force

en-noun

force (countable and uncountable, plural forces)

From Middle English force, fors, forse, from Old French force, from Late Latin fortia, a noun derived from the neuter plural of Latin fortis (“strong”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerǵʰ- (“to rise, high, hill”).

der

non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger

The Europeans tried, my goodness how they tried. But on the day the US proved too strong and too inspired. They were, dammit, just better. And when Leonard's putt dropped they clearly had the force with them as well.

1999 September 28, Mike Selvey, “Crenshaw vindicated by a chain reaction”, in The Guardian:

The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.

2005, George Lucas, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, spoken by Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), published 2005:

(humorous or science fiction, with the, often capitalized) A metaphysical and ubiquitous power from the fictional Star Wars universe created by George Lucas. See usage note.

voima

science fiction: binding, metaphysical, and ubiquitous power


underlay

/ˈʌndəɹˌleɪ/

From Middle English underlay, underlei, equivalent to under- + lay.

(printing, historical) A piece of paper pasted under woodcuts, stereotype plates, etc. in a form, to bring them up to the necessary level for printing.


thunder

en-noun

thunder (countable and uncountable, plural thunders)

→ Alemannic German: Thönder

→ Japanese: サンダー (sandā)

→ Tagalog: tanders

→ Tok Pisin: tanda

From Middle English thunder, thonder, thundre, thonre, thunnere, þunre, from Old English þunor (“thunder”), from Proto-West Germanic *þunr, from Proto-Germanic *þunraz, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ten-, *(s)tenh₂- (“to thunder”).
Compare astound, astonish, stun. Germanic cognates include West Frisian tonger, Dutch donder, German Donner, Old Norse Þórr (English Thor), Danish torden, Norwegian Nynorsk tore. Other cognates include Persian تندر (tondar), Latin tonō, detonō, Ancient Greek στένω (sténō), στενάζω (stenázō), στόνος (stónos), Στέντωρ (Sténtōr), Irish torann, Welsh taran, Gaulish Taranis. Doublet of donner, Thunor, and Thor.

Adam's fall and Vico's thunder are embodied in a word of a hundred letters, the first of ten thunders in the Wake.

1996, William York Tindall, A Reader's Guide to Finnegans Wake, page 31:


race

race (countable and uncountable, plural races)

1560s, via Middle French race from Italian razza (early 14th century), of uncertain origin. Partially displaced native Middle English kinde (“kind, type, sort, race, nature”), whence English kind.
theories
* Diez and some other scholars suggest derivation from Proto-Germanic *raitō (whence Old High German reiza (“line”) and Old Norse ríta (“to score, log, outline”)), perhaps via Lombardic *raiza (“line”), which Körting notes is a literal rendering of Latin linea sanguinis (“bloodline of descent”). Anatoly Liberman says "the semantic fit is good" but the chronology falters; he says the Germanic word went out of use before the Italian word arose, and he says the intermediary is not attested.
* Some scholars suggest derivation from Old Spanish raza, rasa, from earlier ras, res (“head of cattle”), from Arabic رَأْس (raʔs, “head”), but Italian razza predates the Spanish word according to Diez and Meyer-Lübke.
* Meyer-Lübke suggested Latin generatio as the root; Körting says "the disappearance of two initial syllables hardly seems credible", but Meyer-Lübke notes the Venetian form narazza and the Old Bellunesian form naraccia, positing that after the first syllable ge- was lost, the remaining (una) narazza came to be reanalysed as una razza.
* Gianfranco Contini suggests the Italian word comes from Old French haraz (“troop of horses”), whence Modern French haras (“breeding farm for horses; stud farm”), from Old Norse hárr (“grey-haired; hoary”). Liberman considers this derivation the most likely.
* Other suggested Latin etyma:
** radius (perhaps via Vulgar Latin *radia) (per Baist).
** radix (“root”) (per Ulrich); Liberman says "the semantic match is excellent", and race (“rhizome of ginger”) (which definitely derives from radix) shows that the phonology is plausible.
** *raptiare (“breed falcons”) (per Körting).
** The nominative of ratio (perhaps via an unattested intermediate form *razzo), as opposed to ragione which derives from the accusative rationem.
* Other implausible suggestions include Slavic raz and Basque arraca, supposedly meaning "stud animal" (Basque arrazza, "race", derives from Spanish).

raça

a group of sentient beings distinguished by common characteristics

عِرْق

a large group of people distinguished from others on the basis of physical characteristics

raça

a group of organisms distinguished by common characteristics

A treaty was concluded between the race of elves and the race of men.

There are two distinct races of gods known to Norse mythology[.]

1898, Herman Isidore Stern, The gods of our fathers: a study of Saxon mythology, page 15:

Imagine a race of aliens that develops on a dimly lit world perpetually shrouded in clouds so that vision would be less useful for survival than on Earth.

1999, Clifford A. Pickover, The Science of Aliens, page 47:

Tali: My father is responsible for the lives of seventeen million people—our entire race is in his hands. And I'm his only child.

2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Normandy SR-1:

A group of sentient beings, particularly people, distinguished by common ancestry, heritage or characteristics (see Wikipedia's article on historical definitions of race):

(fantasy, science fiction, mythology) A large group of nonhumans distinguished from others on the basis of a common heritage.


bubble

Partly imitative, also influenced by burble. Compare Middle Dutch bobbe (“bubble”) > Dutch bubbel (“bubble”), Low German bubbel (“bubble”), Danish boble (“bubble”), Swedish bubbla (“bubble”). The word was first used in its economic sense in association with the collapse of the South Sea Company in 1720, based on the metaphor of an inflated soap bubble bursting.

onom

imitative

A bare lamp (bulb, globe, 'bubble') radiates light in all directions.

2013, Gerald Millerson, Lighting for TV and Film, page 296:

(television, slang) A bulb or lamp; the part of a lighting assembly that actually produces the light.


face

→ Danish: fjæs

→ Norwegian:

Norwegian Bokmål: fjes

Norwegian Nynorsk: fjes

→ Swedish: fejs, fjäs

→ Wu: 番斯 (¹fe-sy)

Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-?
Latin faciēs
Late Latin facia
Old French facebor.
Middle English face
English face
From Middle English face, from Old French face, from Late Latin facia, from Latin faciēs (“form, appearance”). Doublet of facies. Displaced native onlete (“face, countenance, appearance”), anleth (“face”), from Old English anwlite, andwlita, compare German Antlitz; Old English ansīen (“face”), Middle English neb (“face, nose”) (from Old English nebb), Middle English ler, leor, leer (“face, cheek, countenance”) (from Old English hlēor), and non-native Middle English vis (“face, appearance, look”) (from Old French vis) and Middle English chere (“face”) from Old French chere.
In the sense of face as in reputation, influenced by Chinese 面子 (miànzi) or 臉／脸 (liǎn), both of which mean literally the front of the head and metaphorically one's public image. See lose face.

noncog

talk to the hand 'cause the face ain't listening

For the typophiles reading this, the book is attractively designed. It is set in Classic Aldine, a handsome face akin to the more popular Palatino. The designer's work is unfortunately marred by indifferent printing.

1982 August 28, Mark McHarry, “A Minor Delight”, in Gay Community News, volume 10, number 7, page 12:


weight

en-noun

weight (countable and uncountable, plural weights)

Belizean Creole: wayt

→ Japanese: ウエイト (ueito)

→ Burmese: ဝိတ် (wit)

From Middle English weight, weiȝte, weght, wight, from Old English wiht, ġewiht (“weight”), from Proto-Germanic *wihtiz ("weight"; compare *weganą (“to move”)), from Proto-Indo-European *weǵʰ- (“to move; pull; draw; drive”). Equivalent to weigh + -th.
Cognate with Scots wecht, weicht (“weight”), Saterland Frisian Wächte (“scale”), Gewicht (“weight”), West Frisian gewicht (“weight”), Dutch gewicht (“weight”), German Low German Wicht, Gewicht (“weight”), German Wucht (“massiveness, force”), Gewicht (“weight”).

gloss

"weight"; compare <i class="Latn mention" lang="gem-pro">*weganą</i> (“to move”)

inh

font weight

(typography) The boldness of a font; the relative thickness of its strokes.


human

From Late Middle English humayne, humain, from Middle French humain, from Old French humain, umain, from Latin hūmānus m (“of or belonging to a man, human, humane”, adjective), from homo, with unclear ū. Spelling human has been predominant since the early 18th century. Not etymologically related to man.

der

чолові́к m (čolovík) (now usually means "man", "male human")

Greetings. I am Blor-Utar from Zimtok-5. I have come to subjugate the human race. Do not resist. Why humans? Because, in addition to their value as slave labor, they are also delicious and nutritious!

1994 March 29, Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes:

(strictly, biology) The tallest, most abundant and most intelligent of the primates; Homo sapiens.

(fantasy, science fiction, mythology) A human as contrasted from superficially similar but typically more powerful humanoid creatures; a member of the human race.

Greetings, human! You have stumbled into the dimension of the Snow People.[…]Flesh plows clear the streets to make them safe to drive.[…]Does this shock you, human? Do the ways of our world open your eyes to the truths of your own?

2011 December 29, Alex Culang, Raynato Castro, Buttersafe (webcomic):

(fantasy, science fiction) A term of address for any human, often implying the listener's species is their only noteworthy trait.


prove

en-verb

prove (third-person singular simple present proves, present participle proving, simple past proved, past participle proved or proven)

proves (present singular third-person)
proving (participle present)
proved (past)
proved (participle past)
proven (participle past)
prove (infinitive)

From Middle English proven, from Old English prōfian (“to esteem, regard as, evince, try, prove”) and Old French prover (“to prove”), both from Latin probō (“test, try, examine, approve, show to be good or fit, prove”, verb), from probus (“good, worthy, excellent”), from Proto-Indo-European *pro-bʰuH-s (“being in front, prominent”), from *pro-, *per- (“toward”) + *bʰuH- (“to be”). Displaced native Middle English sothen (“to prove”), from Old English sōþian (“to prove”). Doublet of probe. More at for, be, soothe.

der

to prove a page

(printing, dated, transitive) To take a trial impression of; to take a proof of.


card

en-noun

card (countable and uncountable, plural cards)

→ Bengali: কার্ড (karḍo)

→ Burmese: ကတ် (kat)

→ Chinese: 卡 (kǎ)

→ Gujarati: કાર્ડ (kārḍ)

→ Hausa: kati

→ Hindi: कार्ड (kārḍ)

→ Italian: card

→ Japanese: カード (kādo)

→ Korean: 카드 (kadeu)

→ Malay: kad

→ Pashto: کارډ (kārḍ)

Pitcairn-Norfolk: kaad

→ Sinhalese: කාඩ් (kāḍ)

→ Swahili: kadi

→ Tagalog: kard

→ Urdu: کارڈ (kārḍ)

From Middle English carde (“playing card”), from Old French carte, from Latin charta, from Ancient Greek χάρτης (khártēs, “paper, papyrus”). Doublet of chart.

der

(television) A title card or intertitle: a piece of filmed, printed text edited into the midst of the photographed action at various points, generally to convey character dialogue or descriptive narrative material related to the plot.


blow

From Middle English blowe, blaw, northern variant of blēwe, from Proto-Germanic *blewwaną (“to beat”) (compare Old Norse blegði (“wedge”), German einbläuen, Middle Dutch blouwen). Related to block.

The blow is important because it transitions the reader and eventually the audience from one scene to another.

2014, Martie Cook, Write to TV: Out of Your Head and onto the Screen, page 105:

(television) Synonym of button (“the punchy or suspenseful line of dialogue that concludes a scene”)


bourgeois

/bəɹˈd͡ʒɔɪs/

From Middle English burjois, from French Bourgois, probably from Bourges (a city in France) + -ois (forming adjectives) but possibly from bourgeois above or after Jean de Bourgeois who worked as a printer in Rouen c. 1500.

(printing, dated) A size of type between brevier and long primer, standardized as 9-point.


lay

en-verb

lay (third-person singular simple present lays, present participle laying, simple past laid, past participle laid or (colloquial) lain)

lays (present singular third-person)
laying (participle present)
laid (past)
laid (participle past)
lain (colloquial participle past)
lay (infinitive)

Inherited from Middle English leyen, leggen, from Old English leċġan (“to lay”), from Proto-West Germanic *laggjan, from Proto-Germanic *lagjaną (“to lay”), causative form of Proto-Germanic *ligjaną (“to lie, recline”), from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ- (“to lie, recline”).
Cognate with West Frisian lizze (“to lay, to lie”), Dutch leggen (“to lay”), German legen (“to lay”), Norwegian Bokmål legge (“to lay”), Norwegian Nynorsk leggja (“to lay”), Swedish lägga (“to lay”), Icelandic leggja (“to lay”), Albanian lag (“troop, band, war encampment”).

cog

the best laid plans of mice and men go oft astray

the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry

(printing) To place and arrange (pages) for a form upon the imposing stone.

(printing) To place (new type) properly in the cases.


lead

en-noun

lead (countable and uncountable, plural leads)

From Middle English led, leed, from Old English lēad (“lead”), from Proto-West Germanic *laud (“lead”), possibly borrowed from Proto-Celtic *ɸloudom, from Proto-Indo-European *plewd- (“to flow”).
Cognate with Scots leid, lede (“lead”), North Frisian lud, luad (“lead”), West Frisian lead (“lead”), Dutch lood (“lead”), German Lot (“solder, plummet, sounding line”), Swedish lod (“solder, plummet”), Icelandic lóð (“a plumb, weight”), Irish luaidhe (“lead”) Latin plumbum (“lead”), Finnish luoti (“bullet”). Doublet of loth. More at flow.
* (graphite in a pencil): Graphite was once believed to be a form of lead; see black lead and plumbago.

cog

This copy has too much lead; I prefer less space between the lines.

(uncountable, typography) Vertical space in advance of a row or between rows of text. Also known as leading.


lead

en-verb

lead (third-person singular simple present leads, present participle leading, simple past and past participle leaded)

leads (present singular third-person)
leading (participle present)
leaded (participle past)
leaded (past)

to lead a page

leaded matter

(transitive, printing, historical) To place leads between the lines of.

odsadit

printing: place leads between the lines of


lead

From Middle English leden, from Old English lǣdan (“to lead”), from Proto-West Germanic *laidijan, from Proto-Germanic *laidijaną (“to cause one to go, lead”), causative of Proto-Germanic *līþaną (“to go”), from Proto-Indo-European *leyt- (“to leave, die”).
Cognate with West Frisian liede (“to lead”), Dutch leiden (“to lead”), German leiten (“to lead”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål lede (“to lead”), Norwegian Nynorsk leia (“to lead”), Swedish leda (“to lead”). Related to Old English līþan (“to go, travel”).

der

"You make moving pictures. In jungles and places." "That's me. And I've picked you for the lead in my next picture."

1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 43:

(acting, theater) The main role in a play or film; the lead role.

(acting) The actor who plays the main role; lead actor.

(US, journalism) The introductory paragraph or paragraphs of a newspaper, or a news or other type of article. (Sometimes spelled as lede for this usage to avoid ambiguity.)


basket

en-verb

basket (third-person singular simple present baskets, present participle basketing, simple past and past participle basketed)

baskets (present singular third-person)
basketing (participle present)
basketed (participle past)
basketed (past)

From Middle English basket, from Anglo-Norman bascat, of obscure origin.
One theory is that it derives from Late Latin bascauda (“kettle, table-vessel”), from Proto-Brythonic (in Breton baskodenn), from Proto-Celtic *baskis (“bundle, load”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰask- (“bundle”). Related to Latin fascis (“bundle, package, load”). Doublet of fasces.

unk

obscure

der

Foreign language paperback, serial and book club would be basketed together in a 50/50 subsidiary rights clause.

1974, Publishers Weekly, volume 206, numbers 1-14, page 70:

It may very well be that such "basketing" of hardcover, paperback, movie, and other rights within the divisions of […]

1981, Thomas Whiteside, The Blockbuster Complex:

(transitive, publishing) To cross-collateralize the royalty advances for multiple works so that the creator is not paid until all of those works have achieved a certain level of success.


business

en-noun

business (countable and uncountable, plural businesses)

Tok Pisin: bisnis

→ Albanian: biznes

→ Belarusian: бі́знэс (bíznes)

→ Bulgarian: би́знес (bíznes)

→ Czech: business, byznys

→ Dutch: business

→ Indonesian: bisnis, bisnes

→ Faroese: besnissaður

→ Finnish: bisnes, business

→ French: business

→ Haitian Creole: biznis

→ Italian: business

→ Japanese: ビジネス (bijinesu)

→ Jersey Dutch: bääznäs

→ Marshallese: peejnej

→ Moroccan Arabic: بزناس (biznās)

desc

→ Newar: बनय्ज्या (banêjyā), बनेज्या (banejyā)

→ Pennsylvania German: Bisniss

→ Polish: biznes

→ Romanian: bișniță

desctree

→ Russian: би́знес (bíznes), би́знесъ (bíznɛs) — Pre-reform orthography (1918)
→ Armenian: բիզնես (biznes)
→ Yakut: биисинэс (biisines)

→ Slovak: biznis

→ Spanish: bisnes

→ Tatar: business

→ Ukrainian: бі́знес (bíznes)

→ Welsh: busnes

From Middle English busines, busynes, businesse, bisynes, from Old English bisiġnes (“business, busyness”), equivalent to busy + -ness. Doublet of busyness.

business

action carried out with a prop or piece of clothing

business in the front, party in the back

The business with the hat is a fine example of the difficulty of distinguishing between 'natural' and 'formal' acting.

1983, Peter Thomson, Shakespeare's Theatre, →ISBN, page 155:

(acting, theater) Ellipsis of stage business (“aspect of acting”)..


come

There be five manner of points and divisions most used among cunning men; the which if they be well used, make the sentence very light and easy to be understood, both to the reader and hearer: and they be these, virgil,—come,—parenthesis,—plain point,—interrogative.

Whoever introduced the several points, it seems that a full-point, a point called come, answering to our colon-point, a point called virgil answering to our comma-point, the parenthesis-points and interrogative-point, were used at the close of the fourteenth, or beginning of the fifteenth century.

1842, F. Francillon, An Essay on Punctuation, page 9:

(typography, obsolete) Alternative form of comma in its medieval use as a middot ⟨·⟩ serving as a form of colon.

comma in its medieval use as a middot serving as a form of colon


bug

First attested in this form around 1620 (referring to a bedbug), from earlier bugge (“beetle”), a conflation of two words:
# Middle English bugge (“scarecrow, hobgoblin”), perhaps from obsolete Welsh bwg ("ghost, hobgoblin"; compare Welsh bwgwl ("threat", older "fear")) or from Proto-Germanic *bugja- (“swollen up, thick”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰew-, *bu- (“to swell”) (compare Norwegian bugge (“big man”), dialectal Low German Bögge (“goblin”, “snot”)). Or, from a word related to buck and originally referring to a goat-shaped spectre.
# Middle English budde (“beetle”), from Old English budda (see sċearnbudda (“dung beetle”)), from Proto-Germanic *buddô, *buzdô, from the same ultimate source as above (compare Low German Budde (“louse, grub”), Norwegian budda (“newborn domestic animal”)). More at bud.
The term is used to refer to technical errors and problems at least as early as the 19th century, predating the commonly known story of a moth being caught in a computer.

cog

given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow

Channel 4's bug distracted Jim from his favorite show.

(broadcasting) A small, usually transparent or translucent image placed in a corner of a television program to identify the broadcasting network or cable channel.

logo

a small image placed in a corner of a television program


drive

en-noun

drive (countable and uncountable, plural drives)

[d̠ɹ̠ ̝ʷaɪv]

From Middle English driven, from Old English drīfan (“to drive, force, move”), from Proto-West Germanic *drīban, from Proto-Germanic *drībaną (“to drive”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰreybʰ- (“to drive, push”).
Cognates
Cognate with Scots drive (“to drive”), North Frisian driwe (“to drive”), Saterland Frisian drieuwe (“to drive”), West Frisian driuwe (“to chase, drive, impel”), Dutch drijven (“to drive”), Low German drieven (“to drive, drift, push”), German treiben (“to drive, push, propel”), Norwegian Bokmål drive, Danish drive (“to drive, run, force”), Norwegian Nynorsk driva, Swedish driva (“to drive, power, drift, push, force”), Icelandic drífa (“to drive, hurry, rush”).

cog

(typography) An impression or matrix formed by a punch drift.


hard

en-adj

hard (comparative harder or more hard, superlative hardest or most hard)

harder (comparative)
more hard (comparative)
hardest (superlative)
most hard (superlative)

→ Finnish: haarti

→ Spanish: hard

From Middle English hard, from Old English heard, from Proto-West Germanic *hard(ī), from Proto-Germanic *harduz, from Proto-Indo-European *kort-ús, from *kret- (“strong, powerful”). Cognate with German hart, Swedish hård, Ancient Greek κρατύς (kratús), Sanskrit क्रतु (krátu), Avestan 𐬑𐬭𐬀𐬙𐬎 (xratu).

صَعْب

requiring a lot of effort to do or understand


button

→ German: Button

→ Hindi: बटन (baṭan)

→ Gujarati: બટન (baṭan)

→ Korean: 버튼 (beoteun)

→ Maori: pātene

→ Marathi: बटण (baṭaṇ)

→ Urdu: بَٹَن (baṭan)

From Middle English boton, botoun, from Old French boton (Modern French bouton), from Old French bouter, boter (“to push; thrust”), ultimately from a Germanic language. Doublet of Biden and beat. More at butt.

One thing you definitely don't want to do is write past the button. For example, a scene's natural button might run something like this:
TONY: That kind of talk is exactly what I'm talking about.
Whereas an example of writing past the button would sound something like this:
TONY: That kind of talk is exactly what I'm talking about.
CARMELLA: Okay. 'Bye.
TONY: Bye.

2006, David Kukoff, Vault Guide to Television Writing Careers, page 77:

(television) The punchy or suspenseful line of dialogue that concludes a scene.


cut

en-verb

cut (third-person singular simple present cuts, present participle cutting, simple past cut or (nonstandard) cutted, past participle cut or (archaic) cutten)

cuts (present singular third-person)
cutting (participle present)
cut (past)
cutted (nonstandard past)
cut (participle past)
cutten (archaic participle past)

From Middle English cutten, kitten, kytten, ketten (“to cut”) (compare Scots kut, kit (“to cut”)), of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse *kytja, *kutta, from Proto-Germanic *kutjaną, *kuttaną (“to cut”), of uncertain origin, perhaps related to Proto-Germanic *kwetwą (“meat, flesh”) (compare Old Norse kvett (“meat”)). Akin to Middle Swedish kotta (“to cut or carve with a knife”) (compare dialectal Swedish kåta, kuta (“to cut or chip with a knife”), Swedish kuta, kytti (“a knife”)), Norwegian Bokmål kutte (“to cut”), Norwegian Nynorsk kutte (“to cut”), Icelandic kuta (“to cut with a knife”), Old Norse kuti (“small knife”), Norwegian kyttel, kytel, kjutul (“pointed slip of wood used to strip bark”). Displaced native Middle English snithen (from Old English snīþan; compare German schneiden), which still survives in some dialects as snithe or snead. See snide. Adjective sense of "drunk" (now rare and now usually used in the originally jocular derivative form of half-cut) dates from the 17th century, from cut in the leg, to have cut your leg, euphemism for being very drunk.

tondi

to cut out fabric to specific lengths and shapes to make clothes

klippa bort

remove a portion during editing of a tape

cut the ground from under someone's feet

one's stomach thinks one's throat has been cut

you could cut the atmosphere with a knife

The camera then cut to the woman on the front row who was clearly overcome and crying tears of joy.

(intransitive, film) To make an abrupt transition from one scene or image to another.

(transitive, film) To edit a film by selecting takes from original footage.


cut

en-noun

cut (countable and uncountable, plural cuts)

leikkaus

notch, passage, or channel made by cutting or digging

The director asked the cast to note down the following cuts.

(especially theater, film) A passage omitted or to be omitted from a play, movie script, speech, etc.

the director's cut

(film) A particular version or edit of a film.

versio

cinema: particular version or edit of a film


cut

(film and television) An instruction to cease recording.


polecat

From Middle English polcat, pulkat, of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Middle English *pole, *poule (“hen”), from Old French poule (“hen”) + Middle English cat. Compare English foulmart.

This is adjustable telescopic tubing, wedged securely between floor and ceiling (vertical pole) or wall-to-wall (horizontal pole), within corridors, arches, window openings, doorways, etc. It may be held in position by a strong internal spring or end-screws. Designs include polecat, varipole, barricuda, jack tube, Acrow.

1991, Gerald Millerson, The Technique of Lighting for Television and Film, page 323:

This uses a battery-operated HMI/MSR 200 W rigged on a magic arm fastened to a vertical 'pole-cat'. Check that the car roof is suitable for this application and remember to include a clean card (beer mat) between the top of the pole-cat and the car roof!

2013, Alan Bermingham, Location Lighting for Television, page 196:

(television) A tubular device used to support lights on a set.


overrun

en-verb

overrun (third-person singular simple present overruns, present participle overrunning, simple past overran, past participle overrun)

overruns (present singular third-person)
overrunning (participle present)
overran (past)
overrun (participle past)

/ˌəʊ.vəˈɹʌn/

/ˌoʊ.vɚˈɹʌn/

(printing) To carry (some type, a line or column, etc.) backward or forward into an adjacent line or page.


CSS

en-noun

CSS (countable and uncountable, plural CSSs or CSSes)

The CSS has found its most productive use in DVDs containing motion pictures, and the movie industry invested heavily in the technology employed to produce CSSs in order to avoid the kind of mass copying that became prevalent with regard to music CDs in the late 1990s.

2008, John W. Hazard, Copyright Law in Business and Practice, West Group, →ISBN, page 86:

Content Scramble System
w:Content Scramble System

(media, DVD) Initialism of Content Scramble System, a DRM and encryption system for DVDs.


apex

Borrowed from Latin apex (“point, tip, summit”).

The highest or the greatest part of something, especially forming a point.

A diacritic in Classical Latin that resembles and gave rise to the acute.

A diacritic in Middle Vietnamese that indicates /ŋ͡m/.

Coordinate term: vertex

A sharp upward point formed by two strokes that meet at an acute angle, as in "W", uppercase "A", and closed-top "4", or by a tapered stroke, as in lowercase "t".


tell

en-verb

tell (third-person singular simple present tells, present participle telling, simple past and past participle told or (dialectal or nonstandard) telled)

tells (present singular third-person)
telling (participle present)
told (participle past)
told (past)
telled (dialectal participle past)
telled (dialectal past)
tell (infinitive)

From Middle English tellen (“to count, tell”), from Old English tellan (“to count, tell”), from Proto-West Germanic *talljan, from Proto-Germanic *taljaną, *talzijaną (“to count, enumerate”), from Proto-Germanic *talą, *talǭ (“number, counting”), from Proto-Indo-European *dol- (“calculation, fraud”).
Cognate with Saterland Frisian tälle (“to say; tell”), West Frisian telle (“to count”), West Frisian fertelle (“to tell, narrate”), Dutch tellen (“to count”) and Dutch vertellen (“to tell”), Low German tellen (“to count”), German zählen, Faroese telja. More at tale.

cog

piss on someone's leg and tell them it's raining

Maria rewrote the section of her novel that talked about Meg and Sage's friendship to have less telling and more showing.

(authorship, intransitive) To reveal information in prose through outright expository statement — contrasted with show.


bridge

From Middle English brigge, from Old English brycġ (“bridge”), from Proto-Germanic *brugjō, *brugjǭ (“bridge”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerw-, *bʰrēw- (“wooden flooring, decking, bridge”).
Cognate with Scots brig, brigg, breeg (“bridge”), Saterland Frisian Brääch (“bridge”), West Frisian brêge (“bridge”), Dutch brug (“bridge”), German Brücke (“bridge”), Danish brygge (“wharf”), Icelandic brygga (“pier”), Gaulish briua (“bridge”).
The verb is from Middle English briggen, from Old English brycġian (“to bridge, make a causeway, pave”), derived from the noun. Cognate with Dutch bruggen (“to bridge”), Middle Low German bruggen (“to bridge”), Old High German bruccōn (“to bridge”) (whence Modern German brücken).
The musical connection sense is a semantic loan from German Steg, from Old High German steg.

ацҳа

construction or natural feature that spans a divide

if someone told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it

(poetry) A point in a line where a break in a word unit cannot occur.


crisis

From Latin crisis, from Ancient Greek κρίσις (krísis, “a separating, power of distinguishing, decision, choice, election, judgment, dispute”), from κρίνω (krínō, “pick out, choose, decide, judge”).

(drama) A point in a drama at which a conflict reaches a peak before being resolved.


body

en-noun

body (countable and uncountable, plural bodies)

Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *bʰewdʰ-
Proto-West Germanic *bodag
Old English bodiġ
Middle English bodi
English body
From Middle English bodi, bodiȝ, from Old English bodiġ (“body, trunk, chest, torso, height, stature”), from Proto-West Germanic *bodag (“body, trunk”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰewdʰ- (“to be awake, observe”). Cognate with Old High German botah (whence Swabian Bottich (“body, torso”)).

der

body-focused repetitive behavior disorder

a nonpareil face on an agate body

The stemless notes could have been cast on a body as short as 4 mm but were probably cast on bodies of the standard 14 mm size for ease of composition.

1992, Mary Kay Duggan, Italian Music Incunabula: Printers and Type, page 99:

(printing) The shank of a type, or the depth of the shank (by which the size is indicated).


crush

en-noun

crush (countable and uncountable, plural crushes)

From Middle English cruschen (“to crush, smash, squeeze, squash”), from Old French croissir (“to crush”), from Late Latin *crusciō (“to brush”), from Frankish *krustijan (“to crush, squeeze, squash”), from Proto-Germanic *kreustaną (“to crush, grind, strike, smash”). Cognate with Middle Low German tokrosten (“to crush, shatter”).
Akin also to Middle Dutch crosen (“to bruise, crush”), Middle Low German krossen, krȫsen (“to break, shatter”), Old Swedish krusa (“to crush”), Swedish krysta (“to squeeze”), Danish kryste (“to squash”), Icelandic kreista (“to squeeze, squash”), Faroese kroysta (“to squeeze”), Gothic 𐌺𐍂𐌹𐌿𐍃𐍄𐌰𐌽 (kriustan, “to gnash”).

cog

black crush; white crush

(television, uncountable) The situation where certain colors are so similar as to be hard to distinguish, either as a deliberate effect or as a limitation of a display.


crush

en-verb

crush (third-person singular simple present crushes, present participle crushing, simple past and past participle crushed)

crushes (present singular third-person)
crushing (participle present)
crushed (participle past)
crushed (past)

He frames his subject in distant close-ups (we feel the distance, due mostly to the crushed perspective brought about by the telephoto lens).

2003, Michel Chion, The Films of Jacques Tati, page 78:

They realise that trajectories, space expansion and crushing are different with different lenses, whether wide angle or telephoto, and that actors' eyelines will be altered.

2010, Birgit Bräuchler, John Postill, Theorising Media and Practice, page 319:

(film, television) To give a compressed or foreshortened appearance to.

My old TV set crushes the blacks when the brightness is lowered.

(transitive, television) To make certain colors so similar as to be hard to distinguish, either as a deliberate effect or as a limitation of a display.


shot

en-noun

shot (countable and uncountable, plural shots)

→ Dutch: shot

→ French: shot

→ Macedonian: шот (šot)

→ Malay: syot

→ Polish: shot

→ Portuguese: shot

→ Russian: шот (šot)

→ Spanish: shot

→ Swedish: shot

→ Ukrainian: шот (šot)

From Old English sceot, from Proto-Germanic *skutą; compare the doublet scot.

you miss 100% of the shots you don't take

We got a good shot of the hummingbirds mating.

Even if everyone else is taking close-up shots of the crumpled body of a rock climber who fell to his death, and your photographer did too, maybe you don't feel the need to air that shot.

2004, Robert Thompson, Cindy Malone, The Broadcast Journalism Handbook: A Television News Survival Guide, →ISBN, page 4:

On arrival at Birmingham New Street, I make my way upstairs to the mezzanine to get shots of an almost deserted concourse, polka-dotted with social distancing circles like some strange board-game.

2020 December 2, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and wackiest Rover yet”, in Rail, page 68:

(photography, film) A single snapshot or an unbroken sequence of photographic film exposures, or the digital equivalent; an unedited sequence of frames.

لَقْطَة

photography: single unbroken sequence of photographic exposures


speed

From Middle English spede (“prosperity, good luck, quickness, success”), from Old English spēd (“success”), from Proto-West Germanic *spōdi (“prosperity, success”), from Proto-West Germanic *spōan, from Proto-Germanic *spōaną (“to prosper, succeed, be happy”), from Proto-Indo-European *speh₁- (“to prosper, turn out well”). Cognate with Scots spede, speid (“success, quickness, speed”), Dutch spoed (“haste; speed”), German Low German Spood (“haste; speed; eagerness; success”), German Sput (“progress, acceleration, haste”). Related also to Old English spōwan (“to be successful, succeed”), Albanian shpejt (“to speed, to hurry”) and Russian спеши́ть (spešítʹ, “to hurry”), Latin spēs (“hope, expectation”), spērō (“hope”, verb), perhaps also to Ancient Greek σπεύδω (speúdō, “to urge on, hasten, press on”).

cog

“Speed,” Carlos, the soundman, said. […]
“Camera.”
“Rolling,” replied Bryce, the cameraman.

2000, Brian J. Hayes, A Boy Scout in Hollywood, page 30:

[…] the director called, “Roll 'em,” the sound man said, “Speed,” and Norling stepped in and said, […]

2012, Tom Mascaro, Into the Fray, page 52:

(film) Called by the soundman when the recording equipment has reached running speed and is ready to go.


anchor

→ Chuukese: angko

From Middle English anker, from Old English ancor, ancra, from Latin ancora, from (or cognate with) Ancient Greek ἄγκυρα (ánkura). The modern form is a sixteenth-century modification after the Medieval Latin spelling anchora. Doublet of ancora and anker.

Condoleezza Rice pops up on Fox to be told by the anchor: “When you invade a sovereign nation, that is a war crime.”

2022 March 17, Aditya Chakrabortty, “Western values? They enthroned the monster who is shelling Ukrainians today”, in The Guardian:

(television) An anchorman or anchorwoman.


fly

From Middle English flye (“flying, flight”), from Old English flyge (“flying, flight”), from Proto-Germanic *flugiz.

дюкян

strip that hides the opening of trousers/pants or underpants

The person who took the printed sheets from the press.

A vibrating frame with fingers, attached to a power printing press for doing the same work.


machine

→ Ainu: マシン

→ Bengali: মেশিন (meśin)

→ Cowlitz: məšín

→ Hindustani: मशीन (maśīn) / مشین (maśīn)

→ Irish: meaisín

→ Japanese: マシン (mashin)

→ Korean: 머신 (meosin)

→ Maori: mīhini

→ Punjabi

Gurmukhi script: ਮਸ਼ੀਨ (maśīn)

Shahmukhi script: مشین (maśīn)

→ Swahili: mashine

→ Tok Pisin: masin

Borrowed from Middle French machine, from Latin māchina (“a machine, engine, contrivance, device, stratagem, trick”), from Doric Greek μᾱχᾰνᾱ́ (mākhănā́), cognate with Attic Greek μηχᾰνή (mēkhănḗ, “a machine, engine, contrivance, device”), from which comes mechanical. Displaced native Old English searu.

cog

perpetual motion machine of the first kind

perpetual motion machine of the second kind

Outline of machines on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

I am apt to think, that the changing of the Trojan fleet into water-nymphs, which is the most violent machine in the whole Æneid[…]

1712 May 2 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison], “MONDAY, April 21, 1712”, in The Spectator, number 351; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume IV, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC:

(poetry) Supernatural agency in a poem, or a superhuman being introduced to perform some exploit.


distribution

en-noun

distribution (countable and uncountable, plural distributions)

From Old French, from Latin distributio, from distribuere 'to distribute', itself from dis- 'apart' + tribuere 'to' (from tribus).

(printing, historical) The process of sorting the types and placing them in their proper boxes in the cases.


ride

en-verb

ride (third-person singular simple present rides, present participle riding, simple past rode or (obsolete) rade or (obsolete) rid, past participle ridden or (now colloquial and nonstandard) rode)

rides (present singular third-person)
riding (participle present)
rode (past)
rade (obsolete past)
rid (obsolete past)
ridden (participle past)
rode (colloquial nonstandard participle past)

From Middle English riden, from Old English rīdan, from Proto-West Germanic *rīdan, from Proto-Germanic *rīdaną, from Proto-Indo-European *Hreydʰ-, from Proto-Indo-European *h₃reyH-.
Cognates:
From Proto-Germanic: North Frisian ride (“to ride”), Saterland Frisian riede (“to ride”), West Frisian ride (“to ride”), Low German rieden (“to ride”), Dutch rijden (“to ride”), German reiten (“to ride”), Danish ride (“to ride”), Swedish rida (“to ride”).
From Indo-European: Welsh rhwyddhau (“to hurry”).

set a beggar on horseback and he'll ride to the Devil

vocal riding

The board operator normally watches the meter scale marked for modulation percentage, riding the gain to bring volume peaks into the 85% to 100% range.

2006, Simran Kohli, Radio Jockey Handbook:

“You don't want them riding the volume knob, so that's why you learn how to do your levels properly to make the whole thing transparent for the listener. […]

2017, Michael O'Connell, Turn Up the Volume: A Down and Dirty Guide to Podcasting, page 22:

(radio, television, transitive) To monitor (some component of an audiovisual signal) in order to keep it within acceptable bounds.


ride

(printing, historical) A fault caused by the overlapping of leads, etc.


bottle

bottle (third-person singular simple present bottles, present participle bottling, simple past and past participle bottled)

bottles (present singular third-person)
bottling (participle present)
bottled (participle past)
bottled (past)

From Middle English botel (“bottle, flask, wineskin”), from Old French boteille, from Late Latin butticula, diminutive of buttis (“cask”). Doublet of botija.
Displaced native Old English ampella and pinne. Broadly overtook Old English flasce.

inh

Closely related to creep is the process of bottling. As you may have noticed from your folded sheet of paper, pages don't merely creep when they're folded — they also rotate slightly. This rotation or bottling is caused by the thickness or bulk of the paper.

2002, Against the Clock, QuarkXPress 5: Advanced Electronic Documents, page 58:

(printing, intransitive) Of pages printed several on a sheet: to rotate slightly when the sheet is folded two or more times.


back

front

antonym(s) of “side opposite the front or useful side”

front

antonym(s) of “that which is farthest away from the front”

From Middle English bak, from Old English bæc, from Proto-West Germanic *bak, from Proto-Germanic *baką, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeg- (“to bend”). The adverb represents an aphetic form of aback.
Compare Middle Low German bak (“back”), from Old Saxon bak, and West Frisian bekling (“chair back”), Old High German bah, Swedish and Norwegian bak. Cognate with German Bache (“sow [adult female hog]”).

agter

break one's arm patting oneself on the back

could be written on the back of a postage stamp

could fit on the back of a postage stamp

you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours

Convenience and custom have familiarised us to the printed page being a little higher than the middle of the leaf, and to its having a little more margin at the fore edge than in the back.

1841, William Savage, A Dictionary of the Art of Printing, Ayer Publishing, published 1965, →ISBN, page 472:

That which is farthest away from the front.

The side of any object which is opposite the front or useful side.


broad

en-adj

broad (comparative broader, superlative broadest)

broader (comparative)
broadest (superlative)

thin

antonym(s) of “wide—regarding occupied space, width of an object”

skinny

antonym(s) of “wide—regarding body width”

Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *bʰer-der.?
Proto-Germanic *braidaz
Proto-West Germanic *braid
Old English brād
Middle English brood
English broad
From Middle English brood, brode, from Old English brād (“broad, flat, open, extended, spacious, wide, ample, copious”), from Proto-West Germanic *braid, from Proto-Germanic *braidaz (“broad”), of uncertain origin.
Cognate with Scots braid (“broad”), West Frisian breed (“broad”), Saterland Frisian breed (“broad”), Low German breed (“broad”), breet, Dutch breed (“broad”), German breit (“broad, wide”), Danish, Swedish and Norwegian Bokmål bred (“broad”), Norwegian brei (“broad”), Icelandic breiður (“broad, wide”).

inh

not be able to hit the broad side of a barn

Lee: I wrote that line for you. Maeve: A bit broad, if you ask me.

2018 April 22, “Journey into Night” (39:17 from the start), in Westworld, season 2, episode 1, spoken by Maeve Millay and Lee Sizemore (Thandie Newton and Simon Quarterman), via HBO:


broad

[…] fresnel spotlights, old-type broads, sky-pans, cone-lights, etc.

Some broads have barn doors (see page 115) to block gross light spill into other set areas; others have even an adjustable beam, […]

1976, Herbert Zettl, Television Production Handbook, volume 10, page 105:

Light bounced from large white surfaces (e.g., matte reflector boards, or a white ceiling). Floodlights include scoops, broads, floodlight, banks, internally reflected units, strip lights, and cyclorama lights.

2015, Jim Owens, Television Production, page 194:

(film, television) A kind of floodlight.


dialogue

en-noun

dialogue (countable and uncountable, plural dialogues)

Inherited from Middle English dialog, from Old French dialoge (French dialogue), from Late Latin dialogus, from Ancient Greek διάλογος (diálogos, “conversation, discourse”), from διά (diá, “through, inter”) + λόγος (lógos, “speech, oration, discourse”), from διαλέγομαι (dialégomai, “to converse”), from διά (diá) + λέγειν (légein, “to speak”).

der

The movie had great special effects, but the dialogue was lackluster.

In 1936, Anstey had co-directed Housing Problems, which featured direct dialogue recording - allowing the subjects of the film to speak for themselves. As Anstey said: "At the time nobody had done it, and we gave slum dwellers a chance to make their own films."

2021 March 10, Greg Morse, “Telling the railway's story on film”, in RAIL, number 926, page 42:

(authorship) In a dramatic or literary presentation, the verbal parts of the script or text; the verbalizations of the actors or characters.

حِوَار

verbal part of a literary or dramatic work


rim

From Middle English rim, rym, rime, from Old English rima (“rim, edge, border, bank, coast”), from Proto-Germanic *rimô, *rembô (“edge, border”), from Proto-Indo-European *rem-, *remə- (“to rest, support, be based”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Rim (“plank, wooden cross, trellis”), Old Saxon rimi (“edge; border; trim”), Icelandic rimi (“a strip of land”).

cog

COPY READER — Journeyman, experienced makeup, now slot man on metropolitan midwest daily. Will travel for good rim job on large paper.

1953 September 26, Editor & Publisher 1953-09-26: Vol 86 Iss 40:

A copy chief with poor people skills makes life miserable for copy editors on the rim; […]

2004, John Russial, Strategic Copy Editing, page 130:

On the rim are copy editors who edit stories for accuracy, brevity and clarity.

2009, Gaylon Eugene Murray, Effective Editing, page 7:


act

en-noun

act (countable and uncountable, plural acts)

From Middle English acte, from Old French acte, from Latin ācta (“register of events”), plural of āctum (“decree, law”), from agere (“to do, to act”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éǵeti. Compare German Akte (“file”). Partially displaced deed, from Old English dǣd (“act, deed”).

“H'm !” he said, “so, so—it is a tragedy in a prologue and three acts. I am going down this afternoon to see the curtain fall for the third time on what […] will prove a good burlesque ; but it all began dramatically enough. It was last Saturday […] that two boys, playing in the little spinney just outside Wembley Park Station, came across three large parcels done up in American cloth. […]”

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

The pivotal moment in the play was in the first scene of the second act.

(countable, drama) A division of a theatrical performance.

գործողություն

drama: division of theatrical performance


plasma

en-verb

plasma (third-person singular simple present plasmas, present participle plasmaing, simple past and past participle plasmaed)

plasmas (present singular third-person)
plasmaing (participle present)
plasmaed (participle past)
plasmaed (past)

From Late Latin plasma (“mold”), from Ancient Greek πλάσμα (plásma, “something formed”).

der

(science fiction, transitive) To transform something into plasma.


apostrophe

From French apostrophe, or Latin apostrophus, from Ancient Greek ἀπόστροφος (apóstrophos, “accent of elision”), a noun use of an adjective from ἀποστρέφω (apostréphō, “I turn away”), from ἀπό (apó, “away from”) + στρέφω (stréphō, “to turn”).

Since its inception the apostrophe has been a controversial piece of punctuation.

2021, Claire Cock-Starkey, Hyphens & Hashtags, Bodleian Library, page 30:

(orthography) The text character ’, which serves as a punctuation mark in various languages and as a diacritical mark in certain rare contexts.


effect

en-noun

effect (countable and uncountable, plural effects)

Of the noun: from Middle English effect, from Old French effect (modern French effet), from Latin effectus (“an effect, tendency, purpose”), from efficiō (“accomplish, complete, effect”); see effect as a verb. Displaced Old English fremming, fremednes from fremman.
Of the verb: from Middle English effecten, partly from Medieval Latin effectuō, from Latin effectus, perfect passive participle of efficiō (“accomplish, complete, do, effect”), from ex (“out”) + faciō (“do, make”) (see fact and compare affect, infect) and partly from the noun effect.

der

The effect of flying was most convincing.

The colored bands of color that strobe through much of the text and other visual elements are perhaps the most prototypical of all Amiga demoscene effects and, again, are a direct result of the hardware on which Megademo was created to run.

2018, Jimmy Maher, The Future Was Here: The Commodore Amiga, page 186:

(cinematography, computer graphics, demoscene) An illusion produced by technical means (as in "special effect")


MOR

But MOR as a programming powerhouse began to lose strength as the radio industry evolved during those decades.

2003, Christopher H. Sterling, Encyclopedia of Radio, page 1575:

middle of the road
middle of the road#English

(radio) Initialism of middle of the road.


dagger

From Middle English daggere, daggare, dagard, probably adapted from Old French dague (1229), related to Occitan, Italian, Spanish daga, Dutch dagge, German Degen, Middle Low German dagge (“knife's point”), Old Norse daggarðr, Danish daggert, Faroese daggari, Welsh dager, dagr, Breton dac, Albanian thikë (“a knife, dagger”), thek (“to stab, to pierce with a sharp object”).
In English attested from the 1380s.
The ultimate origin of the word is unclear. Grimm suspects Celtic origin.
Others have suggested derivation from an unattested Vulgar Latin *daca "Dacian [knife]", from the Latin adjective dācus. Chastelain (Dictionaire etymologique, 1750) thought that French dague was a derivation from German dagge, dagen, although not attested until a much later date).
The knightly dagger evolves from the 12th century. Guillaume le Breton (died 1226) uses daca in his Philippide. Other Middle Latin forms include daga, dagga, dagha, dagger, daggerius, daggerium, dagarium, dagarius, diga; the forms with -r- are late 14th century adoptions of the English word).
OED points out that there is also an English verb dag (“to stab”) from which this could be a derivation, but the verb is attested only from about 1400.
Relation to Old Armenian դակու (daku, “adze, axe”) has also been suggested. Alternatively, a connection from Proto-Indo-European *dʰāg-u- and cognate with Ancient Greek θήγω (thḗgō, “to sharpen, whet”).

cog

(typography) The text character †; the obelus.


float

en-verb

float (third-person singular simple present floats, present participle floating, simple past and past participle floated)

floats (present singular third-person)
floating (participle present)
floated (participle past)
floated (past)

From Middle English floten, from Old English flotian (“to float”), from Proto-West Germanic *flotōn, from Proto-Germanic *flutōną (“to float”), from Proto-Indo-European *plewd-, *plew- (“to float, swim, fly”).
Cognate with Saterland Frisian flotje (“to float”), West Frisian flotsje (“to float”), Dutch vlotten (“to float”), Middle Low German vloten, vlotten (“to float, swim”), German flötzen, flößen (“to float”), Swedish flotta (“to float”), Icelandic fljóta, Old English flēotan (“to float, swim”), Ancient Greek πλέω (pléō), Lithuanian plaukti, Russian пла́вать (plávatʹ). Compare flow, fleet.

ভাসানো

to cause something to be suspended in a liquid of greater density

To get the footer acting right, you need to float it and clear it on both margins.

2010, Andy Harris, HTML, XHTML and CSS All-In-One For Dummies, page 290:

(computing, publishing, transitive) To cause (an element within a document) to float above or beside others.


float

(publishing, digital typesetting) Any object (element) whose location in composition (page makeup, pagination) does not flow within body text but rather floats outside of it, usually anchored loosely (in buoy metaphor) to spots within it (citations, callouts): a figure (image), table, box, pull quote, ornament, or other floated element.


cover

cover (third-person singular simple present covers, present participle covering, simple past and past participle covered)

covers (present singular third-person)
covering (participle present)
covered (participle past)
covered (past)

→ German: covern

→ Danish: lave en cover

Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *ḱe-?
Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm
Proto-Italic *kom
Old Latin com
Latin cum
Latin con-
Proto-Indo-European *h₁ep-?
Proto-Indo-European *h₁epi
Proto-Indo-European *h₂wer-
Proto-Indo-European *-yeti
Latin operiō
Latin cooperiō
Old French covrirbor.
Middle English coveren
English cover
From Middle English coveren, borrowed from Old French covrir, cueuvrir (modern French couvrir), from Late Latin coperire, from Latin cooperiō (“I cover completely”), from co- (intensive prefix) + operiō (“I close, cover”). Displaced native Middle English thecchen and bethecchen (“to cover”) (from Old English þeccan, beþeccan (“to cover”)), Middle English helen, (over)helen, (for)helen (“to cover, conceal”) (from Old English helan (“to conceal, cover, hide”)), Middle English wrien, (be)wreon (“to cover”) (from Old English (be)wrēon (“to cover”)), Middle English hodren, hothren (“to cover up”) (from Low German hudren (“to cover up”)).
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the original sense of the verb and noun cover was “hide from view” as in its cognate covert. Except in the limited sense of “cover again”, the word recover is unrelated and is cognate with recuperate. Cognate with Spanish cubrir (“to cover”).

cog

I wish that popular afternoon show would let us cover some of their commercials – their national stuff can be so annoying.

(transitive, broadcasting) To air or run locally originated material in place of network material during an internal spot break in a syndicated program.


skein

From Middle English skayne, from Old French escaigne (Modern French écagne), probably of Proto-Celtic origin, from Proto-Indo-European *skend- (“to split off”). Compare Irish scáinne (“skein, clew”).

der

All three tele skeins are pitching furiously to snag the super Easter Day tele show to be bankrolled by Frigidaire, […]

Three comedy shows from the U. S. are in the CTV lineup: CBSTV's Phil Silvers and Danny Thomas skeins and NBC-TV's "Harry's Girls."

1963, Radio Television Daily, volume 93, page 5:

(radio, television, dated) A series created by a web (major broadcasting network).


heavy

From Middle English hevy, heviȝ, from Old English hefiġ, hefeġ, hæfiġ (“heavy; important, grave, severe, serious; oppressive, grievous; slow, dull”), from Proto-West Germanic *habīg (“heavy, hefty, weighty”), from Proto-Germanic *habīgaz (“heavy, hefty, weighty”), from Proto-Indo-European *keh₂p- (“to take, grasp, hold”).
Cognates:
Cognate with Scots hevy, havy, heavy (“heavy”), Dutch hevig (“violent, severe, intense, acute”), Middle Low German hēvich (“violent, fierce, intense”), German hebig (compare heftig (“fierce, severe, intense, violent, heavy”)), Icelandic höfugur (“heavy, weighty, important”), Latin capāx (“large, wide, roomy, spacious, capacious, capable, apt”).

cog

The comment may be offered here that the 'heavies' have been the Design Award's principal scorers, both in the overall bronze plaque days and, since, in the Daily/Sunday Class 1.

1973, Allen Hutt, The changing newspaper, page 151:

Reviewers in the heavies aim to impress with the depth of their knowledge and appreciation.

2006, Richard Keeble, The Newspapers Handbook:

(journalism, slang, chiefly in the plural) A newspaper of the quality press.


doujinshi

en-noun

doujinshi (countable and uncountable, plural doujinshi or doujinshis)

Borrowed from Japanese 同(どう)人(じん)誌(し) (dōjinshi, “fan-produced manga or essay booklets”), from 同(どう)人(じん) (dōjin, “group for the same interest”) + 誌(し) (shi, “magazine or a pamphlet”).

ja-r

(manga) A fan-produced book or magazine of Japanese fiction; especially manga.


femme

en-adj

femme (comparative more femme, superlative most femme)

more femme (comparative)
most femme (superlative)

Borrowed from French femme (“woman”). Doublet of feme, femina, and hembra.

Admittedly, Kiedis was concerned about the lack of femme rockers on the bill: the only women featured were in British band Lush, who would open each day's festivities before a few hundred curious onlookers.

2009, Jeff Apter, Fornication: The Red Hot Chili Peppers Story:

High heels are something like neckties for women, in that it can be harder to look both formal and femme without them.

2019 March 20, Summer Brennan, “Sex, power, oppression: why women wear high heels”, in The Guardian:

(chiefly Canada, US, journalism, entertainment) Pertaining to a femme; feminine, female.


river

→ Finnish: river (“river (in poker)”)

Sranan Tongo: liba

From Middle English ryver, from Anglo-Norman rivere, from Early Medieval Latin rīpāria (“littoral, riverbank”), from Latin rīpārius (“of a riverbank”), from Latin rīpa (“river bank”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁reyp- (“to scratch, tear, cut”). Unrelated to Latin rīvus (“stream”) (whence rival, derive). Doublet of riviera and rivière. Displaced native Old English ēa.

der

lake [⇒ thesaurus] "stream of running water"

Appendix:Roget MICRA thesaurus/Class III § 348. River

(typography) A visually undesirable effect of white space running down a page, caused by spaces between words on consecutive lines happening to coincide.

نهر أبيض

typography: visually undesirable effect of white space running down a page


flat

en-adj

flat (comparative flatter, superlative flattest)

flatter (comparative)
flattest (superlative)

bumpy

antonym(s) of “having no variations in altitude”

→ Portuguese: flat

From Middle English flat, a borrowing from Old Norse flatr (compare Norwegian and Swedish flat, Danish flad), from Proto-Germanic *flataz, from Proto-Indo-European *pleth₂- (“flat”); akin to Saterland Frisian flot (“smooth”), German Flöz (“a geological layer”), Ancient Greek πλατύς (platús), Latvian plats, Sanskrit प्रथस् (prathas, “extension”). Doublet of plat and pleyt.
The noun is from Middle English flat (“level piece of ground, flat edge of a weapon”), from the adjective.
The algebraic sense was coined by Serre in a 1956 paper, originally as French plat.

inh

The author added a chapter to flesh out the book's flatter characters.

(figurative) Lacking liveliness or action; depressed; uninteresting; dull and boring.

(authorship, figuratively, especially of a character) Lacking in depth, substance, or believability; underdeveloped; one-dimensional.


flat

This same publisher notes pricing is a crucial factor in the mass market field of $1, $1.95 and $2.95 "flats."

1970, The Publishers Weekly, volume 197, page 85:

(publishing) A flat, glossy children's book with few pages.


display

en-verb

display (third-person singular simple present displays, present participle displaying, simple past and past participle displayed)

displays (present singular third-person)
displaying (participle present)
displayed (participle past)
displayed (past)

From Middle English displayen, from Anglo-Norman despleier and Old French despleier, desploiier, from Medieval Latin displicare (“to unfold, display”), from Latin dis- (“apart”) + plicāre (“to fold”). Doublet of deploy.

der

(printing, dated) To make conspicuous by using large or prominent type.


solid

en-adj

solid (comparative more solid or solider, superlative most solid or solidest)

more solid (comparative)
solider (comparative)
most solid (superlative)
solidest (superlative)

From Middle English solide, borrowed from Old French solide, from Latin solidus (“solid”), from Proto-Indo-European *solh₂-i-dʰ-o-s (“entire”), suffixed form of root *solh₂- (“integrate, whole”). Doublet of sol, sold, soldo, solidus, sou, and xu.

doublet

Coordinate term: hyphenation (noun)

American English writes many words as solid that British English hyphenates.

(typography) Written as one word, without spaces or hyphens.

(printing, dated) Not having the lines separated by leads; not open.


solid

en-adv

solid (comparative more solid, superlative most solid)

more solid (comparative)
most solid (superlative)

Many long-established compounds are set solid.

(not comparable, typography) Without spaces or hyphens.


plate

→ Maori: pereti

→ Hindi: प्लेट (pleṭ)

From Middle English plate, from Old French plate, from Medieval Latin plata, from Vulgar Latin *plat(t)us, from Ancient Greek πλατύς (platús, “broad, flat, wide”). Compare Spanish plato.
(foot): Cockney rhyming slang, from "plates of meat" for "feet".

der

We finished making the plates this morning.

(printing) An engraved surface used to transfer an image to paper.

гравю́ра

printing: engraved surface used to transfer an image to paper

(printing, photography) An image or copy.

(printing, publishing) An illustration in a book, either black and white, or colour, usually on a page of paper of different quality from the text pages.

làmina

printing, publishing: full page illustration


shoot

en-verb

shoot (third-person singular simple present shoots, present participle shooting, simple past shot, past participle shot or (rare) shotten)

shoots (present singular third-person)
shooting (participle present)
shot (past)
shot (participle past)
shotten (participle past rare)
shoot (infinitive)

→ Catalan: xut

→ Greek: σουτ (sout)

→ Hijazi Arabic: شوت (šūt)

→ North Levantine Arabic: شوت (šūt)

→ Persian: شوت (šut)

desc

→ Portuguese: chuto, chute (Brazil), chutar

→ Romanian: șut

→ Vietnamese: sút

From Middle English shoten, from Old English scēotan, from Proto-West Germanic *skeutan, from Proto-Germanic *skeutaną, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kéwd-e-ti, from *(s)kewd- (“to shoot, throw”).
Cognates
Cognate with West Frisian sjitte, Low German scheten, Dutch schieten, German schießen, Danish skyde, Norwegian Bokmål skyte, Norwegian Nynorsk skyta, Swedish skjuta; and also, through Indo-European, with Russian кида́ть (kidátʹ), Albanian hedh (“to throw, toss”), Persian چست (čost, “quick, active”), Lithuanian skudrùs.

(+ partitive object when injuring or genitive object when killing) ampua

when the looting starts, the shooting starts

The film was mostly shot in France.

(transitive, intransitive, analogous, film, television) To film.


tail

Sranan Tongo: tere

From Middle English tail, tayl, teil, from Old English tæġl (“tail”), from Proto-West Germanic *tagl, from Proto-Germanic *taglą (“hair, fiber; hair of a tail”), from Proto-Indo-European *doḱ- (“hair of the tail”), from Proto-Indo-European *deḱ- (“to tear, fray, shred”). Cognate with Scots tail (“tail”), Saterland Frisian Tail (“tail, end”), West Frisian teil (“tail”), Dutch teil (“tail, haulm, blade”), Low German Tagel (“twisted scourge, whip of thongs and ropes; end of a rope”), German Zagel (“tail”), dialectal Danish tavl (“hair of the tail”), Swedish tagel (“hair of the tail, horsehair”), Norwegian tagl (“tail”), Icelandic tagl (“tail, horsetail, ponytail”), Gothic 𐍄𐌰𐌲𐌻 (tagl, “hair”). In some senses, apparently by a generalization of the usual opposition between head and tail.

cog

have the world by the tail on a downhill pull

mackerel sky and mare's-tails make lofty ships carry low sails

mackerel sky and mare's-tails make tall ships carry low sails

the cow knows not the worth of its tail till it loses it

trust someone as far as one could fling a bull by the tail

(typography) The lower loop of the letters in the Roman alphabet, as in g, q or y.


hyperbole

en-noun

hyperbole (countable and uncountable, plural hyperboles)

From Middle English iperbole, yperbole, from Latin hyperbolē, from Ancient Greek ὑπερβολή (huperbolḗ, “excess, exaggeration”), from ὑπέρ (hupér, “above”) + βάλλω (bállō, “I throw”). Doublet of hyperbola.

der

Hyperbole soars too high, or creeps too low,
Exceeds the truth, things wonderful to shew.

[1835, L[arret] Langley, A Manual of the Figures of Rhetoric, […], Doncaster: Printed by C. White, Baxter-Gate, →OCLC, page 12:

The great staircase, however, may be termed, without much hyperbole, a feature of grandeur and magnificence.

1837, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Legends of the Province House:

"Nay, nay, good Sumach," interrupted the Deerslayer, whose love of truth was too indomitable to listen to such hyperbole, with patience[…]

1841, J[ames] Fenimore Cooper, chapter VIII, in The Deerslayer: A Tale. […], 1st British edition, volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 248:

c. 1910, Theodore Roosevelt, Productive Scholarship
Of course the hymn has come to us from somewhere else, but I do not know from where; and the average native of our village firmly believes that it is indigenous to our own soil—which it can not be, unless it deals in hyperbole, for the nearest approach to a river in our neighborhood is the village pond.

The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people's fantasies. ..People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It's an innocent form of exaggeration—and a very effective form of promotion.

1987, Donald Trump, Tony Schwartz, The Art of the Deal, page 58:

In these circumstances, hyperbole is called for, the rhetorical figure that raises its objects up, excessively, way above their actual merit : it is not to deceive by exaggeration that one overshoots the mark, but to allow the true value, the truth of what is insufficiently valued, to appear.

1995, Richard Klein, “Introduction”, in Cigarettes are sublime, Paperback edition, Durham: Duke University Press, published 1993, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 17:

The perennial problem, especially for the BBC, has been to reconcile the hyperbole-driven agenda of newspapers with the requirement of balance, which is crucial to the public service remit.

2001, Tom Bentley, Daniel Stedman Jones, The Moral Universe:

(uncountable, rhetoric, literature) Deliberate or unintentional overstatement, particularly extreme overstatement.


wedge

en-noun

wedge (countable and uncountable, plural wedges)

From Middle English wegge (“wedge”), from Old English weċġ (“wedge”), from Proto-West Germanic *wagi, from Proto-Germanic *wagjaz.

The wedge is used in Czech and is illustrated by the Czech name for the diacritic, haček.

1982, Thomas Pyles, John Algeo, The Origins and Development of the English Language, 3rd edition, page 49:

The tilde and the circumflex have a place in the ASCII scheme but the wedge and the umlaut do not.

1996, Geoffrey Keith Pullum, William A. Ladusaw, Phonetic Symbol Guide, 2nd edition, page xxvi:

The háček or ‘wedge’ ⟨ˇ⟩ is a diacritic commonly used in Slavic orthographies. […] As a tone mark the wedge is used iconically for a falling-rising tone as in Chinese Pinyin.

1999, Florian Coulmas, “háček”, in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems, page 193:

Any symbol shaped like a V in some given orientation.


faction

Blind genius of faction / Obituary of Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine writer [title]

1986 June 16, W. J. Weatherby, “Blind genius of faction”, in The Guardian:

Contemporary reviewers offered different labels in attempts to describe the genre of Schindler's List. Lorna Sage, D.J. Enright and Robert Taubman called it a ‘documentary novel’; Paul Bailey and Gay Firth ‘faction’; […]

2000, Sue Vice, Holocaust Fiction, Psychology Press, →ISBN, page 93:

[Norman Mailer] was, though, absolutely the daddy of faction, his novels or journalism reporting every conflict from 1939 to Iraq and biographising Americans including John F Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Muhammad Ali and Neil Armstrong.

2007 November 12, Mark Lawson, “The king of faction”, in The Guardian:

(literature, film) A form of literature, film etc., that treats real people or events as if they were fiction; a mix of fact and fiction.


round

en-adj

round (comparative rounder or more round, superlative roundest or most round)

rounder (comparative)
more round (comparative)
roundest (superlative)
most round (superlative)

From Middle English round, rounde, from Old Northern French roünt, rund, Old French ront, runt, reont ( > French rond), from both Late Latin retundus and the original Latin rotundus. The noun developed partly from the adjective and partly from the corresponding French noun rond. Doublet of rotund.

pyöreä

pronounced with the mouth in the shape of an "O"

(authorship, of a fictional character) Well-written and well-characterized; complex and reminiscent of a real person.


ring

→ French: ring
→ Romanian: ring

→ Hungarian: ring

→ Italian: ring

→ Japanese: リング

→ Polish: ring

→ Serbo-Croatian: ring

→ Spanish: ring

→ Turkish: ring

From Middle English ryng, from Old English hring (“ring, circle”), from Proto-West Germanic *hring, from Proto-Germanic *hringaz (“ring”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)krengʰ-, extended nasalized form of *(s)ker- (“to turn, bend”). Doublet of rank and rink, as well as indirectly range.
cognates
* West Frisian ring
* Low German Ring
* Dutch ring
* German Ring
* Swedish ring
* Finnish rengas

(typography) A diacritical mark in the shape of a hollow circle placed above or under the letter; a kroužek.


teek

She stood there dumbfounded as the door swung open and banged against the inside wall, narrowly missing her.¶ I did that, she thought. I'm a... teek?

2011, Nate Kenyon, StarCraft Ghost: Spectres, →ISBN, page 140:

(science fiction) A telekinetic person; a person who has telekinetic abilities.


teek

en-verb

teek (third-person singular simple present teeks, present participle teeking, simple past and past participle teeked)

teeks (present singular third-person)
teeking (participle present)
teeked (participle past)
teeked (past)

Tears of pain came to his eyes—and he didn’t know which hurt more, the pain of the soup on his arm or the real shock he had received when he had forced himself to keep from teeking the falling soup halfway across the room.

1957 April 14, Robert Silverberg, “Hidden Talent”, in Worlds of If, page 27:

With a brief psionic push, Nova teeked them aside and into the rock, firing her rifle at the soft areas just above the creature's rib cage.

2011, Nate Kenyon, StarCraft Ghost: Spectres, →ISBN, page 44:

(science fiction, transitive) To use telekinesis on; to move (something) with the power of one's mind.


ball

en-noun

ball (countable and uncountable, plural balls)

→ Cantonese: 波 (bo¹)

→ Japanese: ボール (bōru)

→ Makah: ba·la

→ Yoruba: bọ́ọ̀lù

From Middle English bal, ball, balle, from an unattested Old English *beall, *bealla (“round object, ball”) or Old Norse bǫllr (“a ball”), both from Proto-Germanic *balluz, *ballô (“ball”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰol-n- (“ball, bubble”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to blow, inflate, swell”). Cognate with Old Saxon ball, Dutch bal, Old High German bal, ballo (German Ball (“ball”); Ballen (“bale”)). Related forms in Romance are borrowings from Germanic. See also balloon, bale.

ампыл

object, generally spherical, used for playing games

туп

ballistics: a solid nonexplosive missile

cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey

(printing, historical) A leather-covered cushion, fastened to a handle called a ballstock; formerly used by printers for inking the form, then superseded by the roller.


pull

en-verb

pull (third-person singular simple present pulls, present participle pulling, simple past and past participle pulled)

pulls (present singular third-person)
pulling (participle present)
pulled (participle past)
pulled (past)

push

antonym(s) of “apply force to (something) so it comes towards one”

-ʊl (accents with foot–goose merger or full–fool merger)

Verb from Middle English pullen, from Old English pullian (“to pull, draw, tug, pluck off”), of uncertain ultimate origin. Related to West Frisian pûlje (“to shell, husk”), Middle Dutch pullen (“to drink”), Middle Dutch polen (“to peel, strip”), Low German pulen (“to pick, pluck, pull, tear, strip off husks”), Icelandic púla (“to work hard, beat”).
Noun from Middle English pul, pull, pulle, from the verb pullen (“to pull”).

cog

it's not the whistle that pulls the train

pull someone's chestnuts out of the fire

(printing, dated) To take or make (a proof or impression); so called because hand presses were worked by pulling a lever.


pull

en-noun

pull (countable and uncountable, plural pulls)

button

antonym(s) of “device meant to be pulled”

(printing, historical) A single impression from a handpress.


impose

en-verb

impose (third-person singular simple present imposes, present participle imposing, simple past and past participle imposed)

imposes (present singular third-person)
imposing (participle present)
imposed (participle past)
imposed (past)
impose (infinitive)

The verb is derived from Late Middle English imposen (“to place, set; to impose (a duty, etc.)”), borrowed from Middle French imposer, and Old French emposer, enposer (“to impose (a duty, tax, etc.)”) (modern French imposer), from im-, em- (variants of en- (prefix meaning ‘in, into’)) + poser (“to place, put”), modelled after:
* Latin impōnere, the present active infinitive of impōnō (“to place or set (something) on; (figurative) to impose (a duty, tax, etc.)”), from im- (variant of in- (prefix meaning ‘on, upon’)) + pōnō (“to place, put; etc.”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂pó, *h₂epó (“away; off”) + *tḱey- (“to cultivate; to live; to settle”)); and
* Latin impositus (“established; put upon, imposed”), the perfect passive participle of impōnō: see above.
The noun is derived from the verb.

der

They [pages] are imposed as follows, the illustration showing how the pages appear in the form. […] 18, 24, 32, and 48mo may be imposed in a similar manner, or may be so imposed as to be cut before folding.

1877, Edward H[enry] Knight, “Imposing”, in Knight’s American Mechanical Dictionary. […], volume II (GAS–REA), New York, N.Y.: Hurd and Houghton […], →OCLC, page 1172, column 1:

(archaic) To physically lay or place (something) on another thing; to deposit, to put, to set.

(printing) To lay (columns or pages of type, or printing plates) arranged in a proper order on the bed of a press or an imposing stone and secure them in a chase in preparation for printing.

kiinnittää

To lay (columns or pages of type, or printing plates) arranged in a proper order on the bed of a press, etc.


charade

From French charade, charrade (“prattle, idle conversation; a kind of riddle”), probably from Occitan charrada (“conversation; chatter”), from charrar (“to chat; to chatter”) + -ada. As a round of the game, originally a clipping of acting charade but now usually understood and formed as a back-formation from charades.

CHARADE, a trifling species of composition, or quasi-literary form of amusement, which may perhaps be best defined as a punning enigma propounded in a series of descriptions. A word is taken of two or more syllables, each forming a distinct word; each of these is described in verse or prose, as aptly and enigmatically as possible; and the same process is applied to the whole word. The neater and briefer the descriptive parts of the problem, the better the charade will be. In selecting words for charades, special attention should be paid to the absolute quality of the syllables composing them, inaccuracy in trifles of this sort depriving them of what little claim to merit they may possess. The brilliant rhythmic trifles of W. Mackworth Praed are well known. Of representative prose charades, the following specimens are perhaps as good as could be selected:—“My first, with the most rooted antipathy to a Frenchman, prides himself, whenever they meet, upon sticking close to his jacket; my second has many virtues, nor is its least that it gives its name to my first; my whole may I never catch!” “My first is company; my second shuns company; my third collects company; and my whole amuses company.” The solutions are Tar-tar and Co-nun-drum.

1878, "Charade" in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed., Vol. V, p. 398

(literature, archaic) A genre of riddles where the clues to the answer are descriptions or puns on its syllables, with a final clue to the whole.


space

en-noun

space (countable and uncountable, plural spaces)

From Middle English space, from Anglo-Norman space, variant of espace, espas et al., and spaze, variant of espace, from Latin spatium, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)peh₂- (“to stretch, to pull”).

مَسَافَة

gap between written characters, lines etc.

ala

figuratively: field, area, or sphere of activity or endeavour — see also area, domain, field, sector, sphere

Fully Automated Luxury Queer Space Communism

If it be only a Single Letter or two that drops, he thruſts the end of his Bodkin between every Letter of that Word, till he comes to a Space: and then perhaps by forcing thoſe Letters closer, he may have room to put in another Space or a Thin Space; which if he cannot do, and he finds the Space ſtand Looſe in the Form; he with the Point of his Bodkin picks the Space up and bows it a little; which bowing makes the Letters on each ſide of the Space keep their parallel diſtance; for by its Spring it thruſts the Letters that were cloſed with the end of the Bodkin to their adjunct Letters, that needed no cloſing.

1683, Joseph Moxon, Mechanick Exercises: Or, the Doctrine of Handy-Works. Applied to the art of Printing., volume 2, pages 240–1:

Horizontal spacing is further divided into multiples and fractions of the em. The multiples are called quads. The fractions are called spaces.

1979, Marshall Lee, Bookmaking, page 110:

Other larger spaces – known as quads – were used to space out lines.

2005, Phil Baines, Andrew Haslam, Type & Typography, 2nd edition, page 91:

(heading) A bounded or specific extent, physical or otherwise.

(letterpress typography) A piece of metal type used to separate words, cast lower than other type so as not to take ink, especially one that is narrower than one en (compare quad).


space

en-verb

space (third-person singular simple present spaces, present participle spacing, simple past and past participle spaced)

spaces (present singular third-person)
spacing (participle present)
spaced (participle past)
spaced (past)

The captain spaced the traitors.

Sound effect of blow with blunt instrument, groan, and the unmistakable cycling of an air lock—Castor: "Sorry, folks. My assistant has just spaced Mr. Rudolf. […]"

1952, Robert A. Heinlein, The Rolling Stones:

A lot of people make jokes about spacing somebody, about shoving somebody out an airlock. I don't think it's funny. Never will.

1995, J. Michael Straczynski, And Now for a Word (Babylon 5), season 2, episode 15, spoken by Dr. Stephen Franklin (Richard Biggs):

(transitive, science fiction) To kill (someone) by ejection into outer space, usually without a space suit.

He well remembered, when he was a junior officer, how the sight of a well dressed, impeccably neat commanding officer, no matter how long they had been spacing, maintained the enthusiasm, confidence and morale of the officers and men.

1947 January 14, Bernard I. Kahn, “Command”, in Astounding Science Fiction, volume 38, number 5:

(intransitive, science fiction) To travel into and through outer space.


escape pod

(chiefly science fiction) Any small, secondary, emergency-use vehicle used to evacuate from the main vehicle during times of danger.


gram

(broadcasting, dated) A gramophone recording.


tractor beam

Possibly a shortening of attractor beam; note however the broader meaning of tractor (“machinery that pulls something”). Coined by American science fiction author E. E. Smith in 1931 in his novel Spacehounds of IPC, first serialized in Amazing Stories.

coin

Through it Stevens saw with satisfaction that the Forlorn Hope was not being abandoned; in the grip of powerful tractor beams, every fragment of the wreckage was following close behind them in their flight through space.

1931 August, E. E. “Doc” Smith, “Spacehounds of IPC”, in Amazing Stories, volume 6, number 5, page 549:

By the way they're braced, there are tractor beams and pressor beams and—there are vacuum tubes that have grids but apparently work with cold cathodes.

1945 June, Murray Leinster, “The Ethical Equations”, in Astounding Science Fiction, volume 35, number 4, page 122:

We're caught in a tractor beam! It's pulling us in!

1977, George Lucas, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, spoken by Han Solo (Harrison Ford):

(science fiction) A device-generated beam used to attract other objects from a distance.


rise

en-verb

rise (third-person singular simple present rises, present participle rising, simple past rose, past participle risen)

rises (present singular third-person)
rising (participle present)
rose (past)
risen (participle past)

From Middle English risen, from Old English rīsan, from Proto-West Germanic *rīsan, from Proto-Germanic *rīsaną, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁rey- (“to rise, arise”). According to Kroonen (2013), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃er- (“to stir, rise”). See also raise.
cognates
Cognate with West Frisian rize, Saterland Frisian riese (“to arise”), Dutch rijzen (“to rise, ascend, lift”), German Low German riesen (“to rise; arise”), German dialectal reisen (“to fall”), Norwegian Nynorsk risa (“to rise”), Icelandic rísa (“to rise”). Related also to German reisen (“to travel, fare”), Dutch reizen (“to travel”), Danish rejse (“to travel”), Swedish resa (“to travel”). Non-Germanic cognates include Albanian rris (“I raise, grow”) and Russian рост (rost, “growth”).

cog

sure as the sun is going to rise tomorrow morning

(printing, dated) To be lifted, or capable of being lifted, from the imposing stone without dropping any of the type; said of a form.


beard

PIE word
 *bʰardʰéh₂
From Middle English berd, bard, bærd, from Old English beard, from Proto-West Germanic *bard, from Proto-Germanic *bardaz (compare West Frisian burd, Dutch baard, German Bart). Cognate further to Latin barba, Lithuanian barzda, Russian борода́ (borodá): the word may date to Proto-Indo-European as *bʰardʰeh₂, *bʰh₂erdʰeh₂. Doublet of barb.

(printing, dated) That part of a type which is between the shoulder of the shank and the face.


field

→ Japanese: フィールド (fīrudo)

From Middle English feeld, feld, from Old English feld, from Proto-West Germanic *felþu, from Proto-Germanic *felþuz (“field”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂- (“field, plain”) or *pleth₂- (“flat”) (with schwebeablaut).
Cognate with Scots feld, feild (“field”), North Frisian fjild (“field”), West Frisian fjild (“field”), Dutch veld (“field”), German Feld (“field”), Swedish fält (“field”). Related also to Old English folde (“earth, land, territory”), Old English folm (“palm of the hand”). More at fold.

veld

land area free of woodland, cities, and towns; open country

fushë

sports: area reserved for playing a game

Euclidean domain ⊂ principal ideal domain ⊂ unique factorization domain

Noetherian domain ⊂ integral domain ⊂ commutative ring

Any of various figurative meanings, often dead metaphors.

(electronics, film, animation) Part (usually one half) of a frame in an interlaced signal.


stone

en-noun

stone (countable and uncountable, plural stones or (UK colloquial, as unit of mass) stone)

stones (plural)
stone (UK colloquial plural)

Sranan Tongo: ston

→ Esperanto: ŝtono

From Middle English ston, stone, stan, from Old English stān, from Proto-West Germanic *stain, from Proto-Germanic *stainaz, from Proto-Indo-European *steyh₂- (“to stiffen”).
See also West Frisian stien, Saterland Frisian Steen, Dutch steen, German Stein, Danish and Swedish sten, Norwegian stein; also Russian стена́ (stená, “wall”), Ancient Greek στία (stía, “pebble”), στέαρ (stéar, “tallow”), Albanian shtëng (“hardened or pressed matter”), Sanskrit स्त्यायते (styāyate, “it hardens”)). Doublet of stein.

cog

The Chief called the makeup editor to the stone, pointed to the story which had caught his eye, and suggested a fairly simple remake.

1965, George Murray, The Madhouse on Madison Street, page 38:

(printing, historical) A stand or table with a smooth, flat top of stone, commonly marble, on which to arrange the pages of a book, newspaper, etc. before printing.


set

From Middle English set, sette, from Old English set (“seat, place of residence, camp, settlement, entrenchment, stable, pen”), from Proto-West Germanic *set (“seat”), from Proto-Germanic *setą (“seat”).

inh

(printing, dated) The width of the body of a type.


gem

en-noun

gem (countable and uncountable, plural gems)

Inherited from Middle English gemme, gimme, yimme, ȝimme, from Old English ġimm, from Proto-West Germanic *gimmu (“gem”) and Old French gemme (“gem”), both from Latin gemma (“a swelling bud; jewel, gem”). Doublet of gemma and Gemma.

der

(uncountable, printing, uncommon, obsolete) A size of type between brilliant (4-point) and diamond (4½-point), running 222 lines to the foot.


dark

en-adj

dark (comparative darker, superlative darkest)

darker (comparative)
darkest (superlative)

From Middle English derk, from Old English deorc, from Proto-West Germanic *derk (“dark”), of uncertain origin, but possibly from Proto-Indo-European *dʰerg- (“dim, dull”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰer- (“dull, dirty”).

donker

having an absolute or relative lack of light

the darkest hour is just before the dawn

(broadcasting, of a television station) Off the air; not transmitting.


nut

→ Japanese: ナット (natto)

From Middle English nute, note, from Old English hnutu, from Proto-West Germanic *hnut, from Proto-Germanic *hnuts (“nut”), from a root *knu- possibly shared with Proto-Celtic *knūs and Latin nux (“nut”). Based on the form of the nouns and the restriction of the root to Germanic, Celtic and Italic, it has been argued to be of non-Indo-European (substrate) origin.
See also West Frisian nút, Dutch noot, German Nuss, Danish nød, Swedish nöt, Norwegian nøtt.

dió

walnut in particular and an element in the name of some other nuts

dióféle

literally: ’walnut-like’, the family of this fruit

walnuts, hazelnuts/peanuts, chestnuts, and related fruits

even a blind squirrel can find a nut once in a while

(typography slang) En, a unit of measurement equal to half of the height of the type in use.

Halbgeviert

typography: unit equal to half of the height of the type in use


live

en-adj

live (comparative more live, superlative most live)

more live (comparative)
most live (superlative)

The station presented a live news program every evening.

Are we live?

(broadcasting) Being broadcast ("on the air"), as it happens.

مُباشِر

(broadcasting) seen or heard from a broadcast, as it happens

(film) Featuring humans; not animated, in the phrases “live actors” or “live action”.


stick

en-noun

stick (countable and uncountable, plural sticks)

→ Catalan: estic

→ Italian: stick

→ Korean: 스틱 (seutik)

→ Portuguese: stique, estique

→ Sranan Tongo: tiki

From Middle English stikke (“stick, rod, twig”), from Old English sticca (“rod, twig”), from Proto-West Germanic *stikkō, from Proto-Germanic *stikkô, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)teyg- (“to pierce, prick, be sharp”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Stikke (“stick”), West Flemish stik (“stick”). Related to stigma.

der

better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick

better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick

better than a poke in the eye with a shitty stick

it is easy to find a stick to beat a dog

[…]although the headings may often be in other type, still, as these are composed in the same stick, they cannot fail to justify;[…]

1854, Thomas Ford, The Compositor's Handbook, page 125:

A tool, control, or instrument shaped somewhat like a stick.

(dated, letterpress typography) A composing stick, the tool used by compositors to assemble lines of type.


stick

en-verb

stick (third-person singular simple present sticks, present participle sticking, simple past and past participle sticked)

sticks (present singular third-person)
sticking (participle present)
sticked (participle past)
sticked (past)

to stick type

(transitive, printing, slang, dated) To compose; to set, or arrange, in a composing stick.


key

From Middle English keye, kaye, keiȝe, from Old English cǣġ (“key, solution, experiment”) (whence also Scots key and kay (“key”)), of uncertain origin. The only sure cognates are Saterland Frisian Koai (“key”), West Frisian kaai (“key”), and North Frisian kay (“key”). Possibly from Proto-Germanic *kēgaz, *kēguz (“stake, post, pole”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵogʰ-, *ǵegʰ-, *ǵegʰn- (“branch, stake, bush”), which would make it cognate with Middle Low German kāk (“whipping post, pillory”), and perhaps to Middle Dutch keige (“javelin, spear”) and Middle Low German keie, keige (“spear”). For the semantic development, note that medieval keys were simply long poles (ending in a hook) with which a crossbar obstructing a door from the inside could be removed from the outside, by lifting it through a hole in the door. Liberman has noted, however, "The original meaning of *kaig-jo- was presumably '*pin with a twisted end.' Words with the root *kai- followed by a consonant meaning 'crooked, bent; twisted' are common only in the North Germanic languages."

шпи́лка

object used to maintain the orientation between two others

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

You can easily create this type of user interface by creating a bitmap with certain portions set to a predefined color you want to use as the transparency key.

2004, Mark Schmidt, Simon Robinson, Microsoft Visual C# .NET 2003 Developer's Cookbook, page 195:

There are key controls that adjust the “slice level” or the level at which the key kicks-in and starts cutting a hole for the “fill” […] Chroma key is another form of keying, which derives the key cutter or hole from a selected color.

2016, Jerry C. Whitaker, The SBE Broadcast Engineering Handbook:

(computer graphics, television) A color to be masked or made transparent.


key

en-verb

key (third-person singular simple present keys, present participle keying, simple past and past participle keyed)

keys (present singular third-person)
keying (participle present)
keyed (participle past)
keyed (past)

(telegraphy and radio telegraphy) To depress (a telegraph key).

(radio) To operate (the transmitter switch of a two-way radio).

avaintaa

radio: operate (transmitter switch of a two-way radio)


leader

→ Catalan: líder

→ Czech: lídr

→ Galician: líder

→ Japanese: リーダー (rīdā)

→ Korean: 리더 (rideo)

→ Polish: lider

→ Portuguese: líder

→ Romanian: lider

→ Russian: ли́дер (líder)

→ Spanish: líder

→ Turkish: lider

→ Ukrainian: лі́дер (líder)

From Middle English leder, ledere, from Old English lǣdere (“leader”), from Proto-West Germanic *laidijārī (“leader”), equivalent to lead + -er. Cognate with Scots ledar, leidar (“leader”), West Frisian lieder (“leader”), Dutch leider (“leader”), German Leiter (“leader, conductor, manager”), Danish leder (“leader, manager”), Swedish ledare (“leader, conductor, director”), Icelandic leiðari (“leader, conductor”).

cog

Someone or something that leads or conducts.

(UK, journalism) The first, or the principal, editorial article in a newspaper; a leading or main editorial article; a lead story.

If you need to reload film, the cassette can be rewound slightly by turning the hub located on one end of its spool. Do not rewind so much that the leader disappears into the cassette.

2011, Rebekah Modrak, Bill Anthes, Reframing Photography: Theory and Practice:

(film, printing) A piece of material at the beginning or end of a reel or roll to allow the material to be threaded or fed onto something, as a reel of film onto a projector or a roll of paper onto a rotary printing press.

The leader only runs three seconds, but it acts like a drop curtain in a theater.

1913, Epes Winthrop Sargent, The Technique of the Photoplay, New York, page 15:

(printing) A type having a dot or short row of dots upon its face.

(printing, in the plural) A row of dots, periods, or hyphens, used in tables of contents, etc., to lead the eye across a space to the right word or number.


device

From Middle English devis, devise, devyce, devys, devyse, from Old French devis and devise, from Latin dīvīsus, past participle of dīvidō (“to divide”). Doublet of devise (noun).

Prior to the issuance of the first stamps, letters accepted by postmasters for dispatch were marked "Paid" by means of pen and ink or hand stamps of various designs. … To facilitate the handling of mail matter, some postmasters provided special stamps or devices for use on letters as evidence of the prepayment of postage.

1943 United States Post Office Department. A Description of United States Postage Stamps / Issued by the Post Office Department from July 1, 1847, to April 1, 1945 [sic], USGPO, Washington, p1

(printing) An image or logo denoting official or proprietary authority or provenience.

tunnus

printing: image denoting authority or provenience


hammer

From Middle English hamer, from Old English hamor, from Proto-West Germanic *hamar, from Proto-Germanic *hamaraz (“tool with a stone head”) (compare West Frisian hammer, Low German Hamer, Dutch hamer, German Hammer, Danish hammer, Swedish hammare). This is traditionally ascribed to Proto-Indo-European *h₂eḱmoros, from *h₂éḱmō (“stone”), but see *hamaraz for further discussion.
(declare a defaulter on the stock exchange): Originally signalled by knocking with a wooden mallet.

sense

Hammers are, in essence, reverse kickers. Instead of being set in smaller type like kickers, hammers are set in larger type than headlines.

1981, Harry W. Stonecipher, Edward C. Nicholls, Douglas A. Anderson, Electronic Age News Editing, page 104:

(journalism) Ellipsis of hammer headline.


manga

en-noun

manga (countable and uncountable, plural manga or mangas)

desc

→ Hindi: मांगा (māṅgā), माँगा (māṅgā), मैंगा (maiṅgā)

Black Cat (manga)
Hokusai
manga (disambiguation)

Borrowed from Japanese 漫画(まんが) (manga), from Middle Chinese 漫 (MC manH, “free, unrestrained”) + 畫 (MC hweaH|hweak, “drawing”). Compare Mandarin 漫畫／漫画 (mànhuà), Korean 만화 (漫畵／漫畫, manhwa). After an 1814 book by Katsushika Hokusai. Doublet of manhua and manhwa.

zh-l

漫畫／漫画 (mànhuà)

English speakers are quick to notice the at times incorrect use of English in anime and manga. Many English words are customarily used in standard Japanese speech, and sometimes they are pronounced and employed in a manner quite different from their native use.

2001, Gilles Poitras, “What makes anime unique”, in Anime Essentials: Every Thing a Fan Needs to Know, page 63:

Manga (Japanese comics) are everywhere. Even here in Auckland. One can find various titles in their original versions as well as in Chinese, Korean and English translations.

2007, Yukako Sunaoshi, “Who reads comics? Manga readership among first-generation Asian immigrants in New Zealand”, in Popular Culture, Globalization and Japan, page 94:

Manga-influenced comics by Western authors are frequently sold alongside manga, although in most bookstores the decision is primarily a matter of format and packaging (i.e., whether the book is printed in the compact manga size or the traditionally larger American comic book format).

2012, Jason Thompson, “Introduction”, in Manga: The Complete Guide, page 46:

(countable, comics) A comic originating in Japan.


platform

en-verb

platform (third-person singular simple present platforms, present participle platforming, simple past and past participle platformed)

platforms (present singular third-person)
platforming (participle present)
platformed (participle past)
platformed (past)

From Middle French plateforme (“a flat form”), from plate (“flat”) (from Old French plat, from Ancient Greek πλατύς (platús, “flat”)) + forme (“form”) (from Latin fōrma (“shape; figure; form”)); compare flatscape.

der

But serious movies are not necessarily good movies. A studio that decides to platform a film had better be sure the film will get the necessary good reviews and audience approval. Otherwise, like United Artists' "A Small Circle of Friends," which was platformed around the same time as "The Elephant Man," the film will fail calamitously.

1981 September 2, Aljean Harmetz, “Comes Fall, a Chance for Serious Movies?”, in The New York Times, page C21:

Each of these films will be "platformed," the industry term to describe the strategy of opening a movie first in a limited number of theaters to give it an aura of exclusivity, then having its appeal build through word of mouth.

1993 November 25, Bernard Weinraub, “For Movie Industry, Thanksgiving Means A Box-Office Feast”, in The New York Times, page C11:

(film, transitive) To open (a film) in a small number of theaters before a broader release in order to generate enthusiasm.


American

Etymology tree
Proto-Germanic *amalaz
Proto-Indo-European *h₃reǵ-
Proto-Indo-European *-s
Proto-Indo-European *h₃rḗǵs
Proto-Celtic *rīxsbor.
Proto-Germanic *rīks
Proto-Germanic *Amalarīksder.
Proto-Indo-European *ḱey-
Proto-Indo-European *-mos
Proto-Indo-European *ḱóymos
Proto-Indo-European *tḱóymos
Proto-Germanic *haimaz
Proto-Germanic *rīks
Proto-Germanic *Haimarīksder.?
Italian Amerigoder.
New Latin Americalbor.
English America
Middle English -n
English -n
English American
From America + -n. compare Latin americānus.

etymon

(uncountable, US printing, rare, dated) A size of type smaller than German, 1-point type.