fiddlesticks

fiddlesticks \FID-l-stiks\, interjection:

(used to express impatience, dismissal, etc.)

"...If he had been an English lad, he would have been off to his sweetheart long before this, without saying with your leave or by your leave; but being a Frenchman, he is all for Aeneas and filial piety,—filial fiddle-sticks!"
-- Elizabeth Gaskell, My Lady Ludlow, 1858

The lovers were fiddlesticks, he thought, collecting it all in his mind again. That's fiddlesticks, that's first-rate, he thought, putting one thing beside another. But he must read it again. He could not remember the whole shape of the thing.
-- Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse, 1927

Fiddlesticks came to English in the 1400s from the late Middle English term fidillstyk.

solstice

solstice \SOL-stis, SOHL-\, noun:

1. Astronomy. a. either of the two times a year when the sun is at its greatest distance from the celestial equator: about June 21, when the sun reaches its northernmost point on the celestial sphere, or about December 22, when it reaches its southernmost point. Compare summer solstice, winter solstice. b. either of the two points in the ecliptic farthest from the equator.
2. a furthest or culminating point; a turning point.

...the Sun appears a second time to be in the Plane of the Equinoctial Circle, in its Passage from the Winter Solstice to the SummerSolstice...
-- John Shuttleworth, A Treatise of Astronomy, 1738

The era, a purely astronomical division of time, began with the coincidence of the December solstice with perihelion, and was renewed every 25,765 years.
-- Camille Flammarion, Omega: The Last Days of the World, 1894

Solstice comes from the Latin solstitium referring to when the sun stands still. It entered English in the 1200s.

poultice

poultice \POHL-tis\, noun:

1. a soft, moist mass of cloth, bread, meal, herbs, etc., applied hot as a medicament to the body.

verb:
1. to apply a poultice to.

...he did not notice whether I was going to spike him or put on a poultice.
-- David Rattlehead, The Life and Adventures of an Arkansaw Doctor, 1851

"...I thought I could nurse her; I did my best. Was the poultice all right?"
-- George Moore, Spring Days: A Realistic Novel, 1888

Poultice came to English in the 1500s from the Latin puls meaning "porridge."

ambulate

ambulate \AM-byuh-leyt\, verb:

to walk about or move from place to place.

The woman walked slowly, with a halting gait, as if she'd been forced to ambulate with a pair of swim fins for shoes.
-- Sue Grafton, "E" is for Evidence, 1988

It must be admitted that we who ambulate in pants, lie to each other in business and bunco our neighbors, in order to secure the lithographs of commerce, so that we can furnish the gentle herd with the means to live, are not perfect.
-- Charles Summers, The Nomads, 1903

Ambulate comes from the Latin ambulāre meaning "to walk." It entered English in the 1600s.

transpontine

transpontine \trans-PON-tin, -tahyn\, adjective:

1. across or beyond a bridge.
2. on the southern side of the Thames in London.

There was nothing left but to retreat against the railing, and with my back turned to the street, pretend to be admiring the barges on the river or the chimneys of transpontine London.
-- Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Vandergrift, "Narrative of the Spirited Old Lady," More New Arabian Nights: The Dynamiter, 1885

...he had come straight from a wretched transpontine lodging to this splendid Lincolnshire mansion, and had at the same time exchanged a stipend of thirty shillings a week for an income of eleven thousand a year…"
-- Mary Elizabeth Braddon, John Marchmont's Legacy, 1862–1863

Transpontine comes from the Latin trans- + pont- meaning "across" + "bridge."

cathexis

cathexis \kuh-THEK-sis\, noun:

1. Psychoanalysis. the investment of emotional significance in an activity, object, or idea.
2. Psychoanalysis. the charge of psychic energy so invested.

She remembered so clearly the surprise of that first cathexis with Earth across the light-years…
-- Ian Watson, Very Slow Time Machine, 1979

Now our primary libidinal cathexis is with machines. Cars, power tools, computers, Kitchen Aids, audiophile equipment.
-- Curtis White, Requiem, 2001

Cathexis ultimately comes from the Proto-Indo-European root segh- meaning "to hold." It entered English in the 1920s.

klaxon

klaxon \KLAK-suhn\, noun:

a loud electric horn, formerly used on automobiles, trucks, etc., and now often used as a warning signal.

He invented the Klaxon, a horn that relied on electricity to vibrate a metal diaphragm, emitting a sound that was shrill yet guttural, abrupt yet unending, ugly yet lifesaving.
-- Julie M. Fenster, The Spirit of Invention, 2009

Everybody has heard a klaxon on a car suddenly begin to sound; I understand it is a short circuit that causes it.
-- James Thurber, "Let Your Mind Alone!," The New Yorker, 1937

Klaxon got its name from an American manufacturing company that made horns for automobiles. It entered English in the early 1900s.

misoneism

misoneism \mis-oh-NEE-iz-uhm, mahy-soh-\, noun:

hatred or dislike of what is new or represents change.

But it is necessary to note that hereditary anomaly, if it provokes an anomaly in the moral sense, also suppresses misoneism, the horror of novelty which is almost the general rule of humanity.
-- Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent, 1907

...he saw he was the only one to stand ready for the new thing, because the others were all exhibiting symptoms of misoneism.
-- Brian Aldiss, Brian Aldiss, 1967

Misoneism comes from the Greek miso- + neos meaning "hatred" and "new."

whitherward

whitherward \HWITH-er-werd, WITH-\, adverb:

Archaic. toward what place; in what direction.

West, West! Whitherward point hope and prophet- fingers, whitherward at sunset kneel all worshipers of fire, whitherward in mid-ocean the great whales turn to die, whitherward face all the Moslem dead in Persia, whitherward lie Heaven and Hell!
-- Herman Melville, Mardi: And Voyage Thither, 1849

...the only question now was, Whitherward to vanish, in what hole to hide oneself!
-- Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution, 1837

Whitherward comes from Old English hwinder + -weard meaning "toward where?"

umbriferous

umbriferous \uhm-BRIF-er-uhs\, adjective:

casting or making shade.

Its white umbriferous blooms cover fields, ditches, and anywhere it can.
-- Wesley Henry, A Pilgrim's Path, 2007

Every city front or rear yard should be ornamented with one or two of these fruitiferous and umbriferous trees.
-- George J. Drews, Unfired Foods and Hygienic Dietetics for Prophylactic (preventative) Feeding, 1909

Umbriferous comes from the Latin word umbra meaning "shade," and is related to the word "umbrella."

lipogram

lipogram \LIP-uh-gram, LAHY-puh-\, noun:

a written work composed of words chosen so as to avoid the use of one or more specific alphabetic characters.

I suddenly felt possessive of our boat, our game, a travel set with tiny magnetic letters. "Our board is missing a few tiles," I said. "Just makes it more of a challenge…a lipogram."
-- Gayle Brandeis, Delta Girls: A Novel, 2010

So the poet whose hunger is simply to speak—tell truths, right wrongs—what need has he for the lipogram, for colors of rhetoric, antilibrations of phrase on phrase?
-- John Gardner, Jason and Medeia, 1973

Lipogram entered English at the turn of the 18th century from the Greek lipográmmatos meaning "missing a letter."

cusp

cusp \kuhsp\, noun:

1. a point or pointed end.
2. Anatomy, Zoology, Botany. a point, projection, or elevation, as on the crown of a tooth.
3. Also called spinode. Geometry. a point where two branches of a curve meet, end, and are tangent.
4. Architecture. a decorative device, used especially in Gothic architecture to vary the outlines of intradoses or to form architectural foils, consisting of a pair of curves tangent to the real or imaginary line defining the area decorated and meeting at a point within the area.
5. Astronomy. a point of a crescent, especially of the moon.
6. Astrology. a. the zodiacal degree that marks the beginning of a house or a sign. b. Informal. a person born on the first day of a sign.
7. a point that marks the beginning of a change: on the cusp of a new era.

From behind the cusp a figure had stepped out, entirely black, unfolding slowly, as though from a crouch.
-- David Herter, Ceres Storm, 2000

"I have put your father into it! There are the initial letters W. C. let into the cusp of the York rose, and the date, three years before the battle of Bosworth, over the chimneypiece."
-- Baron Edward Bulwer-Lytton, The Caxtons: A Family Picture, 1849

Cusp came to English in the late 1500s from the Latin cuspis meaning "a point."

ochlophobia

ochlophobia \ok-luh-FOH-bee-uh\, noun:

Psychiatry. an abnormal fear of crowds.

"The man's got pedophobia, homichlophobia, dromophobia, xenophobia, ochlophobia, haphephobia, planomania, kleptophobia, thanatophobia, he's an onychophagist, he's got gerontophobia, but notice he has no dysphagia…"
-- George Friel, Mr. Alfred, M.A., 1972

As the plane leveled her discomfort ebbed. Agoraphobia. Demophobia. Enochlophobia. Ochlophobia. She knew the terms but refused to label her condition a phobia.
-- Rick Mofina, The Panic Zone, 2010

Ochlophobia entered English in the late 1800s from the Greek roots meaning "mob" and "fear."

calorifacient

calorifacient \kuh-lawr-uh-FEY-shuhnt, -lor-, kal-er-uh-\, adjective:

(of foods) producing heat.

The division of food into azotized and non-azotized is no doubt important, but the attempt to show that the first only is plastic or nutritive, while the second is simply calorifacient, or heat-producing, fails entirely in the face of the facts revealed by the study of man in different climates...
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, "Border Lines of Knowledge in Some Provinces of Medical Science," 1861

It has been attempted on the basis of their supposed physiological destination, and thus they were divided into the histogenetic and thecalorifacient substances; the one going, as was imagined, solely to the formation of tissue, and the other entirely to maintain the heat of the body.
-- William Alexander Hammond, A Treatise on Hygiene, 1863

Calorifacient comes from the Latin calōrifacĕre meaning "to make heat." It entered English in the mid-1800s.

hardihood

hardihood \HAHR-dee-hood\, noun:

1. boldness or daring; courage.
2. audacity or impudence.
3. strength; power; vigor: the hardihood of youth.
4. hardy spirit or character; determination to survive; fortitude: the hardihood of early settlers.

"...Make thee my knight? My knights are sworn to vows / Of utter hardihood, utter gentleness, / And, loving, utter faithfulness in love, / And uttermost obedience to the King."
-- Lord Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King, 1872

They had to do with a pride in a man's courage and hardihood, courage and hardihood that could make of thefts, of murder, of crimes dimly guessed, wrongs no more reprehensible than a boy's apple-stealing.
-- Dashiell Hammett, "Ruffian's Wife," 1925

Hardihood came to English in the 1600s from the Old French hardir meaning "to harden" or "to make bold." This ultimately comes from the Proto-Germanic hardjan meaning "to make hard."

jocose

jocose \joh-KOHS, juh-\, adjective:

given to or characterized by joking; jesting; humorous; playful: a jocose and amusing manner.

The jocose talk of hay-makers is best at a distance; like those clumsy bells round the cows' necks, it has rather a coarse sound when it comes close, and may even grate on your ears painfully...
-- George Eliot, Adam Bede, 1859

Lord Boardotrade was there, making semi-jocose speech, quite in the approved way for a cognate paterfamilias.
-- Anthony Trollope, Ayala's Angel, 1878

Jocose comes from the Latin jocōsus meaning "joking." It entered English in the 1600s.

abiogenesis

abiogenesis \ey-bahy-oh-JEN-uh-sis, ab-ee-oh-\, noun:

Biology. the now discredited theory that living organisms can arise spontaneously from inanimate matter; spontaneous generation.

"Aristotle would have loved that." Nancy was standing behind him. "Why Aristotle?" she asked. "He believed in abiogenesis, the idea that living creatures can arise from nonliving matter."
-- Tom Clancy, Games of State, 1996

Oberth, who accurately predicted rocket development on earth, suspects that the prerequisites for abiogenesis exist on other planets in the solar system.
-- Erich von Daniken, translated by Michael Heron, Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past, 1968

Coined by T. H. Huxley in 1870, abiogenesis comes from the Latin words meaning "birth" and "origin."

slumgullion

slumgullion \sluhm-GUHL-yuhn, SLUHM-guhl-\, noun:

1. a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc.
2. a beverage made weak or thin, as watery tea, coffee, or the like.
3. the refuse from processing whale carcasses.
4. a reddish, muddy deposit in mining sluices.

"...d'yever eat good old fashioned slumgullion boy, 'taint nothin but scrambled eggs and potatoes all scrambled up together."
-- Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums, 1958

We could not eat the bread or the meat, nor drink the "slumgullion."
-- Mark Twain, Roughing It, 1872

Slumgullion is an Americanism dating back to the 1840s. It is perhaps related to the word cullion, which comes from the Latin term meaning "bag" or "testicle."

largesse

largesse \lahr-JES, LAHR-jis\, noun:

1. generous bestowal of gifts.
2. the gift or gifts, as of money, so bestowed.
3. Obsolete. generosity; liberality.

They subsisted by the bounty, or largesse, as it was called, of the princes whom they served, which was one great source of expense to those who embarked in war…
-- Sir Walter Scott, "Feudal Chivalry," Tales of a Grandfather, 1831

Largesse, in the form of odds and ends of cold cream and pomatum, and also of hairpins, was freely distributed among the attendants.
-- Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, 1870

Largesse comes from the Latin largus meaning "abundant." It shares a root with the word large.

pokelogan

pokelogan \POHK-loh-guhn\, noun:

Northeastern U.S. marshy or stagnant water that has branched off from a stream or lake.

They were particularly numerous where there was a small bay, or pokelogan, as it is called, bordered by a strip of meadow, or separated from the river by a low peninsula covered with coarse grass...
-- Henry David Thoreau, The Maine Woods, 1864

He weighted their bodies into the black stagnant water of a marshy pokelogan and watched them sink below the surface, being the last man to ever see them alive or dead.
-- Robert Olmstead, Soft Water, 1988

Pokelogan entered English in the 1840s and is of unknown origin.

twain

twain \tweyn\, adjective:

two.

Here two gentlefolks whisper together, and there other twain, their swords by their side.
-- Charles Reade, The Cloister and the Hearth, 1861

Or one can say that East is East and West is West, and in American literature never the twain shall meet.
-- edited by Walter B. Rideout, Sherwood Anderson: A Collection of Critical Essays, 1974

Twain comes from the Old English twēgen, which is the masculine nomiative and accusative form of the word "two."

pilcrow

pilcrow \PIL-kroh\, noun:

a paragraph mark.

Take the trouble to look it up and in most cases the humble pilcrow warrants only a few lines, dismissed briskly as a "paragraph mark" that is "only important when brevity is important."
-- Keith Houston, Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks, 2013

I'm more like a specialized piece of punctuation, a cedilla, umlaut or pilcrow, hard to track down on the keyboard of a computer or typewriter.
-- Adam Mars-Jones, Pilcrow, 2008

Pilcrow arose in the 1400s, possibly from the Old French paragrafe meaning "paragraph."

suppletory

suppletory \SUHP-li-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee\, adjective:

supplying a deficiency.

Every constituent is bound by suppletory rules in the charter, but each constituent is free at any time to alter by contract how a particular suppletory rule will apply to its positions and interests.
-- David Sciulli, Corporate Power in Civil Society, 2001

A book of accounts kept by one who has since become insane, and proved to be in his handwriting, is admissible in evidence, on being verified by the suppletory oath of his guardian.
-- Massachusetts Digest, 1881

Suppletory comes from the Latin word supplēre meaning "to make complete."

wight

wight \wahyt\, adjective:

1. active; nimble.
2. strong and brave, especially in war.

noun:
1. a human being.
2. Obsolete. a. a supernatural being, as a witch or sprite. b. any living being; a creature.

Sir William of Deloraine, good at need / Mount thee on thy wightest steed; / Spare not to spur nor stint or ride / Until thou come to fair Tweedside…
-- Sir Walter Scott, The Lay of the Lady Minstrel, 1805

But if there happen to be an unduly slender, clumsy, or timorous wightin the ship, that wight is certain to be made a ship-keeper.
-- Herman Melville, Moby Dick; or, The Whale, 1851

Wight is related to the Old Norse word vīgr which meant "able to fight."

borborygmus

borborygmus \bawr-buh-RIG-muhs\, noun:

a rumbling or gurgling sound caused by the movement of gas in the intestines.

"The stertorous borborygmus of the dyspeptic Carlyle!" declaimed Willie Weaver, and beamed through his spectacles. The mot, he flattered himself, could hardly have been more exquisitely juste.
-- Aldous Huxley, Point Counter Point, 1928

Then her stomach grumbled and spoiled the silence. Quickly, Patsy pressed her hand against her complaining belly, and hoped that Ray had not heard it. "Suffering from borborygmus, I hear," Ray dead-panned dryly.
-- Bonnie Gardner, Sergeant Darling, 2005

Borborygmus comes from the Greek word borborygmós which meant "intestinal rumbling."

gelt

gelt \gelt\, noun:

Slang. money.

All he wants is some U.S. gelt and a nice pair of elevator shoes.
-- James Ellroy, Blood's a Rover, 2009

Let alone he was always one for a bit of life, you could earn extra gelt in London, for there were always errands to be run, or notes to be delivered, and you got a shilling every time you were sent off to execute such commissions.
-- Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax, 1959

Gelt entered English in the 1890s. It came from the Yiddish word which meant "money."

wroth

wroth \rawth, roth or, especially Brit., rohth\, adjective:

1. stormy; violent; turbulent: the wroth sea.
2. angry; wrathful (usually used predicatively): He was wroth to see the damage to his home.

You are wroth with me because I have used you; because I have offended against your innate right to be a useless cyst on the hindquarters of life.
-- Stephen Burst, Issola, 2002

The wroth sea's waves are edged / With foam, white as the bitten lip of hate, / When in the solitary waste, strange groups / Of young volcanoes come up, cyclops-like…
-- Robert Browning, Paracelsus, 1835

Wroth is derived from the Old English wrāth which comes in turn from the Old Norse word reithr which meant "angry." It is related to the word writhe.

decant

decant \dih-KANt\, verb:

1. to pour (a liquid) from one container to another.
2. to pour (wine or other liquid) gently so as not to disturb the sediment.

One of Enzo's jobs was to decant the cloudy green-gold liquid into smaller vessels for use in the kitchen.
-- Nicky Pellegrino, The Villa Girls, 2011

They stood shivering in the narrow hallway, waiting for their turn to come forward and wash. Rosa would decant some of the cold water she had fetched from the well into a big tub.
-- Steve Sem-Sandberg, The Emperor of Lies, 2011

Decant originally comes from the Latin word canth meaning "spout, rim of a vessel." One of the many meanings of the prefix de- is "removal."

za-zen

za-zen \ZAH-ZEN\, noun:

meditation in a prescribed, cross-legged posture.

They told me that before he left he had paced the floor nervously for several days; that he had been doing za zen on his mat for about nine hours a day; that he'd gotten into a quarrel over religion with a Jehovah's Witness on his shift as a night watchman.
-- Shulamith Firestone, Airless Spaces, 1998

I stared at the glow of the cigarette as if in za-Zen, open-eyed meditation.
-- Michael Gurian, An American Mystic, 2000

Za-zen comes from the Japanese word za meaning "seat, seated" and zen, which originally comes from the Sanskrit word meaning "thought, meditation."

tenuity

tenuity \tuh-NOO-i-tee, -NYOO-, te-\, adjective:

1. thinness of consistency; rarefied condition.
2. the state of being tenuous.
3. slenderness.

The exceeding tenuity of the object of our dread was apparent; for all heavenly objects were plainly visible through it.
-- Edgar Allan Poe, "The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion," 1839

There was no doubt left to me; the atmosphere of the moon was either pure oxygen or air, and capable therefore—unless its tenuitywas excessive—of supporting our alien life.
-- H.G. Wells, The First Men in the Moon, 1901

Tenuity is derived from the Latin word tenuitās meaning "thinness."

protoplast

protoplast \PROH-tuh-plast\, noun:

1. Biology. a. the contents of a cell within the cell membrane, considered as a fundamental entity. b. the primordial living unit or cell.
2. a person or thing that is formed first; original; prototype.
3. the hypothetical first individual or one of the supposed first pair of a species or the like.

But whatever I am here, I am the protoplast—and that is a word you should mark well, little brother—the thing first formed by our parents as a copy to be followed afterwards.
-- Philip Baruth, The Brothers Boswell, 2013

You look like a direct descendant of our good old legendary protoplast Piast. But, just to make the picture complete, tell us something about your family
-- Stefan Korboński, Between the Hammer and the Anvil, 1981

Protoplast comes from the Late Latin word prōtoplastus which meant "the first man."

snarky

snarky \SNAHR-kee\, adjective:

testy or irritable; short.

"I am," I told her, trying not to sound snarky. "You told me just yesterday that you'd signed up for tap lessons."
-- Amy Bloom, Full of It, 2007

But I wanted to explore my attraction/repulsion to fame in a different way, and not just say snarky things about Cher or what have you.
-- Cintra Wilson, Colors Insulting to Nature, 2010

Snarky arose in the early 1900s from the verb snark which meant "to snort" and "to nag."

irredentist

irredentist \ir-i-DEN-tist\, noun:

1. a member of a party in any country advocating the acquisition of some region included in another country by reason of cultural, historical, ethnic, racial, or other ties.
2. (usually initial capital letter) a member of an Italian association that became prominent in 1878, advocating the redemption, or the incorporation into Italy, of certain neighboring regions (Italia irredenta) having a primarily Italian population.

adjective:
1. pertaining to or supporting such a party or its doctrine.

Although the U.I.C. had popular support, its senior members included irredentists and Al Qaeda veterans, worrying Somalia's neighbors.
-- Xan Rice, "Now Serving," The New Yorker, Sept. 30, 2013

In Evelyn's face, I saw the travels of Marco Polo, the fall of Constantinople, the irredentist yearnings of Hungaro—Romanians.
-- Leonard Michaels, The Collected Stories, 2007

Irredentist entered English in the late 1800s from the Italian word irredent which literally meant "unredeemed" but more importantly referred to an adherent of a specific political party.

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omnium-gatherum

omnium-gatherum \om-nee-uhm-GATH-er-uhm\, noun:

a miscellaneous collection.

...the man who performed this unkind office fancying that a dislike to the dishes could alone have given rise to such an omnium-gatherum.
-- James Fennimore Cooper, Home as Found, 1838

Foster's own room was a cramped omnium gatherum, cluttered with the paraphernalia of daily living.
-- Henry Blake Fuller, Bertram Cope's Year, 1919

Omnium-gatherum comes from the Latin roots omnium meaning "of all" and the pseudo-Latin word gatherum meaning "a gathering."

commix

commix \kuh-MIKS\, verb:

to mix together; blend.

Was it necessary that the active gloom of such a tyrant of a father, should commix with such a passive sweetness of a will-less mother, to produce a constancy, an equanimity, a steadiness, in the daughter, which never woman before could boast of?
-- Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, 1748

This man will harass the civilized world with an insupportable despotism: he will confound and commix all things spiritual and temporal.
-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Friend, 1809

Commix is a backformation of commixt which was a combination of com- meaning "together" and the variant stem mix.

antitype

antitype \AN-ti-tahyp\, noun:

something that is foreshadowed by a type or symbol, as a New Testament event prefigured in the Old Testament.

These were but the foreshadowing of their great and glorious antitype, Christ and the gospel, which are the spiritual fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham.
-- J. W. Byers, Sanctification, 2009

The ship in danger is easily understood to be its old antitype, the Commonwealth.
-- Jonathan Swift, A Tale of a Tub, 1704

Antitype comes from the Late Greek word antítypos which meant "the impression left by a die."

con amore

con amore \kon uh-MAWR-ee, -MAWR-ey, -MOHR-ee, -MOHR-ey, kohn; It. kawn ah-MAW-re\, adverb:

1. (italics) Italian. with love, tender enthusiasm, or zeal.
2. tenderly and lovingly (used as a musical direction).

He did not expect that he should really be preferred, con amore, to a young fellow like Adolphe.
-- Anthony Trollope, Tales of All Countries, 1861

Con amore, he went through the whole business of begging, praying, resisting excuses, explaining away difficulties, and at last succeeded in persuading Miss Harriet to allow herself to be led to the instrument.
-- Charlotte Brontë, Shirley, 1849

Con amore entered English in the early 1700s directly from the Italian phrase of the same spelling.

maugre

maugre \MAW-ger\, preposition:

in spite of; notwithstanding.

But the angel in the dream did, and, maugre Plain Talk, put quite other notions into the candle-maker.
-- Herman Melville, The Confidence-Man, 1857

I protest, / Maugre thy strength, youth, place, and eminence, / Despite thy victor-sword and fire-new fortune, / Thy valour and thy heart, thou art a traitor / False to thy gods, thy brother, and thy father, / Conspirant 'gainst this high illustrious prince, / And from th'extremest upward of thy head / To the descent and dust beneath thy feet, / A most toad-spotted traitor.
-- William Shakespeare, King Lear, 1623

Maugre comes from the Middle French word that literally meant "spite, ill-will."

commissure

commissure \KOM-uh-shoor, -shur\, noun:

1. a joint; seam; suture.
2. Botany. the joint or face by which one carpel coheres with another.
3. Anatomy, Zoology. a connecting band of nerve fiber, especially one joining the right and left sides of the brain or spinal cord.

See the thick middle commissure joining the two thalami, just as the corpus callosum and fornix join the hemispheres.
-- William James, "The Structure of the Brain," Writings, 1878-1899

By day the shepherd would have raised his pipe in vain, towards the long clear cut commissure of earth and sky.
-- Samuel Beckett, Molloy, 1955

Though his solution to the problem isn't the universal solvent he leads the reader to expect, his project is still a neat example of that modern commissure where Continental theory and analytic practice fuse.
-- David Foster Wallace, "Greatly Exaggerated," A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, 1997

Commissure stems from the Latin word committere meaning logically "to commit."

subjoin

subjoin \suhb-JOIN\, verb:

1. to add at the end, as of something said or written; append.
2. to place in sequence or juxtaposition to something else.

And will you give yourself the trouble of carrying similar assurances to his creditors in Meryton, of whom I shall subjoin a list, according to his information?
-- Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1813

We subjoin a specimen which has been rendered into English by an eminent scholar whose name for the moment we are not at liberty to disclose though we believe that our readers will find the topical allusion rather more than an indication.
-- James Joyce, Ulysses, 1922

Subjoin is derived from the Middle French word subjoindre which meant "to add at the end."

diathesis

diathesis \dahy-ATH-uh-sis\, noun:

Pathology. a constitutional predisposition or tendency, as to a particular disease or affection.

There are indications of a strumous diathesis. In broad terms, I may say that you have a constitutional and hereditary taint.
-- Arthur Conan Doyle, Round the Red Lamp, 1894

The diathesis or mental constitution of the recipient, and the material operations which he performs on these images by virtue of thisdiathesis.
-- Edited by Robin Osborne and Jeremy Tanner, Art's Agency and Art History, 2007

Diathesis comes from the Greek word diáthesis meaning "arrangement, disposition."

roger

roger \ROJ-er\, interjection:

1. Informal. all right; O.K.
2. message received and understood (a response to radio communications).
3. (often initial capital letter) Jolly Roger.
4. (formerly used in communications to represent the letter R.)

I gave him a roger and climbed into the hatch, pushing Teddy up and out.
-- Larry Heinemann, Close Quarters, 2010

"Roger, standing by, Sandy." Not another minute passed before he heard the sound of a siren.
-- Tom Clancy, The Teeth of the Tiger, 2004

This sense of the word roger comes from the military alphabet in which the name Roger meant "received." The male given name came from the Germanic words meaning "fame" and "spear."

mufti

mufti \MUHF-tee\, noun:

1. civilian clothes, in contrast with military or other uniforms, or as worn by a person who usually wears a uniform.
2. a Muslim jurist expert in the religious law.
3. (in the Ottoman Empire) a deputy of the chief Muslim legal adviser to the Sultan.
4. (initial capital letter) Grand Mufti.

The men in mufti take the field in Goodbye Mexico, leaving behind the armed warriors and those who couldn't find where to getmufti.
-- Phillip Jennings, Goodbye Mexico, 2007

"Zdrastvuyte kak pozhivaete horosho spasibo" Entwistle rattled off in excellent imitation of Russian speech--and indeed he rather resembled a genial Tsarist colonel in mufti.
-- Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin, 1957

Mufti came into English in the late 1500s from the Arabic word of the same pronunciation. The word literally meant a person who delivers a judgment. The sense of "civilian clothing" arises from the legal adviser being a civil official who did not wear military garb.

en bloc

en bloc \ahn BLAWK; English. en BLOK\, adverb:

French. as a whole.

These houses had recently been bought en bloc by a property developer who was about to have them renovated.
-- Ruth Rendell, End in Tears, 2005

Mr Gates, after a pause, agreed to act as chairman temporarily, and Anton sat down, with a look of satisfaction which explained to Martha that she had under-estimated the danger of the entire body of respectable patrons resigning en bloc.
-- Doris Lessing, A Ripple From the Storm, 1958

En bloc entered English in the mid-1800s directly from the French phrase of the same spelling and meaning.

novitiate

novitiate \noh-VISH-ee-it, -eyt\, noun:

1. the state or period of being a beginner in anything.
2. the state or period of being a novice of a religious order or congregation.
3. the quarters occupied by religious novices during probation.
4. a novice.

Moreover, in carrier training the tests confronted the candidate, the eternal novitiate, in more rapid succession than in any other form of flying.
-- Tom Wolfe, The Purple Decades, 1982

She would study very hard in the Abbé's catechism class from now on, so that her confirmation would be perfect, and so that he would recommend her for the novitiate.
-- Angela Davis-Gardner, Felice, 2007

Novitiate comes from the Medieval Latin word meaning "novice."

clepe

clepe \kleep\, verb:

to call; name (now chiefly in the past participle as ycleped or yclept).

And, whiles I wrought, my master would leave me, and doff his raiment and don his rags, and other infirmities, and cozen the world, which he did clepe it "plucking of the goose"...
-- Charles Reade, The Cloister and the Hearth, 2003

O, we have been advised that in Egypt lives a rare bird yclept Ibis which walks up to stroke the Crocodile with its feathers so the monster squats paralyzed.
-- Evan S. Connell, Alchymic Journals, 1991

Clepe is derived from the Old English word cleopian which is related to the Middle Low German word kleperen meaning "to rattle." The odd iteration of clepe is its past participle yclept which is its more common variant. The initial y is a vestige from Middle English.

adscititious

adscititious \ad-si-TISH-uhs\, adjective:

added or derived from an external source; additional.

These were significant appendages, to be sure; not altogether adscititious.
-- Ameen Rihani, The Book of Khalid, 2012

His delineations of character and action, if executed with ability, will have a raciness and freshness about them, which will attest their fidelity, the secret charm, which belongs to truth and nature, and with which even the finest genius cannot invest a system, ofadscititious and imaginary manners.
-- Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Clarence, 2011

Adscititious comes from the Latin word adscītus which meant "derived, assumed, foreign."

pol

pol \pol\, noun:

a politician, especially one experienced in making political deals, exchanging political favors, etc.

She said that Sexton, whose grandfather was the city's tax commissioner, ran the school like "the Brooklyn pol he was"…
-- Rachel Aviv, "The Imperial Presidency," The New Yorker, Sept. 9, 2013

That was one of his talents, that he didn't sound like a pol.
-- Jay McInerney, How It Ended, 2009

Pol arose in early 1900s in America as a shortening of politician.

skeigh

skeigh \skeekh\, adverb:

1. proudly.

adjective:
1. (of horses) spirited; inclined to shy.
2. (of women) proud; disdainful.

When thou an' I were young and skeigh, / An' stable-meals at fairs were dreigh...
-- Robert Burns, The Auld Farmer's New-Year Morning Salutation, 1792

My mare is young and very skeigh…
-- Sir Walter Scott, The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 1803

In the 1500s, skeigh originally referred to skittish behavior of horses, and it came from the Old English word scéoh meaning "shy." The sense of "proudly" arose in the 1700s.

vexatious

vexatious \vek-SEY-shuhs\, adjective:

1. causing vexation; troublesome; annoying: a vexatious situation.
2. Law. (of legal actions) instituted without sufficient grounds and serving only to cause annoyance to the defendant.
3. disorderly; confused; troubled.

The courts of law would never be so constantly crowded with petty, vexatious and disgraceful suits, were it not for the herds of pettifogging lawyers that infest them.
-- Washington Irving, A History of New York, 1809

Thus the most vexatious and violent disputes would often arise between the fishermen, were there not some written or unwritten, universal, undisputed law applicable to all cases.
-- Herman Melville, Moby Dick; or, The Whale, 1851

Vexatious entered English from the Latin word vexāre which meant "to shake, jolt, harass, annoy."

counterpoise

counterpoise \KOUN-ter-poiz\, verb:

1. to balance by an opposing weight; counteract by an opposing force.
2. to bring into equilibrium.
3. Archaic. to weigh (one thing) against something else; consider carefully.

noun:
1. a counterbalancing weight.
2. any equal and opposing power or force.
3. the state of being in equilibrium; balance.
4. Radio. a network of wires or other conductors connected to the base of an antenna, used as a substitute for the ground connection.

To be unfortunate in any respect was sufficient, if there was no demerit to counterpoise it, to turn the scale of that good man's pity, and to engage his friendship and his benefaction.
-- Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, 1749

I know what she means all right. But I know something she doesn't know. Money is a good counterpoise to beauty.
-- Walker Percy, The Moviegoer, 1961

Counterpoise is from the Old French word countrepois which meant "to weigh against."

animalcule

animalcule \an-uh-MAL-kyool\, noun:

1. a minute or microscopic animal, nearly or quite invisible to the naked eye, as an infusorian or rotifer.
2. Archaic. a tiny animal, as a mouse or fly.

But man contemplates the universe as an animalcule would an elephant.
-- Edward Buwler-Lytton, Zanoni, 1842

He has absolutely no idea of the prodigious personage that I am, and of the microscopic animalcule that he is in comparison.
-- Marcel Proust, translated by D. J. Enright, In Search of Lost Time, 1989, originally published in 1927

Animalcule comes directly from the Neo-Latin word animalculum meaning "a small animal."

phantasmagoric

phantasmagoric \fan-tax-muh-GAWR-ik, -GOR-\, adjective:

1. having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.
2. having the appearance of an optical illusion, especially one produced by a magic lantern.
3. changing or shifting, as a scene made up of many elements.

The phantasmagoric effect was vastly heightened by the artificial introduction of a strong continual current of wind behind the draperies—giving a hideous and uneasy animation to the whole.
-- Edgar Allan Poe, "Ligeia," 1838

It was like nothing so much as the phantasmagoric play of the northern lights.
-- Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, 1850

Phantasmagoric comes from the Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to shine." It came to English from the Old French in the 1800s

obsequy

obsequy \OB-si-kwee\, noun:

a funeral rite or ceremony.

From this session interdict / Every fowl of tyrant wing, / Save the eagle, feathered king; / Keep the obsequy so strict.
-- William Shakespeare, "The Phoenix and the Turtle," 1601

Sitting there while the Baptist minister did his glib and rapid office, he (Stevens) looked around at the faces, town faces and country faces, the citizens who represented the town because the town should be represented at this obsequy…
-- William Faulkner, The Mansion, 1959

Obsequy comes from the Latin obsequium meaning "compliance, dutiful service." It's been used in English since the late 14th century.

crepuscule

crepuscule \kri-PUHS-kyool, KREP-uh-skyool\, noun:

twilight; dusk.

But when he awoke at length there was a great Phoenix brooding with spread wings above his prostrate form, its white plumage like a ghostly crepuscule and its red eyes glowing close against his own pallid and fervent face.
-- Arthur Edward Waite, The Quest of the Golden Stairs, 1893

For that is Anayat in the crepuscule, purple and mellow, sparkling and warm and effulgent when there is a moon, cool and heady and sensuous when there is no moon.
-- Arturo B. Rotor, "Zita," 1937

Crepuscule entered English around the year 1400 from the Latin meaning "twilight, dusk, darkness."

somnambulism

somnambulism \som-NAM-byuh-liz-uhm, suhm-\, noun:

sleepwalking.

...they shared with him an alert interest in oddities of human behavior, attentive to evidence of madness, delusions, dreams, manias, and somnambulism.
-- Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Huntly; or, Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker, 1799

Yet there must have been some connection between those episodes of somnambulism and the increasingly frequent, everyday cruelties that Malcolm Kennedy was imposing upon me at exactly that same time...
-- John Burnside, The Devil's Footprints, 2007

Somnambulism came to English in the late 1700s from the Latin somnus + ambulare literally meaning "sleep" + "to walk."

phrenology

phrenology \fri-NOL-uh-jee, fre-\, noun:

a psychological theory or analytical method based on the belief that certain mental faculties and character traits are indicated by the configurations of the skull.

According to Moleschott's celebrated dictum — 'Without phosphorus no thought,' and if there be any truth in physiology andphrenology, you women have been stinted by nature in the supply of phosphorus.
-- Augsta Jane Evans, Augusta Jane Evans, 1866

"Why don't you just put a phrenologist on the case and be done with it?" His reference to phrenology was intended to sting, as it was the touchstone for an ongoing disagreement between the two.
-- Rodney Osborne, Straw Men, 2011

The phren- in phrenology comes from the Greek phreno- referring to the diaphragm and the abdomen. This sense was extended in the writings of Homer to refer to the area around the heart as well as the mind.

yoho

yoho \yoh-HOH\, interjection:

1. (used as a call or shout to attract attention, accompany effort, etc.)

verb:
1. to shout "yo-ho!"

Taking down a wheezy and tattered concertina, the greasy cook sang in a raucous tone a ditty he had composed. "Yoho, me hearties, hark t'me, pay 'eed now whilst I sing…"
-- Brian Jacques, The Rogue Crew: A Tale of Redwall, 2011

"Yo ho," said the Egg. "Yo ho," said the Bean. "Yo ho," said Pongo. "You know my uncle, Lord Ickenham, don't you?" "Oh, rather," said the Egg. "Yo ho, Lord Ickenham."
-- P. G. Wodehouse, Cocktail Time, 1958

Yoho entered English in the 1700s as a transcription of the spoken greeting.

bequeath

bequeath \bih-KWEETH\, verb:

1. to dispose of (personal property, especially money) by last will: She bequeathed her half of the company to her niece.
2. to hand down; pass on.
3. Obsolete. to commit; entrust.

No matter that my father's then intention in making this will could only have been to bequeath virtually all that he had to leave to his firstborn son, one Heathcliff Earnshaw, twenty-one years deceased.
-- John Wheatcroft, Catherine, Her Book, 1983

And because he had nothing to bequeath to them that should survive him but his crutches, and his good wishes, therefore thus he said, These crutches I bequeath to my son, that shall tread in my steps, with a hundred warm wishes that he may do better than I have done.
-- John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress, 1678

Bequeath came to English from the Old English cweðan meaning "to say," ultimately finding its root in the Proto-Indo-European term gwet-.

falderal

falderal \FAL-duh-ral\, noun:

1. mere nonsense; foolish talk or ideas.
2. a trifle; gimcrack; gew-gaw.

"All this political falderal is making me crazy, Pete. I hear cuckoo statements being made by cuckoo politicians..."
-- Irwin Wolfe, Goodbye Beaver Lake, 2001

Jimmy Pendleton told himself that it was not true at all; that it was all falderal, what Sadie Dean had said.
-- Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna Grows Up, 1915

The word falderal imitates the sound of nonsense lyrics in songs. It came to English at the turn of the 18th century.