anthropogenic

anthropogenic \an-thruh-puh-JEN-ik\, adjective:

Caused or produced by humans: anthropogenic air pollution.

We have already mentioned the fact that many anthropogenic myths made use of clay in the creation of man, and anyone moderately interested in the subject can find out more in know-it-all almanacs and knowitalmostall encyclopedias.
-- Jose Saramago, The Cave

Millie was listening to an argument about anthropogenic climate change at an international relief conference in Washington DC.
-- Steven Gould, Impulse

Anthropogenic was coined in the 1880s. It is a combination of the prefix anthro- meaning "human being" and -genic meaning "produced by or causing."

fastigiate

fastigiate \fa-STIJ-ee-it\, adjective:

1. Rising to a pointed top.
2. Zoology. Joined together in a tapering adhering group.
3. Botany. A. Erect and parallel, as branches. B. Having such branches.

As Rachel's neighbour was to be an Irish Water Spaniel's swamp cypress, likely to spread with time, they had opted for something deciduous and columnar, a fastigiate English oak.
-- Patrick Gale, Notes from an Exhibition

Taking Panfilo through the garden, she pointed up to a stained-glass window flanked on either side by two fastigiate poplars.
-- Mary Rhinehart, "The Song of Red Tower," The Stories of the Surge

Fastigiate comes from the Latin word fastīgi which meant "height."

antepenultimate

antepenultimate \an-tee-pi-NUHL-tuh-mit\, adjective:

1. Third from the end.
2. Of or pertaining to an antepenult.

noun:
1. An antepenult.

The vengeful eagles of the open sequence [and] the birds of augury watched outside the library and the emblematic kinsmen who shake 'the wings of their exultant and terrible youth' in the antepenultimate entry in Stephen's diary.
-- James Joyce, introduction by Hugh Kenner, Ulysses

But all day that is how it is, from the first tick to the last tack, or rather from the third to the antepenultimate, allowing for the time it needs, the tamtam within, to drum you back into the dream and drum you back out again.
-- Samuel Beckett, Mercier and Camier

This adjective is the product of three Latin roots: ante meaning "before," paen meaning "almost" and ultima meaning "last."

stridulous

stridulous \STRIJ-uh-luhs\, adjective:

1. Also, strid·u·lant. Making or having a harsh or grating sound.
2. Pathology. Pertaining to or characterized by stridor.

He was about to leave when a stridulous voice cut through the din.
-- Stephen Marlowe, The Death and Life of Miguel De Cervantes

But at this moment the long-drawn, slightly stridulous utterances of Mrs. Brimmer rose through the other greetings like a lazy east wind.
-- The Writings of Bret Harte, The Crusade of the Excelsior

Stridulous came from the Latin word stridulus meaning "giving a shrill sound, creaking" from stridere meaning "to utter an inarticulate sound, grate, creak."

avidity

avidity \uh-VID-i-tee\, noun:

1. Enthusiasm or dedication.
2. Eagerness; greediness.

One may speak about anything on earth with fire, with enthusiasm, with ecstasy, but one only speaks about oneself with avidity.
-- Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, "A Correspondence," Essential Turgenev

Come, walk up, and purchase with avidity, Overcome your diffidence and natural timidity!
-- William S. Gilbert, Arthur Seymour Sullivan, Patience; or, Bunthorne's Bride

Avidity appeared in English in the mid-1500s, originating from the French word avide, meaning "to crave, long for." The term adds a dimension of intensity to the "eagerness" with which it is often equated.

tidings

tidings \TAHY-dingz\, noun:

News, information, or intelligence: sad tidings.

There were voices which came from the mountains, with tidings from far away and sweet breathings of the spirit.
-- Arthur Edward Waite, Quest of the Golden Stairs

"How would my heart have leapt at that sound but yesterday!" thought she, remembering the anxiety with which she had long awaited tidings from her husband.
-- Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Wives of the Dead," The Oxford Book of American Short Stories

Tidings is most used in the phrase "glad tidings," but it was a word on its own before it entered Christmas lore. The word came from the Old Norse word tīthindi meaning "news." It is related to the common word "tide."

glissade

glissade \gli-SAHD\, verb:

1. To perform a glissade, a sliding or gliding step.

noun:
1. A skillful glide over snow or ice in descending a mountain, as on skis or a toboggan.
2. Dance. A sliding or gliding step.

And then I hear it, a high tenuous glissade of sound that I might almost have mistaken for a siren if I didn't know better, and I realize that this is what I've been waiting for all along: the coyote chorus.
-- Tom Coraghessan Boyle, The Tortilla Curtain

Bodies which seem to hover over the floor, sinking only to rise. Glissade brushing to releve en attitude.
-- Anthony Howell, In the Company of Others

Glissade entered into English in the 1830s as a version of the modern French verb glisser, meaning "to slip."

douce

douce \doos\, adjective:

Sedate; modest; quiet.

"So should I have been, in my interview with Sir Thomas— how shall I put it— more douce?"
-- Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

Port Glasgow is to the east of Greenock, Gourock to the west. The latter town combines a douce middle-class residential area and a Ken MacLeod.
-- Edited by Gardner Dozois, The Year's Best Science Fiction: Nineteenth Annual Collection

Douce comes from the French word of the same spelling meaning "sweet." It became widely used in English after it was used in the Chanson of Roland, a epic poem written about Charlemagne.

decathect

decathect \dee-kuh-THEKT\, verb:

To withdraw one's feelings of attachment from (a person, idea, or object), as in anticipation of a future loss: He decathected from her in order to cope with her impending death.

Freud argued that grieving involved a process of remembering and reflecting upon all the memories associated with the deceased in order to sever an emotional connection, or "decathect," and make room for new bonds and relationships.
-- Maria Cizmic, Performing Pain

Jonathan was the name of the boy in the pagoda with Michael. "He will continue manipulating Jonathan. We must get Jonathan to decathect from Michael."
-- Chaim Potok, The Promise

Decathect originates from a combination of the Latin prefix de- implying an undoing or removal, and the Greek term kathek meaning "to keep, hold on to." It was originally used by Freud in the 1930s.

algid

algid \AL-jid\, adjective:

Cold; chilly.

The sun weakens and grows pale as though seen through algid water and the air is stale and still.
-- Bryce Courtenay, The Family Frying Pan

There was an algid texture to the air, causing everyone to shiver involuntarily.
-- Richard K. Patterson, The Kaleidoscope Project

A late Renaissance term, algid is derived from the Latin algidus, meaning "cold."

counterblast

counterblast \koun-ter-blast\, noun:

An unrestrained and vigorously powerful response to an attacking statement.

In my view it's really a matter of style. For getting me most effective counterblast, I mean. You don't want to counterblast them in their own style. They're to meeting such counterblasts, anyhow.
-- William Cooper, You're Not Alone

On 26 September 1920 Woolf wrote in her diary that she was 'making up a paper upon Women, as a counterblast to Mr Bennett's adverse views reported in the papers' and this turned into 'A Society'.
-- Virginia Woolf, introduction by David Bradshaw, "The Proper Stuff for Fiction," The Mark on the Wall

Counterblast, predictably, comes from the roots "counter" and "blast." It came into common English usage in the 1560s. The prefix counter- originates in the Latin word contrā which meant "against, to return." Blast, on the other hand, originates in Old English, from the word blǽst, which meant "to blow."

echolalia

echolalia \ek-oh-LEY-lee-uh\, noun:

1. The imitation by a baby of the vocal sounds produced by others, occurring as a natural phase of childhood development.
2. Psychiatry. The uncontrollable and immediate repetition of words spoken by another person.

At the time when speech is being learned, there begins a period of echolalia in which the child repeats with tireless continuation all the words or sentences it hears; either completely, or else their closing cadences.
-- Kurt Koffka, The Growth of the Mind: An Introduction to Child Psychology

These "terrestrial echoes" where the "swamp's echolalia," according to Kiwi, who liked to make geography as pretentious as possible.
-- Karen Russell, Swamplandia!

I had cultivated a mild sort of insanity, echolalia, I think it's called. All the tag ends of the night's proofreading danced on the tip of my tongue.
-- Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

Echolalia originates from two Greek roots: echo derived from the name of the mythic nymph Echo fabled to have pined herself away to nothing but her name, combined with lalia meaning "talk or prattle."

whinge

whinge \hwinj\, verb:

To complain; whine.

Sorry Tom. Canadian idiom. Whinge. Complain. Petition for redress. Assemble. March in those five-abreast demonstrating lines. Shake upraised fists in unison.
-- David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

It was a tough life but you could never whinge because you knew you'd got to heaven and therefore, logically and rationally, you had to be happy. To whinge would have been an unforgivable sin.
-- Susan Howatch, The High Flyer

Whinge is a Northern variant of the Old English word hwinsian meaning, "to whine."

lagan

lagan \LAG-uhn\, noun:

Anything sunk in the sea, but attached to a buoy or the like so that it may be recovered.

But hear what your Grace does not know. In the sea there are three kinds of things: those at the bottom, lagan; those which float, flotsam; those which the sea throws up on the shore, jetsam.
-- Victor Hugo, The Man Who Laughs

"Wreck" shall include jetsam, flotsam, lagan, and derelict found in or on the shores of the sea or any tidal water.
-- Harry Newsom, The Law of Salvage, Towage, and Pilotage

Lagan is not as well known as its contextual brethren, flotsam and jetsam. The word comes from the Old Norse word lǫgn which meant "a net laid in the sea."

axial

axial \AK-see-uhl\, adjective:

1. Situated in or on the line about which a rotating body turns.
2. Of, pertaining to, characterized by, or forming an axis: an axial relationship.

"This planet has no axial tilt," he said as they passed under the portcullis. "And its orbit is circular. So no seasons."
-- Catherine Asaro, Skyfall

"Axial rotation" is not simply "rotation upon an axis" as nonchalantly defined in dictionaries, but is circular motion in the true physical sense. . .
-- Nikola Tesla, Very Truly Yours

Axial originates from the Latin axis meaning 'pivot.' The Middle English suffix -al, turns what was once a noun into an adjective by applying the meaning 'of' or 'pertaining to' an 'axis.'

buttress

buttress \BUH-tris\, verb:

1. To give encouragement or support to (a person, plan, etc.).
2. To support by a buttress; prop up.

noun:
1. Any external prop or support built to steady a structure by opposing its outward thrusts, especially a projecting support built into or against the outside of a masonry wall.
2. Any prop or support.
3. A thing shaped like a buttress, as a tree trunk with a widening base.
4. A bony or horny protuberance, especially on a horse's hoof.

But that our cause, our very life and future hopes and past pride, should have been thrown into that balance with men like that to buttress it—men with valor and strength but without pity of honor.
-- William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!

It occurred to me that perhaps my brother gilder, Elegant, had with sly intent used these facts to buttress his false accusations.
-- Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

In its current form, buttress is a derivative of the Old French boteret, referring to 'support.'

apopemptic

apopemptic \ap-uh-PEMP-tik\, adjective:

1. Pertaining to leave-taking or departing; valedictory.

noun:
1. Obsolete. A farewell address; valedictory.

The others followed suit and, politely apopemptic, vanished into the night.
-- Sōseki Natsume, Aiko Ito, Graeme Wilson, I Am a Cat

Only to the fool who believes all truths debatable, who believes true virtue resides not in men but in eulogies, true sorrow not in partings but in apopemptic hymns…
-- John Gardner, Jason and Medeia

Rising to prominence in the middle 1700s, apopemptic derives from the Greek apopemptikós, pertaining to 'sending away.'

plication

plication \plahy-KEY-shuhn\, noun:

1. The act or procedure of folding.
2. The state or quality of being folded; a fold.
3. Surgery. A. The folding in and suturing of tucks, so as to tighten weakened or stretched tissue. B. The folding of an organ, as a section of the intestine, and the attaching of it to another organ or tissue.

The distribution of sediment by the polar currents, and the lines of plication and upheaval of the crust, as well as the distribution of successive floras, prove that the poles have remained since the Laurentian period where they now are.
-- W.C. and F.P. Church, The Galaxy

For the purpose of this text the term plication will be used in reference to grasping the SMAS [Superficial Muscular Aponeurotic System, in the face] and folding it over on itself by means of a suture.
-- Michael S. Kaminer, Kenneth A. Arndt, Jeffrey S. Dover, Atlas of Cosmetic Surgery

Plication is derived from the Medieval Latin stem plicātiō, relating to a 'fold' or 'pleat.'

adiaphorous

adiaphorous \ad-ee-AF-er-uhs\, adjective:

Doing neither good nor harm, as a medicine.

Sun and Mr. Allworthy are united, but with a difference: the sun, in all his majesty and splendor is, in the words of Boyle, "adiaphorous" unthinking matter, whereas Mr. Allworthy is a moral agent . . .
-- Jina Politi, The Novel and Its Presuppositions

. . .which participates of neither extreme, as for example, all those things which, as being neither good nor evil in themselves, we call adiaphorous, or indifferent.
-- William Watson Goodwin, Plutarch's Morals

Adiaphorous is derived from the Greek, adiaphoros, meaning 'indifferent.'

cruciverbalist

cruciverbalist \kroo-suh-VUR-buh-list\, noun:

A designer or aficionado of crossword puzzles.

"What kind of writer are you, then?" prods Middle. "A cruciverbalist," Claire says, regretting the word even as it leaves her lips.
-- Elise Juska, One for Sorrow, Two for Joy

In high school I was a closet cruciverbalist [because] working on crosswords seemed so uncool.
-- Kristin Tillotson, "The Life and Times of a Crossword Addict," Minneapolis Star Tribune

This young word was coined in the late 1970s and entered the vernacular in 1990. Cruciverablist is derived from two Latin roots crux meaning 'cross' and verbum, meaning 'word.'

moor

moor \moor\, verb:

1. To fix firmly; secure.
2. To secure (a ship, boat, dirigible, etc.) in a particular place, as by cables and anchors or by lines.
3. To moor a ship, small boat, etc.
4. To be made secure by cables or the like.

noun:
1. The act of mooring.

Being anxious to remove some of our goods before night, the boys ran off to fetch the sledge; while I, having no anchor, contrived to moor the boats by means of some of the heavy blocks of iron we had brought.
-- Johann David Wyss, The Swiss Family Robinson

Then the divers will moor it to the bottom — we drove the piles into the ocean floor 20 meters deep when we did the 63.
-- Eugene McCreary, Madame President

Though moor gained popularity in the 1490s, the term originates from the Old English more from the maerelsrāp rope used for securing or 'mooring' ships.

mulligrubs

mulligrubs \MUHL-i-gruhbz\, noun:

Ill temper; colic; grumpiness.

"That's a comfortable place to be." The barber chuckled. "You're a philosopher, sir, a philosopher." "I am, but I'm a blue one. I have the blue mulligrubs."
-- Brian Lynch, The Winter of Sorrow

Right Rosa Solis, as ever washed mulligrubs out of a moody brain!
-- Sir Walter Scott, The Waverley Novels

It is easy enough to say that a pessimist is a person afflicted with an incurable case of mulligrubs — one whom nothing in all earth or heaven or hades pleases; one who usually deserves nothing, yet grumbles if he gets it.
-- William Cowper Brann, "Beauty and the Beast," Brann: The Iconoclast

This fanciful formation was developed in 1599 as a synonym for 'a fit of the blues' and an alteration of megrims.

anopisthograph

anopisthograph \an-uh-PIS-thuh-graf\, noun:

Manuscript, parchment, or book having writing on only one side of the leaves.

But it never comes to this, the events always end up on the public side of the anopisthograph.
-- Kerry Shawn Keys, A Gathering of Smoke

If text was written on one side only, then the roll was known as an anopisthograph; if on both sides, then as an opisthograph.
-- Roy Stokes, edited by R. Stephen Almagno, Esdaile's Manual of Bibliography

Anopisthograph comes from three Greek roots. It first gained popularity in the 1870s, merging an-, meaning 'un-' or 'not,' with opistho for 'back' referring to writing on both sides of a leaf or page, and 'graph' from -graphos, meaning 'drawn' or 'written.'

howdah

howdah \HOU-duh\, noun:

(In the East Indies) a seat or platform for one or more persons, commonly with a railing and a canopy, placed on the back of an elephant.

Above the musket smoke and the gritty dust that was drifting over the battlefield, he saw the howdahs of some of Hemu's war elephants approaching.
-- Alex Rutherford, Ruler of the World

Now she made a picture of an elephant, with four lines for the howdah, in which was seated a princess wearing a crown.
-- Qurratulʻain Ḥaidar, "The Housing Society," The Sound of Falling Leaves

Howdah has both Hindi and Arabic origins, both referring to the load carried by an elephant or camel: haudah in Hindi, and haudaj in Arabic.

quench

quench \kwench\, verb:

1. To slake, satisfy, or allay (thirst, desires, passion, etc.).
2. To put out or extinguish (fire, flames, etc.).
3. To cool suddenly by plunging into a liquid, as in tempering steel by immersion in water.
4. To subdue or destroy; overcome; quell: to quench an uprising.
5. Electronics. To terminate (the flow of electrons in a vacuum tube) by application of a voltage.

Foul water will quench fire as well as fair.
-- John Heywood, Proverbs

Which was not the first day at all, not Eden morning at all because girls' weather and boys' luck is the sum of all the days: the cup, the bowl proffered once to the lips in youth and then no more; proffered to quench or sip or drain that lone one time and even that sometimes premature, too soon.
-- William Faulkner, The Town

Quench originates from the old English cwincan, meaning 'to go out, to be extinguished.'

erinaceous

erinaceous \er-uh-NEY-shuhs\, adjective:

Of the hedgehog kind or family.

At times even more ruthless, their erinaceous fingernails used as claws, as dangerous as any blade.
-- Richard W. Hoffman, The Bamboo American

[Thoreau was] the most erinaceous of American writers. Ideas stuck out from his writings like porcupine quills, guaranteed to prick the hide of even the most thick-skinned, reader.
-- Walter Harding, The Days of Henry Thoreau: A Biography

Erinaceous originates from the Latin ērināceus for hedgehog, followed by the suffix -ous referring to the possession of a quality.

pontificate

pontificate \pon-TIF-i-keyt\, verb:

1. To speak in a pompous or dogmatic manner.
2. To perform the office or duties of a pontiff.
3. To serve as a bishop, especially in a Pontifical Mass.

noun:
1. The office or term of office of a pontiff.

His image is to appear as the guardian of robust morality as opposed to the business world, and he is invited pretty regularly to pontificate on television.
-- Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The teacher's vanity and desire to pontificate had, he was vaguely aware, got the better of him.
-- Michael Antony, The Apocalypse Syndrome

Originating from the Latin pontificatus, meaning 'to speak in the manner of a pontiff,' pontificate fell into common usage in 1825.

effervescent

effervescent \ef-er-VES-uhnt\, adjective:

1. High-spirited; vivacious; lively.
2. Effervescing; bubbling.

One of them was a thickset young man who played doggedly without speaking, the other was an effervescent young man with white eyebrows and a nervous manner.
-- James Joyce, Stephen Hero

Bobbing up and down, for a few seconds, like an apple in a bowl of toddy, he, at length, finally disappeared amid the whirlpool of foam which, in the already effervescent liquor, his struggles easily succeeded in creating.
-- Edgar Allan Poe, King Pest

That night, when Jennifer and I go out to dinner, she is effervescent with plans for our future.
-- Isaac Asimov, Science Fiction Magazine, Volume 8, 1984

Effervescent originated as a French verb in the 1650s meaning, 'the action of boiling up' (as in water), though it did not assume its figurative meaning relating to personality until 1748.

alexipharmic

alexipharmic \uh-lek-suh-FAHR-mik\, adjective:

1. Warding off poisoning or infection; antidotal; prophylactic.
2. An alexipharmic agent, especially an internal antidote.

True, I had lately given some attention to botanical studies; but my new knowledge extended only to the trees of the forest, and none of these with which I was acquainted possessed alexipharmic virtues. I knew nothing of the herbaceous plants, the milk-worts, the aristolochias, that would have served me.
-- Captain Thomas Mayne Reid, The Quadroon

That it is a poison most true,/ The worse, the deadlier the drought,/ The greater honor will be due/ To your alexipharmic craft./ Now, Doctor, you must show your skill;/ Whip them off clean, and make your will.
-- John Hall-Stevenson, Fables for Grown Gentlemen

Alexipharmic rose to prominence in the early Baroque period, from the Greek alexein, 'to avert' and pharmakon, meaning 'drug.' Alexipharmic was the dominant adjectival form until 'antidotal' overtook it in the 1640s.

empurple

empurple \em-PUR-puhl\, verb:

1. To color or become purple or purplish.
2. To darken or redden; flush.

On one side are baby grapes whose petals yet fall; on another the clusters empurple towards full growth.
-- Homer, translated by T.E. Lawrence, The Odyssey

Magnificent weather, one of those sun risings that empurple landscapes, left the river all its limpid serenity.
-- Alexandre Dumas, The Man in the Iron Mask

Empurple originated in the late 1580s from the Greek prefix em- meaning 'to become' and the color 'purple,' a word of Tyrian descent for the shellfish from which purple dye was made.

trundle

trundle \TRUHN-dl\, verb:

To move or walk with a rolling gait.

They get her into a wheelbarrow and trundle her all over town.
-- Alice Munroe, Meneseteung

Fling leaflets down basements; expose them in stalls; trundle them along streets on barrows to be sold for a penny or given away.
-- Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own: Three Guineas

Trundle, first used in the 1500s, may originate from the Old English trendel, "ring or disk," which is also the root of the modern English trend.