Interesting Words (moved from Games)

[Pacifica]

To Arabs, a banner is a sight, an instance of seeing.

راية - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

en.wiktionary.org

Why does this make you sad, @Issacus Divus ?

In Belgium?

No, it's an online acquaintance from the US. He's a poet who writes good stuff on AllPoetry, some of which I've shared on the forum before. He seems equally fond of my stuff as I am of his, for some reason, which flatters me no end since he's very good. @Bitmap was quite impressed with a silly double-entendre poem of his once, though that wasn't my favorite. Maybe you haven't clicked any of the links I've shared of his stuff as I'm not sure you're much into poetry, apart from limericks.

 

[Tironis]

Gefühlsduselei (mawkishly sentimental, schmaltz)

 

[Issacus Divus]

eddy - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

en.wiktionary.org

 

[Glabrigausapes]

giddyup - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

en.wiktionary.org

That's killer.

 

[Issacus Divus]

I know right! How did I never put that together?

 

[Pacifica]

eddy - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

en.wiktionary.org

Oooh, I didn't know the amazing etymology of that word.

 

[Issacus Divus]

Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic/gnātos - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

en.wiktionary.org

 

[Pacifica]

μικραίτιος

From μικρός and αἰτία.

Greek really rocks.

 

[Glabrigausapes]

द्वित्र dvitra, an adj. quite literally meaning ‘two or three’, or idiomatically ‘two-three’, indicating the speaker doesn’t know exactly how many. An indeterminate ‘couple’

The sentence I saw it in was pretty funny, too:
dvitrāNi mitrāNi bhavanty avaśyam
āpadgatasyāpi sunirguNasya
‘Naturally, even a scoundrel can find two-three friends when he’s down on his luck.’

 

[Pacifica]

‘Naturally, even a scoundrel can find two-three friends when he’s down on his luck.’

I'm not sure about that.

 

[Terry S.]

Scoundrels are more likely to have such friends.

 

[Issacus Divus]

They’re basically born in packs.

 

[Issacus Divus]

Finn - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

en.wiktionary.org

 

[Pacifica]

The word of the day on lexico.com is "cark".

 

[Glabrigausapes]

The word of the day on lexico.com is "cark".

That one you find in Spenser a lot. He seems to have liked the way it sounded. I rather do myself.

Here's a nifty one I just caught in RV VI.65 (to Dawn). The S ऊ॑र्म्या úrmyá (acute = macron, fucking Chromebook) is a word for 'night' that ostensibly means 'wavy' (from ऊर्मि úrmi) and may well be an ellipsis because the 'standard' word for 'night' is feminine (and naturally so is the goddess).

A perceived likeness, and later equation, of the nighttime sky to the ocean may explain the old god Varuna's being relegated from horrible, all-seeing, all-judging overbearing Uranus archetype to the more mundane, capricious & stormy but not almighty Poseidon.

Incidentally, I remember that the Ancient Hebrew words for 'water' and 'sky' were (supposed to be) cognate, although they may have been synchronically remodeled (folk analogy).

 

[Serenus]

Survivals of pagan god names in Romance:
Diāna: Old French gene 'mischievous fairy', Romanian zână 'fairy'
Neptūnus: French lutin 'imp, pixie'
Orcus: Spanish huerco 'kid; depressed man', French ogre 'ogre', Italian orco 'ogre, orc'

English has borrowed the orcus words as "ogre" and "orc" (the latter is really a Tolkienism from Old English, in turn from Latin).


Italian inherited words generally have simple sound evolutions from Latin. This is an unusually complicated one: prezzemolo.

 

[Glabrigausapes]

If a Spanish ogre is married to his job, does that make him a huerco-holic?

 

[Terry S.]

If a Spanish ogre is married to his job, does that make him a huerco-holic?

Funny, but still, shoot me, please!

 

[Pacifica]

"So-and-suchlings", people under the command of so-and-such, from the poem I've already shared on the Shakespeare thread:

How Avant-Garde by Thain Emrys

Say, have you heard the news today? / Old So-and-so (or so they say) / If he should get hi. Published at the web's largest poetry site.

allpoetry.com

 

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . More about anamnesis - The BMJ

Last week I discussed some meanings of anamnesis, starting with Plato, continuing with the patient’s history, and ending with Aristotle. There are more. Some are medical. All relate to memory, [...]More...

blogs.bmj.com