katabasis

en-noun

katabasis (countable and uncountable, plural katabases)

From Ancient Greek κατάβασις (katábasis), from verb καταβαίνω (katabaínō, from κατά (katá, “downwards”) + βαίνω (baínō, “go”)).

af

The ancient Greeks and the peoples of remote antiquity already knew of journeys of the soul, but these were often journeys to the infernal regions, descents into hell, catabases, with obstacles, such as encounters with various monsters, menaces of all sorts, the crossing of the bridge of the dead or the passage of mysterious rivers on foot or on horseback.

1923, Georges Berguer, translated by E. S. Brooks and Van Wyck Brooks, Some aspects of the life of Jesus from the psychological and psycho-analytic point of view, page 58:

The logic of the underworld is most on show in the Phaedra and the Hercules [of Seneca], which feature the returns of Theseus and Hercules from their katabases.

2009, James Ker, The Deaths of Seneca, page 136:

Willy, the concentration camp survivor who has experienced more evil than any other character, places no value on catabasis. When asked (in connection with Aeneid VI) 'Do you think everyone ought to descend to the underworld?', he replies briskly, 'Certainly not! It's very dark and stuffy and one is more likely to feel frightened than to learn anything.[…]'

2010, P. Martin, Anne Rowe, Iris Murdoch: A Literary Life, page 84:

Therefore, Erling Holtsmark's point that literary-mythic katabasis captures “the imagined physical orientation of the other world relative to this one” (25), is superseded in a post-mythic, ostensibly secular worldview by a journey that takes place within an underworld that is an exteriorized 'projection' of a protagonist's putative interior world, the domain especially of the unconscious, memory and dream.

2013, Russell J.A. Kilbourn, “Introduction”, in Cinema, Memory, Modernity:The Representation of Memory from the Art Film to Transnational Cinema, page 31:

(mythology, literature) A mytheme or trope in which the hero embarks on a journey to the underworld.


end board

(television, film) The logo or image that concludes an ident sequence or a trailer.


top 40

en-noun

top 40 (countable and uncountable, plural top 40s)

Coordinate term: CHR

I was listening to a top 40 radio station.

Nearly every history of Top 40 launches from an anecdote about how radio station manager Todd Storz came up with the idea sometime between World War II and the early 1950s, watching with friends in a bar in Omaha as customers repeatedly punched up the same few songs on the jukebox.

2014, Eric Weisbard, Top 40 Democracy […] , University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 4:

(music, radio, uncountable) A radio format for popular music, usually including the 40 most popular songs at a given time.


replicator

Why, this planet was still centuries away from developing such necessities as personal replicators or portable nano-intelligences...

2001, Greg Cox, The Eugenics Wars Vol I: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh (Star Trek), Star Trek, →ISBN, page 76:

either there is not such thing as a concept known as 'spacecraft' (inwhich case, any talk of spacecraft, warp drives, inertial dampers, replicators, and the like would be pointless), or indeed there is.

2001, Judith Barad, Ed Robertson, The Ethics of Star Trek, Harper Perennial, →ISBN, page 74:

The scanner here on Earth will destroy my brain and body, while recording the exact states of all of my cells. It will the transmit this information by radio. Travelling at the speed of light, the message will take three minutes to reach the Replicator on Mars. This will then create, out of new matter, a brain and body exactly like mine. It will be in this body that I shall wake up.

2007, Douglas Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop, Basic Books, →ISBN, pages 301–302:

(science fiction) A technological device that replicates physical objects.


justifier

When the operator starts typing the third line, the justifier goes to work on the second.

1955, Book Production, volumes 61-62, page 43:

(computing, typography) A machine, program or algorithm that justifies text by aligning it.


noddy

From nod + -y, coined by John Fiske in 1987.

Noddies are often filmed after the interview in question has finished.

(television) A cutaway scene of a television interviewer nodding, used to cover an editing gap in an interview.


vers de societe

(poetry) A type of light poetry suited to the amusement of polite upper-class society.


villanelle

From the French villanelle, from Italian villanella, from villano (“peasant”), from Latin vīllānus (“farmhand”), from vīlla (“estate”). The origin references the pastoral themes originally associated with this form.

By definition the villanelle is restrictive, because it demands nineteen lines on two rhymes in six stanzas, the first and third lines of the opening tercet recurring alternately at the end of the concluding quatrain.

1966, Louise Baughan Murdy, Sound and sense in Dylan Thomas's poetry (Studies in English Literature), The Hague: Mouton & Co, →ISBN, page 96:

(poetry) A type of poem, consisting of five tercets and one quatrain, with only two rhymes.


triolet

Coordinate term: sestina

The triolet, like the sestina and several other forms of French-derived poetry, is a form of rhyming poetry that has lines that repeat.

2005, Connie Homan Weaver, Poetry a la Carte, Prufrock Press Inc., →ISBN, page 110:

(poetry) An eight-line poem whose rhyme scheme is ABaAabAB and whose lines are in iambic tetrameter.


ergodic

en-adj

ergodic (comparative more ergodic, superlative most ergodic)

more ergodic (comparative)
most ergodic (superlative)

International Scientific Vocabulary ergo- + -ode (+ -ic). The etymological origin is disputed: ἔργον (érgon) + ὁδός (hodós, “way”) versus ἔργον (érgon) + εἶδος (eîdos, “image”).

Therefore this chapter moves into two directions, cybertextually expanding (and reorganizing) the field of architextuality, and specifying the ergodic variety within it.

2012, Markku Eskelinen, Cybertext Poetics:

(literature, information science) Of or relating to a literary work that requires nontrivial effort on the reader's part to traverse.


process color

Coordinate term: spot color

(printing) A printing process which uses four specific colored inks: cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK), and halftone printing plates, to reproduce a range of colors.


cume

en-verb

cume (third-person singular simple present cumes, present participle cuming, simple past and past participle cumed)

cumes (present singular third-person)
cuming (participle present)
cumed (participle past)
cumed (past)

Despite the exhibitor complications, Goodbye To Language has already surpassed Godard’s most recent previous project, Film Socialisme, which cumed about $33K in the U.S in its 2011 release.

2014, Brian Brooks, Deadline Hollywood, “Godard’s ‘Goodbye To Language’ Says Hello To Weekend’s Best Specialty Box Office”, November 2, 2014

(film) Earn cumulatively at the box office.


cume

With a cume so far of more than $38,000, the film has already outgrossed Godard’s previous feature, “Film socialisme” (2010), despite having opened on far fewer screens.

2014, Justin Chang, Variety, “Why Godard’s ‘Goodbye to Language’ Demands a Wider 3D Release”, November 4, 2014

Taking into account the fact Wonder Woman opened lower than those other releases, these holds and its eventual $560-570+ million global cume after close of business Friday now all but assure Gal Gadot's Amazon princess will indeed finish its run north of $700 million.

2017, Mark Hughes, 'Wonder Woman' Has All-Time 4th-Best Third Weekend For Superhero Movie:

Compare cume to the number of shoppers that go into a supermarket. Let's imagine that the station has no listeners and the supermarket has no shoppers.

2011, Gary Dahl, Advertising For Dummies
If a particular station has a cume of 250,000, but most listeners are women and only a very few are within your target demo, then this 250,000 figure doesn't help you.

(radio, television) Cumulative audience.


cume

1988, Hugh Malcolm Beville, Audience Ratings: Radio, Television, and Cable
Cume ratings provide measures of net unduplicated audience for various combinations...

Cume persons represent a radio station's cumulative audience, or the estimated number of individuals reached by a radio station.

2016, Alan B. Albarran, Management of Electronic and Digital Media:


novum

en-noun

novum (countable and uncountable, plural novums or nova)

In his book Metamorphoses of Science Fiction (1979), Suvin introduced a number of ideas that remain central in sf criticism: cognitive estrangement, the novum and sf's genetic link with utopia.[…]Even more influential in sf theory than cognitive estrangement is Suvin's concept of the novum.[…]Suvin adopts the concept of the novum from the work of Ernst Bloch, for whom the term refers to those concrete innovations of lived history that awaken human collective consciousness out of a static present to awareness that history can be changed. The novum thus inspires hope for positive historical transformations.

2003, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., “7: Marxist theory and science fiction”, in Edward James, Farah Mendlesohn, editors, The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, Cambridge University Press, page 118:

It seems that this ‘point of difference’, the thing or things that differentiate the world portrayed in science fiction from the world we recognise around us, is the crucial separator between SF and other forms of imaginative or fantastic literature. The critic Darko Suvin has usefully coined the term ‘novum’, the Latin for ‘new’ or ‘new thing’, to refer to this ‘point of difference’ (the plural is ‘nova’). An SF text may be based on one novum, such as [...]. More usually it will be predicated on a number of interrelated nova, such as [...]. This ‘novum’ must not be supernatural but need not necessarily be a piece of technology.

2006, Adam Roberts, Science Fiction, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), pages 6–7:

cognitive estrangement
cognitive estrangement

(narratology, science fiction) An innovation which is fictional, but, following the logic of cognitive estrangement (characteristic of science fiction), is afforded plausibility by the assumption that the fictional setting is scientifically consistent.


emanata

Now that we have our characters, there's a lot more we can do with them to show what's going on inside them. Those of you who believe in mental telepathy should not be at all surprised at the things cartoonists have emanating from their characters.

1980, Mort Walker, The lexicon of comicana, Emanata, page 28:

Emanata can come from things as well as people to show what's going on.

1980, Mort Walker, The lexicon of comicana, Emanata, page 29:

(comics) Unrealistic pictorial elements emanating from a character, symbolizing something about that character, such as a sweatdrop for anxiety or a question mark for confusion, or emanating from an object, such as heat rays from the sun.


romcom

Shortening of romantic comedy. Probably based on the earlier sitcom.


road movie

For Timothy Corrigan, the road movie is ‘traditionally focused, almost exclusively, on men and the absence of women’ (1991: 143). David Laderman elucidates: Most road movies … retain a traditional sexist hierarchy that privileges the white heterosexual male, in terms of narrative and point of view. As in typical Hollywood films, the road movie tends to define the active impulse (here, to drive) relegating women characters to passive passengers and/or erotic destinations. (2002: 20)

2006, Ewa Mazierska, Laura Rascaroli, Crossing New Europe: Postmodern Travel and the European Road Movie, Wallflower Press, →ISBN, page 161:

(film) A film in which much of the action takes place during a journey, especially one involving overland travel.


Rowleian

en-adj

Rowleian (comparative more Rowleian, superlative most Rowleian)

more Rowleian (comparative)
most Rowleian (superlative)

The style of which is neither Rowleian nor Shakespearean but a particular blending of both.

1988, Ann Thompson, The Modern Language Review^(http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-7937(198810)83%3A4%3C945%3AWSA'BO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9), volume 83, number 4, page 945n:

Tim [Bloodhound] shows many signs of being a typical Rowleian clown; he is a fat clown, judging from his joke about breaking his girdle.

1991, Mark Dominik, “William Rowley”, in William Shakespeare and the Birth of Merlin, page 33:

(literature) Of or pertaining to the literary style and characters of plays by William Rowley (ca1585-1626), English playright.

Mr. Tyrwhitt's book on the Rowleian controversy, which is reckoned completely victorious, are all the novelties I have seen since I left town.

1782, Horace Walpole, The Letters of Horace Walpole: Earl of Orford, page 319:

Chatterton... also imparted to Barrett two Rowleian poems, "The Parliament of Sprites," and "The Battle of Hastings" (in two quite different versions).

1898, Henry A. Beers, A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century:

Tyrwhitt pointed out that the Rowleian dialect was not English of the fifteenth century, nor of any century, but a grotesque jumble of archaic words of very different periods and dialects.

(literature) Of or pertaining to the work of (fictional) poet Thomas Rowley, a pseudonym of Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770), English poet.


Smell-O-Vision

/ˈsmɛləˌvɪʒən/

From smell + -o- (interfix used for ease of pronunciation) + vision, recoined in 1959 by Mike Todd Jr. (1929–2002), the American producer of the film Scent of Mystery (1960) which used the Smell-O-Vision system invented by the Swiss scientist Hans Laube (1900–1976), possibly modelled after terms used in the motion picture industry such as Panavision (a company manufacturing cameras and lenses) and VistaVision (an early widescreen motion picture film format): see the November 1959 quotation.

affix

[…] John Livadary […] is en route to Rome to commence the score recording for "The Scent of Mystery,"^([sic]) new Mike Todd Enterprises pic production. The recording will be made via the new 35 mm. magnetic tape. The picture also introduces a new process, known as "Smell-O-Vision."

1959 September 28, “Two Everest Teams to Cut in Europe”, in Paul Ackerman [et al.], editor, The Billboard: The Amusement Industry’s Leading Newsweekly, volume 71, number 39, Cincinnati, Oh.: The Billboard Publishing Company, →OCLC, pages 2 and 14, column 3:

Yes, Smell-O-Vision is here. Film makers have toyed with ways to add smell to sight and sound in movies for years. Now Michael Todd Jr. thinks he has the answer. He's chosen the name purposely, he says, "to get the jump on those who will call it that anyway." The new process will perfume the film, "Scent of Mystery," to open at a special theater in Chicago. A magnetic track on the film will synchronize action to an "odor machine." Individual odor outlets fixed into each seat will guarantee that the whole audience knows the picture smells.

1959 November, “… Have You Heard …?”, in Howard Allaway, editor, Popular Science, volume 175, number 5, New York, N.Y.: Popular Science Publishing Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 20:

Danny Stiles, WNJR, Newark, N.J., and WCTC, New Brunswick, N.J., recently ran a contest asking listeners to identify the mystery voice on Eddie Fisher's new record "The Chase." First prize was a bottle of Mike Todd Jr.'s perfume, "Scent of Mystery," also the title of his new Smellevision movie. Answer, of course, was Elizabeth Taylor.

1960 January 25, June Bundy, “Vox Jox”, in Paul Ackerman [et al.], editor, The Billboard: The Amusement Industry’s Leading Newsweekly, volume 72, number 4, Cincinnati, Oh.: The Billboard Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 23, column 3:

[B]y the early '50s we had seen so much that it took Smell-O-Vision to shock us into attendance, and more recently audiences have continued to dwindle while movies went from topless to bottomless to games that any number can play. What in the world will they try next?

1971 November 5, Brad Darrach, “Parting Shots: Now at Your Local Theater: A New Kind of Shoot-’em-up”, in Ralph Graves, editor, Life, volume 71, number 19, Chicago, Ill.; New York, N.Y.: Time Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 82, column 1:

Each Smell-O-Vision customer sat in a movie seat equipped with a system to pipe in smells directly to the nose. […] Theater-owners knew AromaRama and Smell-O-Vision wouldn't be around long. Curious customers came and went without getting too excited.

1990, Frank W. Hoffmann, William G. Bailey, “AromaRama and Smell-O-Vision”, in Arts and Entertainment Fads (Encyclopedia of Fads; I), Binghamton, N.Y.; London: The Haworth Press, →ISBN, pages 19–20:

In 1960, the movie A Scent of Mystery^([sic]) used the Smell-o-Vision system, which solved the distribution problem by including smell tubes at each seat. Although the smells were integrated into the mystery story line, the system was not a great commercial success.

2002, Stephen Wilson, “Biology: Microbiology, Animals and Plants, Ecology, and Medicine and the Body”, in Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology (Leonardo), Cambridge, Mass.; London: MIT Press, →ISBN, page 60:

Words referring to technologies also fade out if the technology finds few long-term devotees. […] [A]udiences were unimpressed and smell-o-vision technology was stillborn. Hence the word smell-o-vision had a short life[…].

2005, Francis Katamba, “Words Galore: Innovation and Change”, in English Words: Structure, History, Usage, 2nd edition, Abingdon, Oxfordshire; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, published 2010, →ISBN, part III (A Changing, Expanding Lexicon), page 185:

At the end of the 1950s, filmmakers experimented with Aromarama and Smell-o-vision. […] Smell-o-vision followed soon after. This time the smells came from vents beneath the cinema seats. It was used for a 1959 film entitled A Scent of Mystery.^([sic]) At best failing to work and at worst making members of the audience feel ill, the experiment faltered and failed.

2022, Susan Stewart, “The Twentieth Century: Cinema, Haute Couture and Celebrity Scents”, in Common and Uncommon Scents: A Social History of Perfume, Stroud, Gloucestershire: Amberley Publishing, →ISBN:

(originally and chiefly US, film, historical) A system that choreographed the release of odors into a movie theater during the projection of a film.


stacking

en-noun

stacking (countable and uncountable, plural stackings)

(television) A technique for keeping a captive audience by grouping together programs with similar appeal.


run on

en-verb

run on (third-person singular simple present runs on, present participle running on, simple past ran on, past participle run on)

runs on (present singular third-person)
running on (participle present)
ran on (past)
run on (participle past)

(printing, historical) To carry on or continue (e.g. the type for a new sentence) without making a break or commencing a new paragraph.


auton

Coined by Robert Holmes in 1969, from a contraction of automaton.

Not far away in the woods the Auton had been standing motionless under a tree. It was shaped like a man but it was not human.

1974, Terrance Dicks, Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion, page 55:

Juan made seven attempts to pervert the auton. One involved twelve hundred years of careful observation, timing the failure of various subsystems, maneuvering the auton into a position where he might take control and get transportation to resources in near space.

1986, Vernor Vinge, Marooned in Realtime:

"The Metrologan Order built the auton that was Ninth. How can you be so sure that she was not so well crafted that she really did have her own will?"

2002, Sean McMullen, Voyage of the Shadowmoon, page 461:

(science fiction) A machine or robot, usually in the form of a living being, designed to follow a precise sequence of instructions.


Alucard

/ˈæləˌkɑː(ɹ)d/

(chiefly fiction) A male given name originating as a coinage, often used in Dracula or vampire-related fiction.


living dead

(fiction, usually with the) The undead; zombies, vampires, etc.


sottisier

I had intended to provide the book derisively with an appendix, vermiform. Papa Flaubert compiled a sottisier, I also compiled a sottisier. I do not yield a jot in my belief that such compilations are useful, I concede that there may be no need of reprinting mine at this moment. At any rate the snippets are there on file.

1934, Ezra Pound, “Date Line”, in Make It New, London: Faber & Faber, page 16:

Frequently he brought his points home with topical allusions: timely newspaper clippings or public utterances, constituting a sort of sottisier or scrapbook of contemporary fatuities.

1961, Harry Levin, Irving Babbitt and the Teaching of Literature, Harvard University Press, page 10:

Suppose a serious literary critic were to write about Hollywood autobiographies: “Niven experiences life as an imprisoning reality of personal experience, plus mythopoeic elements, a vast sottisier in the tradition of Jessel's This way, Miss.[…]

1985 December 23, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, “Book of The Times”, in The New York Times:

The sottisier, which is a rich one, is drawn almost entirely from books and articles by French left-wing intellectuals about the Third World, mostly written during the sixties and seventies, but with some examples from the present decade.

1986, Conor Cruise O’Brien, “The Cant of Pity”, in The Atlantic, →ISSN:

In the Israeli press, a constant feature is a sottisier of what the official Arab publications, including school textbooks, say about the eternal iniquity of the Jewish race and the holy necessity to eradicate it from the face of the Earth.

2007, Clive James, Cultural Amnesia, page 631:

(literature, uncommon) A compilation of banal, hackneyed, or otherwise objectionable snippets of text from various authors.


tween

tween (third-person singular simple present tweens, present participle tweening, simple past and past participle tweened)

tweens (present singular third-person)
tweening (participle present)
tweened (participle past)
tweened (past)

The two most important and advanced ingredients of today's animation are tweening and morphing.

2004, D. P. Mukherjee, Fundamentals of Computer Graphics and Multimedia, page 117:

Simple motion tweening moves your objects in a straight line from here to there.[…]You can also combine frame-by-frame animation with tweened animation.

2005, Ellen Finkelstein, Gurdy Leete, Macromedia Flash 8 For Dummies, page 191:

The first parameter is the object that you want to tween, and the second parameter is the amount of time you want it to take in seconds.

2012, Christopher Griffith, Real-World Flash Game Development, 2nd edition, page 113:

(cinematography) To generate intermediate frames in an animated sequence so as to give the appearance of smooth movement.


camera move

(film, television) A specific deliberate movement effected by the camera, such as a pan, zoom, tilt etc.


ignis fatuus

From New Latin ignis fatuus (literally “foolish fire”).

bor

Fiery spirits or devils are such as commonly work by blazing stars, fire-drakes, or ignes fatui; which lead men often in flumina aut præcipitia, saith Bodine[…]

1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:

An Ignis Fatuus, that bewitches, / And leads Men into Pools and Ditches

1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]. Canto I.”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678, →OCLC; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC, page 16:


print on demand

This list omits print-on-demand books run off from electronic copies of the 1903 edition available on the Internet.

2018, James Lambert, “Setting the Record Straight: An In-depth Examination of Hobson-Jobson”, in International Journal of Lexicography, volume 31, number 4, →DOI, page 489:

(publishing) A system of printing very small runs of a document as required, especially by using computer technology.


precognitive

(science fiction) A precognitive person, a seer.


astronavigation

(science fiction) Navigation through space


non-spacing

(typography) Of a character: combined with another and so not consuming additional horizontal space.


playlist

/ˈpɫæɪ̯ˌɫɪst/

(radio) A list of recorded songs scheduled to be played on a radio station.


GRP

en-noun

GRP (countable and uncountable, plural GRPs)

(broadcasting) Initialism of gross rating point.


handset

en-verb

handset (third-person singular simple present handsets, present participle handsetting, simple past and past participle handset)

handsets (present singular third-person)
handsetting (participle present)
handset (participle past)
handset (past)

handsetting type


tombstoning

(journalism) In page layout, putting articles side by side so that the headlines are adjacent. The phenomenon is also referred to as bumping heads.


radio-frequency identification

(radio, telecommunications) The storage and retrieval of data using tags attached to individual packages, animals or people; the tags contain an integrated circuit to store and process the data, and an antenna to transmit and receive such data.


newsflash

Television programmes were interrupted by a newsflash announcing that the Prime Minister had resigned.

(broadcasting) A brief media report of something that has recently taken place.


jack in

jack in (third-person singular simple present jacks in, present participle jacking in, simple past and past participle jacked in)

jacks in (present singular third-person)
jacking in (participle present)
jacked in (participle past)
jacked in (past)

Watchman replaced him in the linkup seat. He jacked himself into the computer.

1970 June, Robert Silverberg, “The Tower of Glass”, in Galaxy Science Fiction, volume 30, number 3, page 141:

Seven days and he'd jack in. If he closed his eyes now, he'd see the matrix.

1984, William Gibson, Neuromancer (Sprawl; book 1), New York, N.Y.: Ace Books, →ISBN, page 37:

She couldn't move, not without that extra skeleton, and it was jacked straight into her brain, myoelectric interface.

1986, William Gibson, “Winter Market”, in Burning Chrome, page 129:

(science fiction, transitive, intransitive) To connect a brain directly to a computer.


minikin

en-noun

minikin (countable and uncountable, plural minikins)

From Middle Dutch minnekijn (“darling, beloved”), from minne (“love”) (cf. minnesinger) and the diminutive suffix -kijn.

der

(uncountable, UK printing, dated) The size of type smaller than brilliant, standardized as 3-point.


foxing

en-noun

foxing (countable and uncountable, plural foxings)

(printing) The discoloration of printed material with brown marks.


phone-in

Coordinate term: phone-out

(broadcasting) A show requiring members of the public to telephone the studio.


Earthite

(science fiction, nonstandard) A person from planet Earth.


Earther

(science fiction) A person from planet Earth.


Earthan

(rare, science fiction, nonstandard) A person or thing from planet Earth; an Earthling.


Earthan

en-adj

Earthan (comparative more Earthan, superlative most Earthan)

more Earthan (comparative)
most Earthan (superlative)

When, for unknown reasons, gene-splicing with Earthan reptiles had failed to take, scientists had turned to the sea dragons found on the water world of Aquatilis, home planet of the merpeople.

2008, Crystal Jordan, Carnal Desires, page 59:

(rare, science fiction, nonstandard) Of or from planet Earth.


Earthian

Earthian (comparative more Earthian, superlative most Earthian)

more Earthian (comparative)
most Earthian (superlative)

Septimus Spink, sole survivor of the Earthian space ship...

1955. Fantastic Universe: Science Fiction, Great American Publications: 1955, page 41

An Earthian metallurgist could tell very easily that 'aluminum' was molybdenum...

1975. Hilary Putnam. Mind, Language, and Reality. Cambridge University Press: 1975, page 226

Nowadays speakers on Twin Earth are well aware (thanks to chemistry) that their word 'water' does not refer to the Earthian stuff.

1997. Diego Marconi. Lexical Competence. MIT Press: 1997, page 174

(science fiction) Of or from the planet Earth.


Earthian

I inquired of one prominent Earthian: "What's of constructing ships and buildings...?"

1940. America: A Catholic Review of the Week, America Press: 1940, page 420

I most likely will be the second Earthian to reach that planet. ...

1955. Fantastic Universe: Science Fiction, Great American Publications, 1955, page 41


Earthian

According to Fodor's definition, it follows that 'water' in Twin Earthian means XYZ and not H2O.

1997. Diego Marconi. Lexical Competence. MIT Press: 1997, page 102

I thought the females spoke Earthian to you. Improving their Earthian was why they asked for a couple.

2004. Sheri S. Tepper. The Companions. HarperCollins: 2004, page 79

(science fiction, rare) A universal language spoken on Earth.


pullback

(film) The act of drawing a camera back to broaden the visible scene.


disrupter

(science fiction) An energy weapon in the form of a pistol.


topspin

en-noun

topspin (countable and uncountable, plural topspins)

Well remembered as a visual comedienne, she also had the verbal knack of putting all sorts of topspin on a line.

1994, Richard D. Heldenfels, Television's Greatest Year: 1954, page 70:

Flashdance had a quality known as top spin, in which the casting, the concept and the look and sound of the movie all come together.

2010, Justin Wyatt, High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood:

2016, Quentin Letts, "A Very English Scandal: sex, lies and a murder plot at the heart of the establishment by John Preston - review" (in Evening Standard, 28 April 2016) https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/books/a-very-english-scandal-sex-lies-and-a-murder-plot-at-the-heart-of-the-establishment-by-john-preston-a3236271.html
This fluent, readable book has certainly been polished with a fair degree of what Fleet Street feature editors once called topspin: “Give it some topspin, old boy. Make the copy sing.” In this John Preston more than succeeds.

(uncountable, television, film, publishing) An edgy, quirky or otherwise engaging quality that holds the interest of the audience.


sophont

From sopho- + -ont. First used in the 1966 works by Poul Anderson, coined by his wife Karen Anderson.

Likewise with the psychology of intelligent species. Most sophonts indeed possess basic instincts which diverge more or less from man's. With those of radically alien motivations we have little contact.

I'm honored to meet a sophont of the Soro line in person!

Evil, they argued, could only have meaning on smaller scales, in the hurt that one sophont does to another.

1992, Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep, Tor Books, page 406:

Only one sophont appeared to be involved—and not a sophisticated one.

1997, Spider Robinson, Lifehouse, Baen Books, page 2:

artificial intelligence
artificial intelligence

(chiefly science fiction) An intelligent being; a being with a base reasoning capacity roughly equivalent to or greater than that of a human being. The word does not apply to machines unless they have true artificial intelligence, rather than mere processing capacity.


GMA

(Philippines, broadcasting) Initialism of Global Media Arts Network, a broadcasting company in the Philippines


counterpunch

(printing, historical) A punch used in the cutting of other punches, often used to create the negative space in or around a glyph.


lookbook

Mainly useful for feature films, the look book helps define the look in terms of the cinematography and design that you hope to achieve. It can contain stills from other films or photos as a visual reference […]

2012, Steven Ascher, Edward Pincus, The Filmmaker's Handbook:

(film) A showcase of photographs etc. describing how a film should look.


WIA

(military fiction) Initialism of wounded in action.


double-dip

en-verb

double-dip (third-person singular simple present double-dips, present participle double-dipping, simple past and past participle double-dipped)

double-dips (present singular third-person)
double-dipping (participle present)
double-dipped (participle past)
double-dipped (past)

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(television, film) To re-release a movie or TV series, sometimes as a compilation or with additional features.


signature tune

(music, broadcasting) The tune that opens and/or closes a radio or television programme.


mealiness

en-noun

mealiness (usually uncountable, plural mealinesses)

(printing) Synonym of foxing: blemishes in a print or printed work.


metricize

en-verb

metricize (third-person singular simple present metricizes, present participle metricizing, simple past and past participle metricized)

metricizes (present singular third-person)
metricizing (participle present)
metricized (participle past)
metricized (past)


characters per inch

Please use a type that is 10 characters per inch.

(design, typography) A unit of measurement of the number of typographic characters that fit on a one inch line of printed type. This unit is mainly used to specify font sizes that have the same width for each character (monospaced), however it may also be used to give an average for fonts with characters of varying widths.


tricorder

The name of such a device in Star Trek, from tri- (referring to its three input keys, which by default cover geological, meteorological, and biological functions) + (re)corder

PLEASE TURN OFF ALL CELL PHONES AND TRICORDERS

1999-2003, Matt Groening, opening title screen from the start, in Futurama, FOX Television Network:

(fiction) A fictional futuristic handheld device used for scanning, which may be specialized for medical, technical, or other purposes.


Antarctican

...customs which the Antarcticans might have. How he wished he had made the trip alone, and need not share with Adam the scientific triumphs to come!
Of course she was—the daughter of Morrison, Hull’s companion who had befriended and protected him against the Antarcticans.

1935, Edison Marshall, Dian of the Lost Land, H. C. Kinsey & Company, Inc., pages 53 and 62

Had the US Navy icebreakers been unable to rescue them from the ice in early 1948 her child might have been the first native-born Antarctican.

1956, Walter Sullivan, Quest for a Continent, McGraw-Hill, page 273:

Gonneville departed this enchanted land...taking with him...an “Indian” prince called Essomeric. The land was not, of course, the southern continent, and Essomeric was not an Antarctican. De Gonneville had probably been to southern Brazil.

2001, Kieran Mulvaney, At the Ends of the Earth: History of the Polar Regions, Island Press, →ISBN, page 67:

Recall the exercise at the end of the previous chapter, and imagine that you discover just one Antarctican, and you measure his or her body temperature. If you know the population mean for Antarcticans (perhaps it is 98.6°F), then you have one piece of information about variability.

2004, R. Brooke Lea, Barry H. Cohen, Essentials of Statistics for the Social and Behavioral Sciences, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., →ISBN, page 45:

Part of the reason is that there is an indigenous tradition of consuming seals in the north for subsistence, whereas sealing in the south was done almost exclusively for commercial reasons, there being no native Antarcticans.

2006, William L. Fox, Driving to Mars, Shoemaker & Hoard, →ISBN, page 227:

(fiction or hypothetical) A native of Antarctica.


parablepsis

en-noun

parablepsis (countable and uncountable, plural parablepses)

From Ancient Greek παρά (pará, “beside”) and βλέπω (blépō, “to look at”).

So too parablepses due to homoioteleuton in the Greek text are irrelevant for the Hebrew text.

1978, International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament, Congress Volume, →ISBN, page 400:

Vertical parablebsis does not fit either, since it should be in the range of several lines (two or three lines).

2009, Raymond De Hoop, Marjo Christina Annette Korpel, Stanley E. Porter, The Impact of Unit Delimitation on Exegesis, →ISBN, page 35:

(palaeography) A circumstance in which a scribe miscopies text due to inadvertently looking to the side while copying, or accidentally skips over some of it.


cloaked

(science fiction) rendered invisible by advanced technology.


FAB

Coined by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson for the 1960s TV series Thunderbirds, from fab,
clipping of fabulous.

"Okay, FAB. Over and out."

1986, Márcio Souza, The order of the day: an unidentified flying opus:

It was great to report back to Mike and Jason on this knowing they were eager to hear that everything was operational. F.A.B. Virgil!

2011, Norman Beech, The Atlantic Job - A Dad and a Lad, FilamentPublishing Ltd, →ISBN, page 69:

“Understood. F.A.B., sir.” Their pilot hung the microphone back on its hook.

2013, Andrez Bergen, Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa?, John Hunt Publishing, →ISBN:

(radio, telecommunications, humorous) Used to acknowledge that a message has been received and understood.


young adult

(publishing) An adolescent; a reader of young adult writing (YA).


young adult

en-adj

young adult (comparative more young adult, superlative most young adult)

more young adult (comparative)
most young adult (superlative)

Young adult writer Jen Derbyshire just published her 50th paperback novel, the latest in an adventure series spanning fifteen years.

(publishing) Pertaining to young adult writing.


daimonic

From daimon + -ic; from Latin demon (“spirit”), originally from Ancient Greek δαίμων (daímōn, “a god, goddess, divine power, genius, guardian spirit”). Doublet of demonic.

der

(psychology, spirituality, mythology, literature) The journey and transition from innocence to experience; part of the process of individuation.

(mythology, literature) The place where light and dark meet.


puff piece

Coordinate term: hit piece

That's your first question? I thought this was supposed to be a puff piece.

2004, Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, spoken by Steve Zissou (Bill Murray):

The magazine had sent David Blum to Los Angeles to profile Emilio Estevez, arguably the most famous of the actors in Joel Schumacher's recently released St. Elmo's Fire, and what had been pitched as a typical puff piece quickly warped into a scathing portrayal that soon became scandalous.

2019, Bret Easton Ellis, White, Pan Macmillan, →ISBN:

While I don’t think Chozick’s profile was in any way a puff piece, I understand the anger it has generated. After all, not many mothers facing prison are given a splashy redemption photoshoot in a major paper, are they?

2023 May 9, Arwa Mahdawi, “Elizabeth Holmes is rebranding herself as a sweet, devoted mother. Will anyone buy it?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(journalism, publishing, informal) A journalistic form of puffery; an article or story of exaggerated praise that often ignores or downplays opposing viewpoints or evidence to the contrary.


torcher

/ˈtɔːt͡ʃə(ɹ)/

-ɔː(ɹ)tʃə(ɹ)

(science fiction) The pilot of a spacecraft propelled by a torch drive (a spacecraft engine which produces thrust by nuclear fusion).


on-time marker

(broadcasting, television) A short marker (a pip in audio or an asterisk in data) that signals a precise instant in time.


waitron

(dated, science fiction) A robotic or mechanical waiter.


upstyle

Some style guides write north temperate zone upstyle as North Temperate Zone.

(typography, capitalization) Which capitalizes all nouns, adjectives and adverbs (in a title, heading, headline, header, or similar display type element): which is styled in title case.


upstyle

en-noun

upstyle (countable and uncountable, plural upstyles)

(uncountable, typography) Upstyle capitalization.


downstyle

Coordinate term: upstyle

(typography, capitalization) Which only capitalizes words (e.g. in headers) that would be capitalized in a normal sentence: which is styled in sentence case.


viewing audience

viewing audience (plural viewing audiences)

(media, entertainment) An audience that views an event or show through various forms of media (e.g. television, webcast, podcast), participating in an event without being physically present.


warp bubble

Coined in 1994 by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre.

(astrophysics, science fiction) A detached region of spacetime which is theoretically capable of moving faster than the speed of light.


ECC

ECC (countable and uncountable, plural ECCs)

(television) Initialism of electronic camera coverage.


supercee

Presumed super- + cee, a respelling of the physics symbol c (denoting the speed of light in a vacuum; an abbreviation of both English constant and Latin celeritas (“swiftness”)).

But Man had always been a restless, persistent creature, and the stars called, and in an incredibly short space of time a highly-ingenious refinement of the theta drive gave him supercee.
“What I can’t understand, Psy, is why in the name of Mira the Terrans couldn’t have been admitted to the Federation as soon as they developed supercee. […]”
Offhand I’d say that the Terrans, when they hit on the secret of star-driving a planet, which isn’t much of a trick once the supercee principle is clearly understood, decided to go off on a hunt round the galaxy for a see-tee system.

1930, Information Access Company, Analog Science Fiction/science Fact, pp63, 73, & 77

1960, AUTHOR UNKNOWN, Astounding Science-fiction, pp70, 72, & 73; presumed to be an earlier work (1930 or earlier), as quotations 2 and 3 also appear in:

^({1})“[…] A couple of … after the last rescue ship had lif … into space and shifted into the … of supercee, the star exploded.”
^({2})“Surely you know the answer to that one,” he said after a moment or two, “or have you forgotten all about a little thing called the decrement effect?” The Psychologist nodded. “Precisely. The decrement effect. The factor that makes supercee — supercee as we know it, that is — inoperable in intergalactic space.” He looked thoughtful. “I don’t think anyone’s yet evolved a satisfactory theory to account for the existence of the effect. The only thing that’s certain is that it’s tied up in some way with gravity fields — or, rather, with the absence of g-fields.” He shrugged.
^({3})“What I can’t understand, Psy, is why in the name of Mira the Terrans couldn’t have been admitted to the Federation as soon as they developed supercee. […]”

1930, Information Access Company, Analog Science Fiction/science Fact, page 72:

The core was virtually unreachable at supercee velocities. So the Lost Star’s bleep has been sounding for eighty years, and no ship has reached her.

1979, Frank Northen Magill, Survey of Science Fiction Literature, Salem Press, →ISBN, page 937:

(rare, science fiction) Faster-than-light travelling speed.


gigging

(film, music, television, theater) The act of engaging in a musical performance, acting in a theatre production, etc.


soft key

(film, of lighting) Gently highlighting; low-key.


callout

Ancient Egypt: Civilization in northeastern Africa that gives reference volumes a chance to change up the pace a little and break up the monotonous, text-heavy format with more graphical elements, timelines, and a few callout boxes.

2012, The Onion Book of Known Knowledge, page 64:

(typography, graphic layout) A pull quote: an excerpt from an article (such as in a news magazine) that is duplicated in a large font alongside the article so as to grab a reader's attention and indicate the article's topic.


answer print

The studio bosses were unwilling to approve the answer print of the novice director's debut.

(film) The first graded print of an edited film combining sound and picture, which is created for the client to view and approve; his answer decides when the rest of the copies of the film are printed or not.


tumbleweed moment

tumbleweed moment (plural tumbleweed moments)

From the motif in western movies where the wind blows tumbleweeds through the scene, usually to establish that the place is desolate or empty.

…real life television news quizzes have the benefit of careful editing to remove the tumbleweed moments.

2004 July 14, Laura Davis, “Arts Diary: STAGE QUIZ”, in Daily Post, Liverpool, England:

When you’re wondering if they might just sit there self-consciously not saying anything (a tumbleweed moment) you need to get away from the centre-front, start moving around.

2005 April 1, Trevor Wright, How to Be a Brilliant English Teacher, Routledge, →ISBN, page 78:

Peter Gibson, of Keep Britain Tidy, said: “in a world of daft pranks, we want littering to be that tumbleweed moment, the joke that falls flat on its face.”

2005 December 19, Robert Stansfield, “Gimp ad to shame litter louts”, in The Mirror, London, England:

(British, figuratively, broadcasting) A period of stony, unresponsive silence.


floor manager

The floor manager came on the set and announced that the unseen director of the show had called cut.

2004, Jasper Fforde, Lost in a Good Book: A Thursday Next Novel:

The floor manager counted me in and The James Whale Radio Show took to the air on Yorkshire Television in its usual slot.

2011, James Whale, Almost a Celebrity: A Lifetime of Night-Time:

The floor manager will be positioned somewhere out of shot but in JOHN'S eyeline and will hold up a hand with four fingers extended.

2012, Colin Hart, Television Program Making: Everything You Need to Know to Get Started, page 154:

(television, broadcasting) A manager of a television show, responsible for communication between the director and the crew.


double space

en-verb

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

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

(transitive, intransitive, typography) To format (a document) so that every other line is left blank, leaving sufficient whitespace for annotation (e.g. a teacher's corrections).


shash

Even productions designed for office or home video viewing usually need a title sequence to mark off the empty tape, hiss and shash from the prepared recording […]

1997, Paul Kriwaczek, Documentary for the Small Screen:

No one sees shash now, but it was naked television. Shash was the term for those black-and-burst patterns that danced across the screen when there was nothing being broadcast.

2012, Paul Farley, Michael Symmons Roberts, Edgelands: Journeys Into England's True Wilderness, page 159:

(television) Synonym of snow (“random pattern of dots when there is no signal”)


animalist

(literature) A writer of animal stories.


uncloak

uncloak (third-person singular simple present uncloaks, present participle uncloaking, simple past and past participle uncloaked)

uncloaks (present singular third-person)
uncloaking (participle present)
uncloaked (participle past)
uncloaked (past)

Don't try to target the Klingons as they uncloak, you won't have time. Just use the phasers to make a nofly zone between us and the Takagi.

2011, David Mack, Rise Like Lions (Star Trek: Mirror Universe):

(intransitive, science fiction) To become visible again by turning off a cloaking device.


funny pages

(comics) The section of a newspaper containing comic strips.


replicant

From Latin replicāns, present participle of replicō. The science fiction sense was coined by David Peoples in the 1982 film Blade Runner.

(science fiction) A robot or artificial being that is an exact copy of a genuine lifeform, especially a human.


twelvemo

(printing) a page, book etc. of that size


reverso

(printing) Any of the left-hand pages of a book.


press conference

en-noun

press conference (plural press conferences)

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Pitarch went just days after the coach, Cesare Prandelli. A little before Christmas, Prandelli had held a press conference in which he had declined to answer questions and instead delivered a speech one minute 57 seconds long in which he accused his players of being unprofessional.

2017 January 18, Sid Lowe, “Chaos at Mestalla: Valencia's journey from Champions League to utter disarray”, in the Guardian:

(media) A question-and-answer session with members of television, print and other media.

مُؤْتَمَر صَحَفِيّ

question and answer session with members of television, print and other media


ustav

Borrowed from Old Church Slavonic оуставъ (ustavŭ). Cognate of устав in modern Bulgarian and modern Russian.

The handsomely fashioned writing is of the type described as polu-ustav (semi-uncial), which is midway between the stately ustav and the cursive, . . . —A. Aronson, Rabindranath Through Western Eyes

(palaeography) The earliest style of Cyrillic writing developed from Greek uncial in the late 9th century, predominant in the 11th–14th centuries.


kigo

(poetry) A seasonal word; a word required in haiku to indicate the season.


midnight movie

Originating in 1950s American television, the term has undergone several changes over time (see Wikipedia article).

(film) A B-movie, often in camp style and with a retro theme.


tommyknocker

Then he's down one of these adits, talking to the tommyknockers, more'n likely.

2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 335:

(folklore) A mythical creature, like a brownie or leprechaun, believed to live in underground tunnels; later associated with dead miners.


(poetry, rare) Used to show an unexpectedly stressed syllable, or where the choice of stress is metrically important, e.g. idiosyncratic caléndar; noun rébel as opposed to verb rebél; áll trádes as a spondee rather than iamb.


lights, camera, action

(cinematography) The traditional cue to the members of a (silent) film crew at the beginning of a take.

الْأَضْوَاء، الْكَامِيرَا، اِبْدَأ

traditional cue at a beginning of a take


catch-breath

[…] it is possible to obtain the desired effect by allowing sections or individuals within a section to take an unobtrusive catch-breath at different times.

1940, Van Ambrose Christy, Glee Club and Chorus: A Handbook, page 55:

(drama, singing) A pause to take a breath.


pentimento

[Alt: A blue-tinted painting of a man's bent neck, with a faint image of a woman's face in its background]
Learned borrowing from Italian pentimento (“repentance, penance, penitence; remorse; change of opinion; correction; traces of a previous image or work in an artwork”), from pentìrsi (“to repent; to regret”) + -mento (suffix forming nouns representing the actions of verbs to which it is attached). Pentìrsi is derived from Latin paenitēre, the present active infinitive of paeniteō (“to cause to repent; to repent; to be sorry, regret”), from Proto-Indo-European *peh₁- (“to hate; to hurt”).
The plural form is also borrowed from Italian pentimenti.

der

She thought of the painting in the shop, the pentimento. Her life, the one she had so carefully planned for herself had crumbled like the paint on the surface.

2012, Lorraine T. Gilman, chapter 20, in Princeton Pentimento, Bloomington, Ind.: WestBow Press, Thomas Nelson, →ISBN, page 205:

[T]he presence of a pentimento is an extremely valuable entity which supports the conclusion that a painting is an original composition – so, by inference, therefore, refuting any later suggestion that the painting could be the work of a copyist, who would have been engaged upon copying an existing painting as seen! The identification of a pentimento in an artwork can occur in one of two ways: by analytical interrogation of the subsurface using penetrative radiation such as IRR or XRD, or by direct visual observation, where the overlaying paint has worn away […]

2019, Timothy J. Benoy, William A. Edwards, Howell G. M. Edwards, “Evidence of Pentimenti for the Authentication of Paintings: A Challenge for Analytical Science at the Interface with Art History”, in Peter Vandenabeele, Howell Edwards, editors, Raman Spectroscopy in Archaeology and Art History, volume 2, London: Royal Society of Chemistry, →ISBN, page 33:

(art, literature) The presence of traces of a previous work in an artistic or literary work; especially (painting) an image which has been painted over but is still detectable.


555-2368, 1-555-321-2368, and (555)234-2368 are all 555 numbers; they aren’t real.

(Canada, US, fiction) Pertaining to a fake telephone number. The local exchange and area code number 555 was reserved in North American dialing plan for fictional numbers, prior to the 21st century.


flyboy

(printing, historical, slang) A man employed to clear the printed copies from the printing press.


positronic

From positron + -ic. The science fiction sense was coined by American science fiction author Isaac Asimov in 1941 in his short story "Liar!".

coin

By exact count, there are seventy-five thousand, two hundred and thirty-four operations necessary for the manufacture of a single positronic brain.

1941 May, Isaac Asimov, “Liar!”, in Astounding Science-Fiction, volume 27, number 3:

(science fiction) Of or pertaining to a supposed analogue of electronics using positrons


rathole

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sky marshal

(fiction) A military rank in fiction for air force, space force, or armed forces, usually the topmost rank


dailies

The chances are that a cameraman requesting that his dailies be printed at the middle of the scale is cheating himself.

1972, American Cinematographer - Volume 53, page 811:

(cinematography) Lightly edited versions of the previous day's filming; rushes.


shifter

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(mythology, science fiction, fantasy) A shape-shifter; a person or other being capable of changing their physical form, especially a lycanthrope.


holocube

One wall was a huge holo cube displaying Geneva's table of organization, a spidery orange pyramid with tens of thousands of names connected by lines, from the mayor at the top to the “corridor security” people at the base.

1976, Joe Haldeman, The Forever War, New York: Ballantine Books, page 113:

He snapped a holo-cube into the projector and switched on. I gasped and shrank back in my seat as a great crustacean sprang into being in front of me, blind, chitinous, rust-red, and malevolent.

1978, Charles Sheffield, “The Deimos Plague”, in Stellar Science Fiction Stories, n 4, New York: Del Rey, p 146

And on a little table beside the bed, he found a holocube with a tiny picture of a woman wearing a yellow dress in it. When he moved the ’cube, the woman waved at him and laughed.

1990, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, volume 79, page 113:

Not a cassette, not an infodisk, not a holocube, but an actual book, with a cover and binding and pages.
Used in Flashback: The Quest for Identity (video game), Star Wars, Tyrian, and Spider-Man (1994 TV series).

1992, Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg, The Positronic Man, New York: Doubleday, p 25

(science fiction) A cube-shaped device that shows or stores holographic pictures.


uncloaked

The result: half of the arriving vessels dematerialize in brilliant flashes, while the other half desperately reposition by a few thousand kilometers. This affords a multi-pronged force of uncloaked harriers opportunity to engage in open beam attacks, swiftly destroying another third.

2013 March 19, Greg Bear, String 25, in Halo: Silentium (Forerunner Saga; 3), New York: Tor, →ISBN, page 213:

(science fiction) rendered visible again by turning off or disabling cloaking technology.


screen name

(film, television) Synonym of stage name


DT

en-noun

DT (countable and uncountable, plural DTs)

digital television
digital television#English

(television) Initialism of digital television.


WG

WG (countable and uncountable, plural WGs)

(uncountable, pornography) Initialism of weight gain.


happy ending

And how was this happy ending to be brought about? Why, by this very eaſy and trite expedient; to wit, by reforming Lovelace, and marrying him to Clariſſa.

1784, The Novelist's Magazine, volume XV, London: Harrison and Co., page 1263, column 1:

The heroine was killed, and since then the happy ending has only been preserved in an appendix in the play.

1827 June 8, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, page 4, column 3:

Life is not to be conceived on the analogy of a melodrama in which the hero and heroine go through incredible misfortunes for which they are compensated by a happy ending.

1930, Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness:

Death ends all things and so is the comprehensive conclusion of a story, but marriage finishes it very properly too and the sophisticated are ill-advised to sneer at what is by convention termed a happy ending.

1944, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter 1, in The Razor’s Edge […], 1st American edition, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran & Co., →OCLC, section i, page 1:

Well, what did you expect in an opera? A happy ending?

1957 July 6, What’s Opera, Doc?, spoken by Bugs Bunny (Mel Blanc):

Modern romance, like Greek tragedy, celebrates the mystery of dismemberment, which is life in time. The happy ending is justly scorned as a misrepresentation; for the world, as we know it, as we have seen it, yields but one ending: death, disintegration, dismemberment, and the crucifixion of our heart with the passing of the forms that we have loved.

1968, Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 2nd edition, London: Fontana Press, published 1993, page 25:

And she said: / "Don't you know that storybook loves, / Always have a happy ending."

1987, “Storybook Love”, Willy DeVille (music):

(literature) A clichéd conclusion in which all loose ends are tied up and all main characters are content.


Berliner

The first sense is either from German Berliner (“native or inhabitant of Berlin”) or formed in English from Berlin + -er. The second sense is from German Berliner (“doughnut”).

bor

(journalism) A newspaper format with pages normally measuring about 315 by 470 millimetres (12.4 in × 18.5 inches), slightly taller and wider than a tabloid but narrower and shorter than a broadsheet.


reverse shot

(cinematography) A shot in which one character is shown looking back at another, unseen character.


SG

Although Supergirl fans will relish page 4, I believe the first panel of 5 says it all: after a full force ramming by SG, PG just casually tosses her into a wall. Now *that's* Power Girl.

1997 October 25, Lightning, “REVIEW Power Girl #1, uhm, I mean Supergirl #16”, in rec.arts.comics.dc.universe (Usenet), message-ID <62tta5$a7g$1@206.230.70.77>:

Actually, a point could be made that the animated Supergirl is much more like Power Girl than the pre Crisis Supergirl.
For one thing she adopted the name Karen (Karen Starr was the name Kara Zor-L created), also she wears PG's costume colors and has a strong resentment toward's Clark's overprotectiveness. The only difference is that the animated SG has the Kara Zor-El personality more than she does Power Girl's.

1998 May 6, CaptT...@webtv.net, “Re: Why is TV kind of pre-Crisis and comics Post-Crisis”, in rec.arts.comics.dc.universe (Usenet), message-ID <6iouoe$1jf$1@newsd-134.iap.bryant.webtv.net>:

I kinda hate how they made Power Girl (Kara/SG pre-Crisis on World 2 or 3?) evil and a clone of SG. One of my fav comics growing up was Supes, and PG and I think Green Arrow going after Vandal Savage.

2005 September 21, tan...@bellsouth.net, “Re: JLU - WOW”, in alt.tv.cartoon-network (Usenet), message-ID <SL7Ye.4284$xg3.1881@bignews4.bellsouth.net>:

(comics) Initialism of Supergirl (“DC Comics superheroine”).


BG

en-noun

BG (countable and uncountable, plural BGs)

(slang, pornography) Initialism of boy/girl.


alternate universe

alternate universe (plural alternate universes)

There are moments when he seems to be writing something on the order of Jorge Luis Borges's "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"—an amazing fragment about the alternate universe where every book contains its counterbook, where things become duplicated and "also tend to become effaced and lose their details when they are forgotten."

1980, Maxine Greene, “Response to Philip Jackson,”, in Curriculum Inquiry, volume 10, number 2, page 173:

This American President exists in an alternate universe from the one the real Bill Clinton must inhabit.

1995 November 20, Richard Corliss, “Where Nice Guys Finish First”, in Time:

(literature, narratology) An imaginary realm, often a variant form of the real world, depicting a different way events could have unfolded or the universe could have functioned.


slug line

(authorship) A line of abbreviated text at the beginning of each scene in a screenplay that describes the location and time of day


oviposit

en-verb

oviposit (third-person singular simple present oviposits, present participle ovipositing, simple past and past participle oviposited)

oviposits (present singular third-person)
ovipositing (participle present)
oviposited (participle past)
oviposited (past)

From ovi- (“egg”) + Latin pōsitus (“placed”), perfect passive participle of pōnere (“to place”).

(intransitive, zoology or pornography) To lay eggs.


authenticator

identifier

an identifier asserts identity; an authenticator verifies it

(agent noun) One who, or something which, authenticates, as:

(film, television) A person employed to check the accuracy and realism of a script.


explainer

video explainer

Confused by the Olympics? Here's an explainer.

In a series of short explainers, the BBC News Channel’s Outside Source presenter has repeatedly skewered the Boris Johnson administration, while never coming within striking distance of seeming to have an opinion.

2021 December 13, Alexandra Topping, “Skewering No 10 over Christmas parties has made Ros Atkins a BBC star”, in The Guardian, retrieved 2022-09-14:

Quick explainers and infographics giving context to what was happening in Palestine were being shared all over Instagram and TikTok.

2022, Ahed Tamimi, Dena Takruri, They Called Me a Lioness […] , One World, →ISBN, page 256:

(chiefly journalism) A guide that explains a topic.


rime riche

(poetry) A form of rhyme with identical sounds, as in "pear" and "pair".


tick-tock

A few days ago, the Washington Post published a long, depressing ticktock of the Trump administration’s execrable attempts to control the coronavirus and “reopen” the country for business, beginning with a shocking but not exactly surprising anecdote about how the president’s economic advisers had abetted the president’s most destructive impulses.

2020 May 6, Jordan Weissmann, “It Sure Looks Like the Trump Administration Used Some Bad, High School–Level Math to Justify 'Reopening' the Economy”, in Slate:

(journalism) A step-by-step account of an event or timeline.


spaghetti western

en-noun

spaghetti western (plural spaghetti westerns)

From spaghetti + western, pasta being a famously Italian product.

“A Fistful of Dollars” and “Once Upon a Time in the West” are famous spaghetti westerns.

Over the years Django Kill has gained a reputation as the most violent Spaghetti Western and, though the film has tempered with age, it's still one of the oddest genre contributions.

2010, Howard Hughes, Spaghetti Westerns, Oldcastle Books, →ISBN:

(film) A motion picture depicting a story of cowboys and desperadoes set in the American Old West, but produced by an Italian-based company and filmed in Europe, notably in Italy.

فِلْم سْبَاغِيتِي

motion picture set in the American Old West, but produced by an Italian-based company


hatted

(typography) Written with a circumflex ('^'). For example, â.


linkman

From link + -man. See link (“torch, light”).

(broadcasting) A presenter who provides the connecting verbiage between a number of separate items in a broadcast.


lobsterman

So they are unprepared when the lobsterman, in a symbolic evolutionary leap, cracks his shell and steps out as the rock superman; and, unappreciated, he is left to attempt suicide at the end.

2014, Gerald M. Berkowitz, American Drama of the Twentieth Century:

The movie nods to Robot Monster by giving the lobsterman a sidekick who is a gorilla with a space helmet.

2016, Thomas Kent Miller, Mars in the Movies: A History:

As the show progressed during its second season, the Cold War villains disappeared and Voyage settled into an entertaining, kid-friendly “monster of the week” formula, with the Seaview crew encountering aquatic beasts, ghosts, aliens, dinosaurs, an evil brain, a lobsterman, an ancient alchemist, and even a werewolf.

2018, Michael Eury, “Irwin Allen: Voyage to the Bottom of...the Barrel??”, in RetroFan, volume 3, page 33:

Poor Lobsterman. Out there living among regular men with regular hands. Misunderstood. Impaired, Shunned.

2020, Mary Laura Philpott, I Miss You When I Blink: Essays, page 42:

(fiction) A fictional alien or monster that looks like a lobster/human hybrid.


shoot off

en-verb

shoot off (third-person singular simple present shoots off, present participle shooting off, simple past and past participle shot off)

shoots off (present singular third-person)
shooting off (participle present)
shot off (participle past)
shot off (past)

(television) To overshoot the bounds of a set when filming, showing part of what lies outside it.


Middle Earth

From Middle English middelerthe, myddyl erthe; an alteration of earlier middel-erde, middelerd; in turn an alteration of earlier middenerd; from Old English middaneard (“Middle Earth”), variant of middanġeard (“Earth, the world”, literally “the middle yard, enclosure, or realm”) mis- or reinterpreting its meaning, from Proto-Germanic *midjagardaz, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *médʰyos (“middle”) and *gʰórdʰos (“enclosure”). Cognate with Norwegian & English Midgard (q.v.) and Danish, Norwegian, & Swedish Midgård.

Not only are there maps of fantasy, such as those of Oz or Middle Earth, there are also hypotheses that have been made on the basis of mapped information

1994, Academic American Encyclopedia, Grolier, →ISBN, page 141:

The place might as well be called Noplace; it is a sort of magic island, like Thomas More’s Utopia or Homer’s Ogygia or Aristophane’s Cloudcuckooland—or Oz, or Narnia, or Middle Earth, or Disney’s Magic Kingdom.

1999, Frederick Turner, Shakespeare's Twenty-First Century Economics: The Morality of Love, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 180:

Some game ideas (such as the fanciful recreation of Middle Earth where the whole world is modeled with strong AI, 3D graphics capable of great indoor and terrain rendering, where an unlimited number of players can join in on both sides of epic conflict between good and evil) cannot be reconciled with the business parameters[…]

2003, Erik Bethke, Game Development and Production, Wordware Publishing,, →ISBN, page 76:

This is not an account of the Middle Ages, nor is it a tale from Middle Earth. This is our world.

2004, Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, W. W. Norton & Company, →ISBN, page 27:

(fiction) Alternative form of Middle-earth: the setting of the Lord of the Rings series.


strapline

(journalism) A secondary heading or headline, especially one printed above another.


Eridian

(science fiction) a theoretical inhabitant of the dwarf planet Eris


kerning

en-noun

kerning (countable and uncountable, plural kernings)

From kern (“part of a letter which extends into the space used by another letter”) + -ing, from French carne (“corner”).

affix

(typography) The adjustment of the horizontal space between selected pairs of glyphs in a typeface.


below the fold

(newspapers) Printed on the lower half of the front page of a broadsheet newspaper, such that it is not immediately visible on a folded copy of the newspaper, e.g. as displayed at a newsstand or in a vending machine.


epical

(literature) Any book containing two or more epics.

(poetry) A lengthy, revered narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation.


transrealism

(science fiction) A literary mode that mixes the techniques of incorporating fantastic elements used in science fiction with the techniques of describing immediate perceptions from naturalistic realism.


come off

en-verb

come off (third-person singular simple present comes off, present participle coming off, simple past came off, past participle come off)

comes off (present singular third-person)
coming off (participle present)
came off (past)
come off (participle past)

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This one came off easily.

(obsolete, printing, of a printed sheet) To finish being printed.


trade book

Most fiction titles are trade books.

(publishing) A book that is marketed to a general audience (as opposed to books that have specialized audiences, such as academic books).


versal

(typography, calligraphy) Ornamental letter that begins a section


kitchen-sinky

en-adj

kitchen-sinky (comparative more kitchen-sinky, superlative most kitchen-sinky)

more kitchen-sinky (comparative)
most kitchen-sinky (superlative)

From kitchen sink + -y. Sense 1 alludes to the phrase everything but the kitchen sink, sense 2 to the phrase kitchen sink realism.

Not that Warner's is merely a domesticated version of Euripides. It stars, after all, that least kitchen-sinky of actors.

2001 February 4, Susannah Clapp, “Mother knows best”, in The Guardian:

"Here was a kid who was imagining things and inventing things and none of this was odd to her, mum and dad being junkies. I didn't want to comment; I just present the story. And I didn't want to be too kitchen-sinky, because it's a heightened reality."

2007 April 29, Stephanie Bunbury, “Tide and emotions”, in The Age:

"He takes this seedy little story of seedy little people in seedy little rooms, and he makes it big and operatic and grandiose. I love that. It could have all been documentary-like or a bit kitchen sinky, and all rough and tough. […]

2011 February 7, Gina Picallo, “Helen Mirren interview”, in The Telegraph:

(drama) Of or pertaining to the kitchen sink drama; depicting social realities in an unstylized and direct manner.


bear walker

Calque of Ojibwe me'coubmoosa (“bear walker”).

clq

The hair ornament was worn by the Bear-Walker before and during the casting of spells.

1901, Charles Edward Brown, The Wisconsin Archeologist, page 116:

He told Jim he saw a Bear-walker approaching the house then and there.

1953, Inland Seas, Great Lakes Historical Society, page 13

These bear-walkers owed their powers to their personal manito, the bear, and traveled in disguise at night, causing disease among their victims.

1983, Christopher Vecsey, Traditional Ojibwa Religion and its Historical Changes, →ISBN, page 148:

(Native American, folklore) An evil sorcerer, specifically one who walks by night in the form of a bear.

bearwalk used in the comedy Escanaba in da Moonlight


analytical editing

(cinematography) A cut-in during a scene to highlight a closer view of some part of the same space.


font name

(computing, typography) Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: the name of a font (typeface).


drive time

en-noun

drive time (countable and uncountable, plural drive times)

Mornings and afternoons are called "drive time" because that is when most people are driving. When people commute they tend to listen to the radio, thus drive time is primetime when it comes to total number of radio listeners. During drive time, radio stations have a captive audience.

2007, Chris Schneider, Starting Your Career in Broadcasting page 212:

(uncountable, countable, broadcasting) The time of the day when most people commute to work, regarded as a popular time to listen to the radio.


senarius

(poetry) A verse having six metric feet.


Thor's hammer

kinetic energy weapon
kinetic energy weapon

(weaponry, slang, science fiction) An orbital drop hypervelocity kinetic energy weapon (KEW). A theoretical weapon, originating from a U.S. government study, Project Thor, from the 1950s.


STB

(television) Initialism of set top box - a video signal converter for televisions


hamfat

(US slang, acting) A low-grade actor; a ham or hamfatter.


white lady

white lady (countable and uncountable, plural white ladies)

For quotations using this term, see Citations:white lady.

(folklore) A female ghost dressed in white, who is associated with local legends of tragedy.


TF

TF (countable and uncountable, plural TFs)

(uncountable, pornography) Initialism of transformation.


catgirl

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But publishers cannot survive on cute catgirls alone.

2009, Jason S. Yadao, The Rough Guide to Manga, page 222:

Back in 1997, the Japanese magazines made a big deal out of the fact that the catgirl detective anime Hyper Police was on at one in the morning[…]

2010, Jonathan Clements, Schoolgirl Milky Crisis: Adventures in the Anime and Manga Trade:

"Why do we need to leave the mall first?" "Even if I can undo this myself, I don't know how to do it or how it works! I might become more cat-like first, or turn you into a cat, or unleash a shockwave of catness that turns everyone in the mall into cat girls!"

2016 October 7, Dan Shive, El Goonish Shive - EGS:NP (webcomic), Comic for Friday, Oct 7, 2016:

(Japanese fiction) A female fictional character who has a cat's ears, tail, or other feline characteristics on an otherwise humanoid body.

貓人 /猫人

female character with feline characteristics


hokku

(poetry) Synonym of haiku (“type of Japanese poem”)


UPI

United Press International
w:United Press International

(journalism) Initialism of United Press International.

Universal Pictures International
w:Universal Pictures

(film) Initialism of Universal Pictures International.


TK

Phonetic initialism, with "TK" chosen over "TC" because scarcely any English words contain the sequence "tk," making it easily searchable.

Philip Ng joined SC from Citibank's Hong Kong branch TK years ago.

1993, Wall Street & Technology, volume 11, page 244:

[Q:] Will next week's summit lead to peace between the United States and North Korea?
[A:] TK.

2018 June 2, Avi Selk, “Everything you need to know about Trump’s big envelope from Kim Jong Un and the hope for world peace”, in The Washington Post:

(publishing) Abbreviation of to come. (used as a placeholder for information to be filled in before publication)


fictography

(literature) A fictionalized biography; a biography written about a fictional character. For example, Gulliver's Travels written by Jonathan Swift but presented as being written by Lemuel Gulliver, the novel's main character.


scale mail

scale mail (countable and uncountable, plural scale mails)

(academically obsolete, now fiction, fantasy) Scale armor.


Callistoan

(science fiction) An inhabitant of Callisto


Titanian

the yin and the yang, or the Oberonic and the Titanian

2002, Lewis, Anthony Burgess: A Biography, page 387:

(literature) Of or relating to the Shakespearean faerie queen Titania


Titanian

(science fiction) An inhabitant of Titan (the Saturnian moon) or of Titania


allocution

allocution (countable and uncountable, plural allocutions)

Allocution is the dissemination of information by a central unit towards a collectivity of decentral units, the central unit being both the source and the determining actor.

1993, I. Th. M. Snellen and Wim B. H. J. van de Donk (eds.), Public Administration in an Information Age, p. 198 (Google preview)

Bordewijk and van Kaam describe the one-to-many architecture of modern broadcast mass media as ‘allocution’. This is the least responsive type of interactivity because it is not designed to support exchanges. . . . The one-way flow of information is under the programmatic control of the media service provider.

2008, Christina Spurgeon, Advertising and New Media, →ISBN, page 5:

(communication, media) The mode of information dissemination in which media broadcasts are transmitted to multiple receivers with no or very limited capability of a two-way exchange of information.


Europan

(science fiction, demonym) An inhabitant of the astronomical body Europa (either the moon of Jupiter or the minor planet of the Main Asteroid Belt).


intertitle

The film made frequent use of intertitles: every scene change was accompanied by text describing the new location.

For quotations using this term, see Citations:intertitle.

(cinematography) A piece of static text inserted into the film to provide context or other information.

väliteksti

cinematography: piece of static text inserted into a film


come in

en-verb

come in (third-person singular simple present comes in, present participle coming in, simple past came in, past participle come in)

comes in (present singular third-person)
coming in (participle present)
came in (past)
come in (participle past)

From Middle English com in, imperative form of Middle English incomen (“to come in; enter”), from Old English incuman (“to come in; enter”), from Proto-Germanic *inkwemaną (“to come in; enter”), equivalent to come + in. Compare Dutch kom in (“come in”), singular imperative form of inkomen (“to come in; enter”), German einkommen (“to come in; enter”). See also income, incoming.

inh

(obsolete, printing, of a copy) To be correctly placed in preparation for printing.


shonen

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From the Japanese 少年 (shōnen, “few years”).

(anime, manga) A style of Japanese animation and comics aimed at a younger male audience.


shonen

en-adj

shonen (comparative more shonen, superlative most shonen)

more shonen (comparative)
most shonen (superlative)

(anime, manga) Being in the style of shonen comics or animation.


policier

(film, often italicized) A police movie, particularly one based on a police novel


credit line

Coordinate term: attribution

1963, Earl Ingerson, "Geological Processes," (Review of Physical Geochemistry by F. Gordon Smith), Science, New Series, vol. 141, no. 3576, p. 146,
Diagrams for ten systems not listed in the table are given, mostly without any credit line or reference in the text or in the legend.

(publishing) A line of printed text attached to written material, an image, illustration, or the like, which identifies the author, photographer, or other source.


Manzonian

Manzonian (comparative more Manzonian, superlative most Manzonian)

more Manzonian (comparative)
most Manzonian (superlative)

(literature) Of, pertaining to, or in the style of Alessandro Manzoni (1785–1873), Italian poet and novelist.

manzonien

of or in the style of Alessandro Manzoni


Manzonian

(literature) A follower of Alessandro Manzoni, or one who writes in his style.

manzonien

follower or imitator of Alessandro Manzoni


magic carpet

Have you ever been, have you ever been, to Electric Ladyland? / The magic carpet waits for you, so don't you be late

1968, Jimi Hendrix (lyrics and music), “Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)”, in Electric Ladyland, performed by The Jimi Hendrix Experience:

(fiction) A carpet capable either of magical flight, or instantaneous transport from one place to another, used as a means of travel.


contraterrene

/ˌkɒntɹətəˈɹiːn/

This means just one thing: the instant contraterrene matter struck ordinary matter, a terrific explosion would occur!

1952, Science Digest, volume 31, page 67:

Then I started jacking up the voltage, and modified the thing with a double-polarity field somewhat similar to the molecular motion field except that it works on a sub-nucleonic level. As a result, about half of the lead fed into the chamber became contraterrene lead! The atoms just turned themselves inside out, so to speak, giving us an atom with positrons circling a negatively charged nucleus.

1957, John W. Campbell, Islands of Space:

(obsolete in physics, science fiction) Made of or pertaining to antimatter.


cinema verite

(film) Alternative form of cinéma vérité


cinéma vérité

Borrowed from French cinéma vérité (literally “truth cinema”).

bor

(film) A style of cinema that appears to be realistic, showing ordinary people in ordinary situations speaking and acting naturally.


Liebestod

From German Liebestod, from Liebe (“love”) + Tod (“death”).

She saw how his jaw began to slaver and the room was full of the clamour of the forest's Liebestod but the wise child never flinched […]

1979, Angela Carter, “The Company of Wolves”, in The Bloody Chamber, Vintage, published 2006, page 138:

(music, literature) An aria or duet performed in opera marking the suicide of lovers; a suicide.


en-noun

32mo (usually uncountable, plural 32mos)

(printing) A book with leaves of such size, about the size of a contemporary trade paperback.


trigesimo-secundo

From Latin ablatives of trīgēsimus (“thirtieth”) and secundus (“second”).

(printing) A book size, (3.75"-5" x 2.5"-3.125"), corresponding to the paper size.


sextodecimo

From Latin ablative of sextusdecimus (“sixteenth”).

(paper, printing) A size of a sheet of paper resulting from folding and cutting a sheet of paper into sixteenths (3.25"-5" x 5"-6.25").

(printing) A book consisting of pages of that size.


thirty-twomo

(printing) A paper size, (3.75"-5" x 2.5"-3.125"), one thirty-second of an uncut free sheet.

(printing) A book size, corresponding to the paper size.


title case

From title + case, because it is the casing (letter case pattern) traditionally often used for document titles (as well as headings and other display type) in English orthography.

(publishing, computing) The capitalization of text in which the first letter of each major (important) word is set as a capital.

English orthography
display typeface
microcomputer revolution
style guide


mecha

From Japanese メカ (meka), from an abbreviation of the English mechanical.

Having deprived her of both her mecha and her lover, Masato looks set for a nasty end, but Miku arrives to save him.

1997, Helen McCarthy, The anime movie guide:

A transformation occurs when a mecha character, vehicle, or weapon unfolds and reassembles itself in a totally new form.

2002, Christopher Hart, Anime mania: how to draw characters for Japanese animation:

Porco Rosso evinces a deep fascination with mechanical objects of all sorts but it is by no means a mecha movie...

2006, Dani Cavallaro, The animé art of Hayao Miyazaki:

Each week the good guys fight the bad guys and vanquish them in a mecha battle, only to have the bad guys reappear intact the following week.

2007, Frenchy Lunning, Mechademia 2: Networks of Desire:

[…] to be a “lifter”—to pilot a mecha that can also transform into an air board […]

2007, Robin E. Brenner, Understanding manga and anime, page 170:

In this section, I show you mechas that are large enough to be piloted by humans from the inside. Although most of them are designed for combat, some function as transportation or construction mechas.

2011, Kensuke Okabayashi, Manga For Dummies, page 275:

(anime, manga) A large armoured robot on legs, typically controlled by a pilot seated inside.


all caps

(typography) Text or a font in which all letters are capitalised.

csupa nagybetűs

text or a font in which all letters are capital letters


octodecimo

From Latin ablative of octusdecimus (“eighteenth”).

(paper, printing) A size of a sheet of paper resulting from folding and cutting a sheet of paper into eighteenths (3.5"-4.5" x 4.9"-5.9").


-mo

From Latin ending and apparent suffix of cardinal numbers.

(paper, printing) Used to form page and book sizes.


quadragesimo-octavo

From Latin ablatives of quadrāgēsimus (“fortieth”) and octāvus (“eighth”).

(printing) A book size, (2.5"-3.1" x 2.5"-3.3"), corresponding to the paper size.


vicesimo-quarto

From Latin ablatives of vīcēsimus (“twentieth”) and quartus (“fourth”).

(printing) A book size, (2.5"-3.3" x 5"-6.25"), corresponding to the paper size.


sexagesimo-quarto

From Latin ablatives of sexāgēsimus (“sixtieth”) and quartus (“fourth”).

(printing) A book size, (1.87"-2.5" x 2.5"-3.125"), corresponding to the paper size.


horizontal bar

(typography) The dash symbol (―) (used to introduce quoted text)

(typography) The horizontal form of the fraction bar.


type design

type design (countable and uncountable, plural type designs)

(typography) The art of designing typefaces.

(typography) A particular style of typeface that has been designed.


just-so story

/ˌd͡ʒʌstˈsəʊ ˌstɔːɹi/

PIE word
 *swé
From just so (“(almost) exactly or precisely like something”, adjective) + story, referring to the series of short stories called Just So Stories (collected in book form in 1902) by the English writer Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) which described how various animals acquired their distinctive characteristics, such as how the leopard got its spots. According to Kipling, the stories were so titled because they were intended to put his daughter Josephine (“Effie”) to sleep, “and you were not allowed to alter those by one single little word. They had to be told just so; or Effie would wake up and put back the missing sentence.”

(literature) A story, especially one for children, featuring animals as characters.


on camera

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He isn't even on-camera talent: he just holds the cue cards.

(television, film) In or related to a role in front of the cameras, e.g. as a presenter or actor.


xenolinguistics

(linguistics, science fiction) Study of a language originating from alien species.


caps and small caps

(typography) Formatting of text that leaves uppercase letters as they are but converts lowercase letters to small caps.


fat

en-adj

fat (comparative fatter, superlative fattest)

fatter (comparative)
fattest (superlative)

Of sense: lean

carrying a larger than normal amount of fat; antonym(s) of

Sranan Tongo: fatu

From Middle English fat, from Old English fǣtt (“fatted, fat”), from Proto-West Germanic *faitid (“fatted”), originally the past participle of the verb *faitijan (“to make fat”), from *fait (“fat”).

chubby

a fat take; a fat page

(dated, printing) Of a character which enables the compositor to make large wages; said of matter containing blank, cuts, or many leads, etc.


fat

Sranan Tongo: fatu

From Middle English fat, fatt, fatte, from the adjective above, and possibly from Old English fǣt (“fat”, recorded once), from Proto-West Germanic *fait, from Proto-Germanic *faitą, *faitaz (“fat”).

lard

in animals; derogatory slang when used of human fat

(dated, printing) Work containing much blank, or its equivalent, and therefore profitable to the compositor.


capitulum

en-noun

capitulum (plural capitulums or capitula)

Borrowed from Latin capitulum. Doublet of chapiter and chapter.

(typography, obsolete) The symbol ⸿. It was used to mark chapters or paragraphs, and is the ancestor of the pilcrow (¶).


paper jam

(printing) A malfunction in a computer's printer or a photocopier or similar device occurring when sheets of paper become jammed inside.


RCI

(Canada, radio) Initialism of Radio Canada International.


South Park

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(fiction) A small fictional snow-capped mountainous Colorado town, the setting of the adult animated sitcom South Park.


love interest

Many people are involved in relationships in which they do not know how their love interest feels about them. […] They may also fear knowing the truth, which may be that their love interest isn't truly interested enough in them to make a commitment to the relationship.

2012, Barbara R. Cohl, “What Unhappy Couples Can Teach Us”, in Success for Modern Day Relationships: Working with Dating, Engaged, and Married Couples, Lanham, Md., Plymouth, Devon: Jason Aronson, →ISBN, page 82:

Items from the "Love Styles" scale (Grote & Frieze, 1994) and the Hatfield and Rapson "Passionate Love" scale (Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986) were used to assess the type of love felt for the other person. One love style measured was eros, or passionate love (Lee, 1976). […] Items were: "I was physically attracted to my love interest"; "I felt we had the right physical chemistry between us"; "Just seeing my love interest excited me"; "I felt that I knew and really understood my love interest"; […]

2015, H. Colleen Sinclair, Irene Hanson Frieze, “Initial Courtship Behavior and Stalking: How Should We Draw the Line?”, in Roland D. Maiuro, editor, Perspectives on Stalking: Victims, Perpetrators, and Cyberstalking, New York, N.Y.: Springer Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 61:

Naturally, Fallout also plays to [Tom] Cruise’s waning appeal as a romantic leading man, supplying him with no less than three potential love interests.

2018 July 25, A. A. Dowd, “Fallout may be the Most Breathlessly Intense Mission: Impossible Adventure Yet”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 2018-07-31:

(film, literature) One who is of interest as a (potential) partner in love.

vlam

one of interest as a (potential) partner in love

Some of the greatest and most widely-appreciated literary achievements have been wholly or mainly independent of love-interest or love-inspiration. Religious fervour, zeal for liberty, admiration of abstract virtue, philanthropy, desire to search the heart of man, and contemplation of the beauties and splendours of the outward world,—all these prove to be motives as capable of firing and exalting the imagination as the more directly personal stimulus of love.

1875 July, “the London Hermit” [pseudonym], “Essays and Sketches. On Love in Fiction.”, in Dublin University Magazine. A Literary and Political Journal, volume LXXXVI, number DXI, Dublin: George Herbert, […], London: Hurst & Blackett, Melbourne, Vic.: George Robertson, →OCLC, page 113, column 1:

"The Hand of Peril" is subtitled by its author, Mr. Arthur Stringer, "a novel of adventure," whereas I should label it a six-cylinder detective story. […] Incidentally, the ligament that holds these six morsels together is, of course, a "love-interest" between the detective and the chief criminal's putative daughter and assistant.

1915 September, Henry Brinsley, “Latest News from the Literary Trenches”, in Frank Crowninshield, editor, Vanity Fair, volume 5, number 1, New York, N.Y.: Vanity Fair Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 94, column 1:

The love interest is supplied by the Colonel's grandson and the daughter of the inventor of a horseless wagon.

1926 December, [Arthur Hornblow, Sr.], “Mr. Hornblow Goes to the Play”, in F. E. Allardt, editor, Theatre Magazine: For the Lovers of the Stage and the Screen, volume XLIV, number 309, New York, N.Y.: Theatre Magazine Company, →OCLC, page 72, column 2:

(film, literature) A romantic plot or subplot in a film or book.


Altmanesque

en-adj

Altmanesque (comparative more Altmanesque, superlative most Altmanesque)

more Altmanesque (comparative)
most Altmanesque (superlative)

(film) Displaying traits typical of a film made by Robert Altman (1925–2006), typically highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective and often a subversive twist.


raygun

(science fiction, weaponry) Alternative spelling of ray gun


needler

From Middle English nedlere, equivalent to needle + -er.

(chiefly science fiction) A gun that fires needles or darts.


transmat

Attested since the 1950s, from transmit or transfer and matter; perhaps popularized by the British science fiction television series Doctor Who.

One of these days.., they'll invent a Transmat that'll set you down anywhere.

1959 June 14, Laurence Janifer, “Obey that Impulse!”, in Future Science Fiction, number 43, page 40:

Three lines of workers began to vanish into the transmats, heading for their homes in the android compounds of five continents, […]

1970 June 14, Robert Silverberg, “The Tower of Glass”, in Galaxy Science Fiction, volume 30, number 3, page 83:

TIME LORD: Ah. Welcome, Doctor.
DOCTOR: What's going on? Don't you realize how dangerous it is to intercept a transmat beam?
TIME LORD: Oh, come, Doctor, not with our techniques. We Time Lords transcended such simple mechanical devices when the universe was less than half its present size.

1975, Terry Nation, Genesis of the Daleks (Doctor Who, season 12, serial 4), opening dialogue

You are in a TRANS-MAT unit. You see a faulty control panel with a button on it.

1983, The Long Way Home (video game published with 16/48 Magazine)

LYNDA: Oh, that's the transmat. Scrambles your head — I was sick for days.

2005, Russell T Davies, Bad Wolf (Doctor Who series 1, episode 12)

(British, science fiction) A teleporter; a fictional device that transfers/transmits matter from one location to another without the object traversing the intervening distance as itself.


transmat

en-verb

transmat (third-person singular simple present transmats, present participle transmatting, simple past and past participle transmatted)

transmats (present singular third-person)
transmatting (participle present)
transmatted (participle past)
transmatted (past)

It wasn't far enough away to think about transmatting and besides, that was no longer a viable option, what with vandals having wrecked some of the booths in the area.

1991, Peter David, Michael Jan Friedman, Carmen Carter, Robert Greenberger, Doomsday World (Star Trek: The Next Generation; 12), Pocket Books, →ISBN, page 171:

'No, you're not,' Blandish put in smoothly 'You're transmatting down with me. I'll head the away team and I'll consent to let you advise.'

1999, Paul Magrs, Jeremy Hoad, The Blue Angel (Doctor Who: Eighth Doctor Adventures; 27), BBC Worldwide, →ISBN, page 36:

Donna twisted her neck around to try to find the Doctor, but she realised that she'd been transmatted alone.

2010, Mark Michalowski, Shining Darkness (Doctor Who: New Series Adventures; 27), BBC Worldwide, →ISBN, page 17:

(British, science fiction, transitive, intransitive) To teleport; to (cause to) travel via transmat device.


literary language

(literature) A register of a language that is used in literary writing.

ədəbi dil

register of a language used in literary writing


punch up

punch up (third-person singular simple present punches up, present participle punching up, simple past and past participle punched up)

punches up (present singular third-person)
punching up (participle present)
punched up (participle past)
punched up (past)

Sound films have to be loaded so that the sound is 5 seconds before the sound drum so a wow does not result when the film is punched up on the air.

1970, Larry G. Goodwin, Thomas Koehring, Closed-circuit Television Production Techniques, page 80:

In this illustrated example, camera 2 is punched up on the program buss and is therefore being sent out directly […]

1982, Thomas D. Burrows, Donald N. Wood, Television Production: Disciplines and Techniques, page 132:

(transitive, television) To switch (a source) into the main transmission.


halfwidth

This would convert any half-width katakana characters to full-width katakana.

1993, GO Corporation, Penpoint Application Writing Guide:

...and half-width (zenkaku, hankaku) alphabets are regarded as separate...

1998, Rick Jelliffe, The XML & SGML Cookbook:

The half-width characters have normal character spacing...

2002, Cay S Horstmann, Gary Cornell, Core Java 2:

(computing, typography) Of a text character, occupying the space of half of a fullwidth character, or one "normal" text column.

半角

occupying half the width of a fullwidth character


auctorial descriptive

en-noun

auctorial descriptive (plural auctorial descriptives)

(literature) An adjective based on an authors' name.


romanette

From Roman (numeral) + -ette (“a diminutive”).

affix

The court held that romanette (ii) of the statute in issue did not limit eligibility for legal relief.

[…] (romanette (ii) in the Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation waiver-of-liability provision included in footnote 1) […]

1993, Dan K. Webb et al., Corporate Internal Investigations, →ISBN, page 3.14:

This can best be visualized with reference to FIGS. 5, illustrating both ends of the preferred embodiment perforation roll 12 side by side, numbered with romanette numerals i-xii corresponding to the hour positions on a clock face.

1999, Greg M. Kauppila, Andrew P. Tijan, Rotary valve assembly and method, US Patent 6539829, page 11:

2000 January, Joseph Kimble, “A Modest Wish List for Legal Writing”, originally in TRIAL, reprinted in Michigan Bar Journal, Volume 79, Number 11 (November 2000), pages 1574–1577,
In numbering, avoid roman numerals and romanettes (like iii). They are too much like a foreign language.

You'll need to use this technique almost every time you see parenthesized romanettes (i, ii, iii) or letters (a, b, c) in the middle of a contractual or legislative paragraph.

2001, Bryan A. Garner, Legal Writing in Plain English, →ISBN, page 101:

2008, United States Supreme Court oral argument, United States v. Hayes, Case no. 07-608https://web.archive.org/web/20081203011317/http://www.supremecourtus.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/07-608.pdf, page 9,
MS. SAHARSKY: . . . not looking at this Romanette (i) and (ii), but just looking at that sentence.
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Romanette?
MS. SAHARSKY: Oh, little Roman numeral.
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: I've never heard that before. That's -- Romanette.

(colloquial, law, typography, US) A Roman numeral in lower case, such as “ii”, as frequently introduces list items; or, a list item introduced by such.


apostrophically

(orthography, humorous) With apostrophes.


bimeter

[…] two poems combine tetrameters with trimeters, and two others tetrameters with bimeters.

1982, Willem Pieter Gerritsen, “Coornhert and Boethius: A Side-Light on the Genesis of Dutch Renaissance Verse”, in D.H. Green, editors, From Wolfram and Petrarch to Goethe and Grass, page 310:

(poetry) A meter wherein each line has two metrical feet.


songwriting

en-noun

songwriting (usually uncountable, plural songwritings)


subchannel

(radio) A distinct division of a channel or frequency band.

[…] TV shows you watched when you were younger, you'll likely find them on the subchannels of your local TV stations — which are available free to anyone with a TV set and a good antenna.

2020, Michael R. Miller, My TV for Seniors:

It may well be that our viewers are going to say, "You know what? We don't care as much about 10801. We would rather have you rerun 'CBS News' on a subchannel and show your prime time entertainment in a lesser definition of digital television" […]

2001, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Energy and Commerce. Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, Digital Television: A Private Sector Perspective on the Transition: Hearing..., page 98:

(television) An additional frequency owned by a television broadcaster used for less lucrative content.