Protagonist

Protagonist Protagonist [pro·tag·o·nist] n. The main figure or one of the most prominent figures in a real situation. The leading character or a major character in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text. “The unnamed protagonist was the hit of the film.”

epitome

epitome

  \ ih-PIT-uh-mee \  , noun;

1.

a person or thing that is typical of or possesses to a high degree the features of a whole class: He isthe epitome of goodness.

2.

a condensed account, especially of a literary work; abstract.

Quotes:

He used to say, the school itself initiated him a greatway (I remember that was his very expression); forgreat schools are little societies, where a boy of anyobservation may see in epitome  what he willafterwards find in the world at large.

-- Henry Fielding, The Adventures of Joseph Andrews, 1742

But far beyond all other creatures of the herd is thegoat, the epitome  of all that in an animal is worthliving for; full of frolic when a baby, and knowingnothing but to jump off small eminences, and to crymamma; conceited and pugnacious in youth; and inmaturity solemn to a degree that is at timesexasperating.

-- Oswald Parry, Six Months in a Syrian Monastery ,1895

Origin:

Epitome  came to English in the 1500s from the Greek meaning "abridgment" or "surface incision."

Amorous

Amorous [am·o·rous] adj. Showing, feeling, or relating to sexual desire. “She did not appreciate his amorous advances.”

lingua franca

lingua franca

  \ LING-gwuh FRANG-kuh \  , noun;

1.

any language that is widely used as a means of communication among speakers of other languages.

2.

(initial capital letter) the Italian-Provençal jargon (with elements of Spanish, French, Greek, Arabic,and Turkish) formerly widely used in eastern Mediterranean ports.

Quotes:

...though Ukrainian may be the official language,Russian is the lingua franca . Crimea may be politicallypart of Ukraine, but it identifies with Russiaemotionally and psychologically.

-- Cathy Newman, "After Ukraine Crisis, Why CrimeaMatters," National Geographic , 2014

As the guys drank up, with only Jason abstaining, theconversation skipped from fishing to lacrosse tofriends in common, the easy lingua franca  of youngmen from the prep-school dominion.

-- Tad Friend, "Thicker Than Water," The New Yorker, 2014

Origin:

This term comes from the Italian literally meaning"Frankish tongue." It's existed in English since the 1600s.

Sartorial

Sartorial

Sartorial [sar·to·ri·al] adj. Of or relating to tailoring, clothes, or style of dress. “Sartorial taste; “Sartorial elegance.”

columbine

columbine \KOL-uhm-bahyn, -bin\, adjective:

1. dovelike; dove-colored.
2. of a dove.

For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent: his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil …
-- Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, 1605

Com forth now with thyne eyen columbyn. / How fairer been thy brestes than is wyn.
-- Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Merchant’s Tale,” The Canterbury Tales, 1387–1400

Columbine is derived from the Latin columba meaning "dove." The columbine flower was so named because of its resemblance to a cluster of doves.

razz

razz \raz\, verb:

1. Slang. to deride; make fun of; tease.

noun:
1. raspberry; any sign or expression of dislike or derision.

They razz each other over every play, throw stuff across the room, and laugh deep belly laughs over cutting remarks.
-- Elsa Kok Colopy, 99 Ways to Fight Worry and Stress, 2009

He wouldn't have razzed just me. He would have razzed my Abstract Expressionist pals, too, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko and Terry Kitchen and so on …
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard: A Novel, 1987

Razz is a shortened variant of raspberry, a colloquialism for a rude sound used to express mockery or contempt. It entered English in the early to mid-1900s.

toothsome

toothsome \TOOTH-suhm\, adjective:

1. pleasing to the taste; palatable: a toothsome dish.
2. pleasing or desirable, as fame or power.
3. voluptuous; sexually alluring: a toothsome blonde.

It was filled with friandises, with luscious and toothsome bits--the finest of fruits, pates, a rare bottle or two, delicious syrups, and bonbons in abundance.
-- Kate Chopin, The Awakening, 1899

Strictly judged, most modern poems are but larger or smaller lumps of sugar, or slices of toothsome sweet cake—even the banqueters dwelling on those glucose flavors as a main part of the dish.
-- Walt Whitman, "An Old Man's Rejoinder," 1890

Toothsome entered English in the 1560, joining the word tooth, denoting "sense, liking," with the adjective-forming suffix –some.

Salchow

Salchow \SAL-kou\, noun:

Ice Skating. a jump in which the skater leaps from the back inside edge of one skate, making one full rotation of the body in the air, and lands on the back outside edge of the other skate.

When she cinches the double salchow, the crowd cheers even louder than before.
-- Carlin Flora, "Call of the Ice," Psychology Today, 2006

Landing a difficult quadruple salchow-triple toe loop combination and attempting two additional quads, Goebel showed enough improved artistry from a year ago to win his first national title.
-- Jere Longman, "Figure Skating: Kwan and Goebel Surmount Stumbles," The New York Times, 2001

Salchow entered English courtesy of Swedish figure skater Ulrich Salchow, who invented the jump and first performed it in 1909.

moiety

moiety \MOI-i-tee\, noun:

1. a half.
2. an indefinite portion, part, or share.
3. Anthropology. one of two units into which a tribe or community is divided on the basis of unilineal descent.

Tom divided the cake and Becky ate with good appetite, while Tom nibbled at his moiety.
-- Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, 1876

Poor Federigo, although his necessity was extreme and his grief great, remembering his former inordinate expenses, a moietywhereof would now have stood him in some stead, yet he had a heart as free and forward as ever, not a jot dejected in his mind, though utterly overthrown by fortune.
-- Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), "The Falcon," Little Masterpieces of Fiction, 1905

Moiety comes from Old French meitiet, from Late Latin medietas, from Latin medius, "middle."

bestiary

bestiary \BES-chee-er-ee, BEES-\, noun:

a collection of moralized fables, especially as written in the Middle Ages, about actual or mythical animals.

It was pieced together into no named pattern native to this country, not star flower or flying bird of churn dasher or poplar leaf, but was some entirely made-up bestiary or zodiac of half-visionary creatures.
-- Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain, 1997

An inexperienced heraldist resembles a medieval traveler who brings back from the East the faunal fantasies influenced by the domestic bestiary he possessed all along rather than by the results of direct zoological exploration.
-- Vladamir Nabokov, Speak, Memory, 1951

Bestiary is from the Latin bestiaries meaning "a fighter against beasts in the public entertainments." It entered English in the 1620s.

august

august \aw-GUHST\, adjective:

1. venerable; eminent: an august personage.
2. inspiring reverence or admiration; of supreme dignity or grandeur; majestic: an august performance of a religious drama.

Lafayette spoke, and bade farewell to Lamarque: it was a touching and august moment,--all heads were uncovered, and all hearts beat.
-- Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (in translation), 1862

Now, deserted by his monarch, far from home, trapped in the Poder Tower laboratory as the chief alchemist involved in the longevity elixir, this august gentleman had to use all his ingenuity and cunning to simply save his own life.
-- Frances Sherwood, The Book of Splendor, 2003

August comes from the Latin augustus meaning "venerable, noble." It entered English in the 1660s.

chirk

chirk \churk\, verb:

1. Informal. to cheer (usually followed by up).
2. to make a shrill, chirping noise.

"Well, I think," said Mis' Jane Moran, "that we've hit on the only way we could have hit on to chirk each other up over a hard time."
-- Zona Gale, "Christmas: A Story", 1912

Ef there's a mortal thing I can do to help ye, or chirk ye up, I want to do it right off.
-- Rose Terry Cooke, Happy Dodd; or, She Hath Done What She Could, 1878

Chirk can be traced to the Old English cearcian meaning "to creak, gnash." It shares this root with chirp, which became the prevailing word for the noise birds make.

ailurophilia

ailurophilia \ahy-loor-uh-FIL-ee-uh, ey-loor-\, noun:

a liking for cats, as by cat fanciers.

During the past half-dozen years, a time when ailurophilia has been rampant in the land, the bookshelves have become crowded with volumes in which cartoonists, painters, writers and poets pay their respects to that most independent, most enigmatic creature,Felis domestica.
-- The New York Times Book Review, 1981

The renowned American poet T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) expressed his form of ailurophilia in the Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.
-- Bruce Fogle, Cats, 2006

Ailurophilia combines the Greek aílouro meaning "cat" with -philia meaning "affection, affinity." In modern usage, -philia is most often used in the formation of compound words that have a general sense "unnatural attraction" or "tendency."

schatzi

schatzi \SHAHT-see\, noun:

Slang. sweetheart, darling.

He and his schatzi returned to Vienna ten days later with the complete wave equations, though the name of his muse is lost in the mists of the mountains.
-- Russell Targ, Do You See What I See?: Memoirs of a Blind Biker, 2008

Oh, Schatzie, I stopped wanting many years ago. Now I just accept.
-- Lawrence Sanders, The Anderson Tapes, 1970

Schatzi is derived from the German word for "treasure," schatz, which entered English as a term of endearment for a woman in the early 1900s.

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pluvial

pluvial \PLOO-vee-uhl\, adjective:

1. of or pertaining to rain; rainy.
2. Geology. occurring through the action of rain.

noun:
1. Geology. a rainy period formerly regarded as coeval with a glacial age, but now recognized as episodic and, in the tropics, as characteristic of interglacial ages.

Swimming in the pluvial waters, or inert and caked over by the torrid mud, he would have discovered what he would certainly have regarded as lowly, specially-modified, and degenerate relations of the active denizens of the ocean—the Dipnoi, or mud-fish.
-- H.G. Wells, “Zoological Retrogression”, 1891

Nothing enters her tomb save a little moisture, pluvial in origin, and, it may be, certain mysterious effluvia of which we do not yet know the nature.
-- Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949), translated by Bernard Miall, The Life of the Ant, 2001

Pluvial is from the Latin pluvia meaning "rain, water." It shares the Proto-Indo-European root pleu meaning "to flow, to swim" with Pluto, the name of God of the underworld in classical mythology.

albumen

albumen \al-BYOO-muhn\, noun:

1. the white of an egg.
2. Botany. the nutritive matter around the embryo in a seed.

Tannic acid hardens albumen into a leathery substance of which the most courageous stomach is rightfully suspicious…
-- Myrtle Reed, The Myrtle Reed Cookbook, 1916

Don't overbeat the eggs, as an overbeaten albumen results in a less-than-perfect texture.
-- Craig Boreth, The Hemingway Cookbook, 1998

Albumen comes from the Latin word for "white," albus. It entered English around 1600.

sooth

sooth \sooth\, noun:

1. truth, reality, or fact.

adjective:
1. true or real.

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.
-- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, 1600

But in the young man's heart there was no answering gladness, though in very sooth she was an exceeding handsome maid.
-- Samuel Rutherford Crockett, The Lilac Sunbonnet: A Love Story, 1895

Sooth derives from the Old English soð meaning "truth, justice; reality." It shares this root with the word soothe, as reflected in soothe's earliest sense, "to verify."

blatherskite

blatherskite \BLATH-er-skahyt\, noun:

1. a person given to voluble, empty talk.
2. nonsense; blather.

It seems to me that no one can contemplate this odd creature, this quaint and curious blatherskite, without admiring McClintock, or, at any rate, loving him and feeling grateful to him …
-- Mark Twain, "A Cure for the Blues," 1893

That bubbling, breezy blatherskite, the boisterous bobolink/ Is such a deep philosopher he's far too wise to think.
-- Sam Walter Foss, "Bobolink Philosophy," Back Country Poems, 1892

Blatherskite was a popular colloquialism in the U.S. in the early 1800s, thanks in part to a Scottish song called "Maggie Lauder," which featured the word (spelled bletherskate) and was popular among soldiers during the American Revolutionary War.