-pit coal mining — has turned verdant areas into moonscapes seemingly overnight, and the suicide rate in the region has skyrocketed.

2007 December 20, Clive Thompson, “Clive Thompson on How the Next Victim of Climate Change Will Be Our Minds”, in Wired Magazine, number 16.01, archived from the original on 2013-06-30

Looking across the recently flattened, desolate moonscape of this former 52-acre Great Western depot and industrial area, south of Willesden Junction in west London, it's hard to imagine it will be home to the UK's largest, busiest and best-connected new railway station since Victorian times.

2020 July 15, Marion Gourlay, “Old Oak Common: no ordinary station”, in Rail, page 48

(by extension) A desolate or devastated landscape.


burgeoning

/ˈbɜː.d͡ʒə.nɪŋ/

/ˈbɝː.d͡ʒə.nɪŋ/

(by extension) A new growth or expansion of something.


MOD

en-noun

MOD (countable and uncountable, plural MODs)

(military, by extension) Initialism of ministry of defense. (not retricted to the British War Ministry)


bow and scrape

en-verb

bow and scrape (third-person singular simple present bows and scrapes, present participle bowing and scraping, simple past and past participle bowed and scraped)

bows and scrapes (present singular third-person)
bowing and scraping (participle present)
bowed and scraped (participle past)
bowed and scraped (past)

But he is not one of those lawyers who bow and scrape before wealthy clients. He will not be pushed around.

1988 March 27, Newgate Callendar, "Crime" (book review of The Vulgar Boatman by William G. Tapply), New York Times (retrieved 25 Nov 2012)

(idiomatic, by extension) To behave in a servile, obsequious, or excessively polite manner.