Interesting Words (moved from Games)

[Glabrigausapes]

Just encountered a weird one while reading Rigveda 1.58. The line is adressed to the fire-god Agni:
"When thirstily you rage like a bull among the trees, thy way is black, o ageless Agni, wave-bright."
The sense of it is presumably "shining like waves", or "whose waves are shining". The Sanskrit is rušad-ūrmi, from PIE *lewk- L luceo and *Hwel-, cf. R волна.

edit: for any interested

 

[Glabrigausapes]

There's evidently a (later) idea in Hinduism that there are "6 kinds of waves" in life, with the equivalency:
cold / heat
greed / illusion
hunger / thirst
Maybe significant then that the first word in the verse is तृषु 'thirsty' (neuter adv.).

 

[kurwamac]

Hottentottententententoonstelling.

You'd think someone would remember THREAD: deudsche-sprache.

 

[Pacifica]

Just came across the word "orogeny" for maybe the first time.

 

[Pacifica]

cont y môr - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

 

[Hawkwood]

Contemn

I wonder with archaic words like this in English, if the final n was articulated to any degree. It creates a nice and subtle effect.

 

[Hawkwood]

I'd guess, at least from a native speaker's perspective, that most, when sounding a word like damn, draw out and end on the m (at mouth's closure), instead of finishing with the tongue on the the roof of the mouth. And yet the spelling would suggest the latter was and is desirable.

Then again perhaps most Brits do do the latter.

 

[Iáson]

I'm pretty sure no-one says the n and its just there to remind us of the etymological connection with Latin damnō. In this form I think it would be pretty impossible or at least inconvenient to pronounce it given the normal rules of English phonology. According to Wiktionary 'damning', where the n would be theoretically possible, should also be pronounced [ˈdæmɪŋ]; I tried saying it either way but it sounded odd to me both ways; probably I haven't heard other people say it enough to build up an instinct. Would you pronounce an n in that word?

 

[Hawkwood]

No, but I do like its effect. I quite like it used with the archaic past tense/participle éd too, as in dam-ned.

 

[Clemens]

The closest my grandparents came to swearing was saying God-blessèd or cursèd.

 

[Glabrigausapes]

Pachyderm's anatomical post reminded me of one of the Sanskrit words for κλειτορίς, landica, that is smarachat(t)ram 'love-mushroom' (or possibly 'love-parasol'), where the latter word (चत्त्र्म्) etymologically means 'that which covers/hides'.

 

[Pacifica]

تساقط - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Form VI of the root س ق ط meaning "to fall". Form VI typically conveys a sense of reciprocity and/or repetition.

 

[Pacifica]

I suppose sense 2 might be rendered in French as "tomber comme des mouches". But I think I prefer the Arabic verb.

 

[Glabrigausapes]

shahtoosh.

 

[Pacifica]

Utraquism. This is the sense in which I heard it, but with a lower-case u it has a few other usages.

 

[Pacifica]

See also the synonym, Calixtinism.