Cuvantul zilei - Word of the day

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 09, 2010 is:

kapellmeister • \kuh-PELL-mye-ster\  • noun
: the director of a choir or orchestra

Example sentence:
From 1717 to 1723, Johann Sebastian Bach served as the Kapellmeister for Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen of the Holy Roman Empire.

Did you know?
As you may have guessed, "Kapellmeister" originated as a German word -- and in fact, even in English it is often (though not always) used for the director of a German choir. "Kapelle" once meant "choir" in German, and "Meister" is the German word for "master." The Latin "magister" is an ancestor of both "Meister" and "master," as well as of our "maestro," meaning "an eminent composer or conductor." "Kapelle" comes from "cappella," the Medieval Latin word for "chapel." As it happens, we also borrowed "Kapelle" into English, first to refer to the choir or orchestra of a royal or papal chapel, and later to describe any orchestra. "Kapellmeister" is used somewhat more frequently than "Kapelle" in current English, though neither word is especially common.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 08, 2010 is:

enthrall • \in-THRAWL\  • verb
1 : to hold in or reduce to slavery *2 : to hold spellbound : charm

Example sentence:
"For 40 years, the Romero Quartet has enthralled audiences with superb classical guitar playing." (David Stabler, The Oregonian [Portland Oregon], January 8, 2010)

Did you know?
In Middle English, "enthrallen" meant "to hold in thrall." "Thrall" then, as now, meant "bondage" or "slavery"; it comes from an Old Norse word, "thraell," which is probably related to an Old High German word for servant. In the 16th century, the first known figurative use of "enthrall" appeared in the following advice, translated from a Latin text by Thomas Newton: "A man should not . . . enthrall his credit and honour to Harlots." But we rarely use even this sense of mental or moral enslavement anymore. Today the word is often used in its participle form, "enthralled," which sometimes means "temporarily spellbound" ("we listened, enthralled, to the old woman's oral history"), but more often suggests a state of being generally captivated, delighted, or taken by some particular thing.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 07, 2010 is:

parsnip • \PAHR-snip\  • noun
: a Eurasian biennial herb (Pastinaca sativa) of the carrot family with large pinnate leaves and yellow flowers that is cultivated for its long tapered edible root which is cooked as a vegetable; also : the root

Example sentence:
"A sweet tender treat awaits my taste buds whenever I prepare parsnips. Parsnips are truly one of my favorite vegetables that I first enjoyed as a young child." (Dianne Lamb, Brattleboro Reformer, April 25, 2009)

Did you know?
The word "parsnip" was borrowed into Middle English in the 14th century as a modification of the Old French word "pasnaie," itself derived from the Latin noun "pastinaca," meaning "parsnip" or "carrot." The scientific name for the parsnip, "Pastinaca sativa," still reflects this history. "Pastinaca," in turn, traces back to "pastinum," a Latin word for a small gardening tool used to make holes in the ground for the insertion of plants, seeds, or bulbs. "Parsnip" may also remind you of the name of another edible root, "turnip," and there's a possible explanation for the resemblance. The Middle English spelling of "parsnip" ("passenep") may have been influenced by "nepe," the old form of "turnip."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 06, 2010 is:

comptroller • \kun-TROH-ler\  • noun
1 : a royal-household official who examines and supervises expenditures 2 : a public official who audits government accounts and sometimes supervises expenditures *3 : the chief accounting officer of a business enterprise or an institution (as a college)

Example sentence:
The comptroller verified and approved the financial information of the grant proposal.

Did you know?
If you think "comptroller" looks like a mistaken spelling of "controller," you're partially right. Today, "comptroller" is an established word that shares one of its meanings (sense 3) with "controller." The term did originate as a misspelling, however. Around the 15th century, Middle English speakers altered the spelling of "conterroller" (meaning "controller," from the Middle French "contrerolleur") under the influence of the Middle French word "compte" ("account"). The resulting word, "comptroller," has attracted criticism over the years. Grammarian Henry Fowler condemned "comptroller" as "not merely archaic, but erroneous" in 1920, and a lexicographical column from 1931 agreed that "comptroller" is "erroneous and should not be accepted as correct." Nevertheless, such modern institutions as colleges and governments continue to have comptrollers. "Comptrollership" occasionally turns up as well.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 05, 2010 is:

alow • \uh-LOH\  • adverb
: below

Example sentence:
"Then, with all her sails, light and heavy, and studding sails on each side, alow and aloft, she is the most glorious moving object in the world." (Noel Perrin, The New York Times, May 30, 1982)

Did you know?
In nautical use, "alow" means "in or to a lower part of the vessel," indicating the deck or the area of the rigging closest to the deck, or below-deck as opposed to above-deck. The opposite of "alow" in this sense is "aloft," used to indicate a higher part of the vessel. Yet, while we are still likely to encounter "aloft," in both nautical and non-nautical use, "alow" has become something of a rarity. When encountered, it is usually found in the combination "alow and aloft." This phrase literally refers to the upper and lower parts of a ship or its rigging, but it can also be used to mean "completely" or "throughout" -- similar to the more familiar "high and low."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 04, 2010 is:

vulnerary • \VUL-nuh-rair-ee\  • adjective
: used for or useful in healing wounds

Example sentence:
Aloe vera is a vulnerary plant whose extract is widely used to soothe and heal burns.

Did you know?
In Latin, "vulnus" means "wound." You might think, then, that the English adjective "vulnerary" would mean "wounding" or "causing a wound" -- and, indeed, "vulnerary" has been used that way, along with two obsolete adjectives, "vulnerative" and "vulnific." But for the lasting and current use of "vulnerary," we took our cue from the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder. In his Natural History, he used the Latin adjective "vulnerarius" to describe a plaster, or dressing, for healing wounds. And that's fine -- the suffix "-ary" merely indicates that there is a connection, which, in this case, is to wounds. (As you may have already suspected, "vulnerable" is related; it comes from the Latin verb "vulnerare," which means "to wound.")

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 03, 2010 is:

elicit • \ih-LISS-it\  • verb
1 : to draw forth or bring out (something latent or potential) *2 : to call forth or draw out (as information or a response)

Example sentence:
The announcement of the total amount of money that the charity walk raised for the children’s hospital elicited many cheers from the crowd.

Did you know?
"Elicit" derives from the past participle of the Latin verb "elicere," formed by combining the prefix "e-" with the verb "lacere," meaning "to entice by charm or attraction." It is not related to its near-homophone, the adjective "illicit" -- that word, meaning "unlawful," traces back to another Latin verb, "licēre," meaning "to be permitted." Nor is "elicit" related to the verb "solicit," even though it sounds like it should be. "Solicit" derives from Latin "sollicitare" ("to disturb"), formed by combining the adjective "sollus," meaning "whole," with the past participle of the verb "ciēre," meaning "to move."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 02, 2010 is:

evanescent • \ev-uh-NESS-unt\  • adjective
: tending to vanish like vapor

Example sentence:
"Dance is the most evanescent of the arts, evaporating into memory the instant it's completed." (Jordan Levin, The Miami Herald, November 13, 2008)

Did you know?
The fragile, airy quality of things evanescent reflects the etymology of the word "evanescent" itself. It derives from a form of the Latin verb "evanescere," which means "to evaporate" or "to vanish." Given the similarity in spelling between the two words, you might expect "evaporate" to come from the same Latin root, but it actually grew out of another steamy Latin root, "evaporare."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 01, 2010 is:

raj • \RAHJ\  • noun
*1 : rule; especially often capitalized : the former British rule of the Indian subcontinent 2 : the period of British rule in India

Example sentence:
In 1930, Mahatma Gandhi launched a spectacular and highly successful campaign against the Raj, but despite all such efforts, India did not gain independence from British rule until 1947.

Did you know?
When British trading posts were established in the Indian subcontinent in the 17th century, English speakers were immersed in the rich languages of the region, and Europeans quickly began adopting local words into their own vocabularies. By the end of the 1700s, Hindi contributions to our language ran from "ayah" (a term for a nurse or maid) to "zamindar" (a collector of land taxes or revenues). When English speakers borrowed "raj" around 1800, they used exactly the same spelling and meaning as its Hindi parent (the Hindi word in turn traces to an older term that is related to the Sanskrit word for "king"). Other words of Hindi descent that are now common in English include "chintz," "pundit," "bungalow," "veranda," "seersucker," and "bandanna."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 31, 2010 is:

coeval • \koh-EE-vul\  • adjective
: of the same or equal age, antiquity, or duration

Example sentence:
"How old is this ancient town? One guess: It dates to 2600-2500 B.C. -- more or less coeval with nearby Stonehenge … which may date to 3100 B.C." (The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 12, 2007)

Did you know?
"Coeval" comes to English from the Latin word "coaevus," meaning "of the same age." "Coaevus" was formed by combining the "co-" prefix ("in or to the same degree") with Latin "aevum" ("age" or "lifetime"). The root "ev" comes from "aevum," making words such as "longevity," "medieval," and "primeval" all near relations to "coeval." Although "coeval" can technically describe any two or more entities that coexist, it is most typically used to refer to things that have existed together for a very long time (such as galaxies) or that were concurrent with each other in the distant past (parallel historical periods of ancient civilizations, for example).

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 30, 2010 is:

collude • \kuh-LOOD\  • verb
: conspire, plot

Example sentence:
The U.S. District Court has granted class-action status to a complaint that the retailer and manufacturer colluded to keep prices high.

Did you know?
Our English "lude" words ("allude," "collude," "delude," "elude," and "prelude") are based on the Latin verb "ludere," meaning "to play." "Collude" dates back to 1525 and combines "ludere" and the prefix "col-," meaning "with" or "together." "Collude" is younger than the related noun "collusion," which appeared sometime in the 14th century with the specific meaning "secret agreement or cooperation." Despite their playful history, "collude" and "collusion" have always suggested deceit or trickery rather than good-natured fun.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 29, 2010 is:

yellow-dog • \yel-oh-DAWG\  • adjective
1 : mean, contemptible *2 : of or relating to opposition to trade unionism or a labor union

Example sentence:
The workers were all bound under yellow-dog agreements, so they weren't able to appeal to any union forces to help renegotiate their contract.

Did you know?
In the 19th century, the noun "yellow dog" developed a derogatory sense, meaning a low, despicable person. This usage probably came about from the traditional association of the color yellow with cowardice. Just before the turn of the century, "yellow-dog" started to be used by writers who were derogatorily describing organizations that expressed opposition to trade unions. The popularized term "yellow-dog contract" referred to an agreement made by an employer and employee in which the employee agrees not to join a labor union during the time he or she is employed. While such contracts proliferated in the 1920s, they were later made unenforceable in U.S. federal courts under the Norris-LaGuardia Act (1932).

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 28, 2010 is:

maxixe • \muh-SHEESH\  • noun
: a ballroom dance of Brazilian origin that resembles the two-step

Example sentence:
"In the 1920s, the maxixe took over the ballrooms of Rio de Janeiro." (The Toronto Star, September 20, 1998)

Did you know?
The maxixe was in vogue for only a few decades in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but its influence has lived on in the still-popular samba. Born out of the marriage of Afro-Brazilian and European dance, maxixe is sometimes described as Africanized polka. Both Brazilian music and the tunes of Tin Pan Alley accompanied the dancers of the maxixe, which was brighter and snappier than the also then-popular Argentine tango. The maxixe in some ways put Brazil on the dancing map. As Sanjoy Roy put it in a July 7, 2006 article in The Guardian, "The maxixe was one of Brazil's first musical exports, spawning brief crazes in Paris in 1914, and London in 1922."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 27, 2010 is:

martinet • \mar-tuh-NET\  • noun
1 : a strict disciplinarian *2 : a person who stresses a rigid adherence to the details of forms and methods

Example sentence:
Spencer complained that his office manager was a power-hungry martinet who compelled him to follow ridiculous rules.

Did you know?
When France's King Louis XIV appointed Lieutenant Colonel Jean Martinet to be inspector general of the infantry in the late 17th century, he made a wise choice. As a drillmaster, Martinet trained his troops to advance into battle in precise linear formations and to fire in volleys only upon command, thus making the most effective use of inaccurate muskets -- and making the French army one of the best on the continent. He also gave English a new word. "Martinet" has been used synonymously with "strict disciplinarian" since the 1730s.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 26, 2010 is:

bolide • \BOH-lyde\  • noun
: a large meteor : fireball; especially : one that explodes

Example sentence:
Though probably no more than a foot in diameter, the bolide offered a brief and spectacular light show as it streaked across the sky.

Did you know?
"Bolide," like "fireball," is a name applied to very bright meteors that often trail sparks. A clue to the origins of "bolide" can be found in the missile-like appearance of these meteors. The Greek "bolis," which comes from "bolē" ("throw" or "stroke"), literally means "missile" or "javelin." "Bolis" is the source of the Latin name given to these spectacular meteors, which is also "bolis." The word became "bolide" in French, from which it was borrowed by the English language in the mid-19th century.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 25, 2010 is:

Valhalla • \val-HAL-uh\  • noun
1 : the great hall in Norse mythology where the souls of heroes slain in battle are received *2 : a place of honor, glory, or happiness : heaven

Example sentence:
"When the time comes, a lot of folks who vote people into baseball's Valhalla will make character a major qualification." (Sid Dorfman, The Star-Ledger [Newark, New Jersey], September 9, 2009)

Did you know?
In Norse mythology, the souls of warriors who died nobly in battle were brought to a magnificent palace, where they spent their days fighting for diversion, immune from lasting injury, and their evenings lustily feasting on freshly killed boar and quaffing the free-flowing mead. In Old Norse, the word for this warrior heaven is "Valhǫll" (literally, "hall of the slain"); in German, it is "Walhalla." English speakers picked up the name as "Valhalla" in the 18th century. Nowadays, we can use the word figuratively, and induction or admission into a modern-day Valhalla doesn't require passing from this life. It can be a place of honor (a hall of fame, for example) or a place of bliss (as in "an ice cream lover's Valhalla").

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 24, 2010 is:

refurbish • \rih-FER-bish\  • verb
: to brighten or freshen up : renovate

Example sentence:
Bill and Marie bought the historic house with the intent of refurbishing it.

Did you know?
If you're wondering if "refurbish" implies the existence of an earlier "furbish," you are on the right track. "Furbish" was borrowed into English in the 14th century from Anglo-French "furbiss-," a distant relative of an Old High German word meaning "to polish." In its earliest uses "furbish" also meant "to polish," but it developed an extended sense of "renovate" shortly before English speakers created "refurbish" with the same meaning in the 17th century. These days "refurbish" is the more common of the two words, although "furbish" does continue to be used.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 23, 2010 is:

funicular • \fyoo-NIK-yuh-ler\  • noun
: a cable railway ascending a mountain; especially : one in which an ascending car counterbalances a descending car

Example sentence:
"Situated in a gated community reachable by funicular, the resort's 181 guest rooms come with flat-screen TVs, nightly turndown service and, in suites, even a butler." (The New York Times, December 13, 2009)

Did you know?
You may have fun on a funicular, but the word is not related to "fun" (which comes to us from an English dialect verb meaning "to hoax"). The noun "funicular" descends from an earlier adjective "funicular," meaning "relating to a cord under tension." It was also influenced by "funiculaire," a French word used for a type of railway that is dependent upon cables (or on "cords under tension"). Ultimately, these terms trace back to the Latin noun "funiculus," meaning "small rope." "Funicular" first appeared in print as an adjective in English in 1664; the noun has been with us since the early 20th century.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 22, 2010 is:

Mrs. Grundy • \MISS-uz-GRUN-dee\  • noun
: one marked by prudish conventionality in personal conduct

Example sentence:
After a barrage of complaints from Mrs. Grundys, the Web site's managers decided to remove the "objectionable" photos.

Did you know?
"What would Mrs. Grundy say?" Dame Ashfield, a character in Thomas Morton's 1798 play Speed the Plough, was continually asking that question and worrying about invoking the sneering condemnation of her prudish neighbor, Mrs. Grundy. Although Mrs. Grundy never actually appeared on stage during the play, her critical attitude exerted a significant influence on the actions of other characters, and ultimately on the English language. By 1813, English speakers had adopted her name as a byword for anyone with extremely rigid standards of propriety that he or she applied in judging the actions of others.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 21, 2010 is:

colubrine • \KAHL-yuh-bryne\  • adjective
*1 : of, relating to, or resembling a snake 2 : of or relating to a large cosmopolitan family (Colubridae) of chiefly nonvenomous snakes

Example sentence:
"By the time the music starts throbbing at 9, there will undoubtedly be a colubrine line slithering down Mass. Ave." (Christopher Muther, The Boston Globe, March 2002)

Did you know?
"Colubrine" may be less common than other animal words, such as "canine," "feline," and "bovine," but it has been around for a good long while. Ultimately derived from the Latin "colubra" ("snake"), it slithered into the English language in the 16th century. ("Cobra," by the way, comes from the same Latin word, but entered English through Portuguese.) Some other words for "snakelike" are "serpentine" (a more common alternative) and "ophidian" (from the Greek word for snake: "ophis").

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 20, 2010 is:

Augean stable • \aw-JEE-un-STAY-bul\  • noun
: a condition or place marked by great accumulation of filth or corruption

Example sentence:
The presidency of Ulysses S. Grant was marred by his refusal to clean out the Augean stables of his own administration.

Did you know?
"Augean stable" most often appears in the phrase "clean the Augean stable," which usually means "clear away corruption" or "perform a large and unpleasant task that has long called for attention." Augeas, the mythical king of Elis, kept great stables that held 3,000 oxen and had not been cleaned for thirty years -- until Hercules was assigned the job. Hercules accomplished this task by causing two rivers to run through the stables. The word "Augean" is sometimes used by itself, too -- it has come to mean "extremely difficult and usually distasteful." We can refer to "Augean tasks," "Augean labor," or even "Augean clutter."

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 19, 2010 is:

conquian • \KONK-ee-un\  • adjective
: a card game for two played with 40 cards from which all games of rummy developed

Example sentence:
The two friends whiled away the long summer days with endless games of conquian.

Did you know?
Conquian is a very old card game, played more frequently in the past than now. Based on the "draw and discard" principle that forms the basis for all modern games of rummy, it's played with 40 cards of a 52-card deck. (The most common variations involve the removal of either all face cards, or the tens, nines, and eights.) The goal of the game is to form three or four of a kind, or sequences. "Conquian" comes to us from Mexican Spanish, but the word is ultimately derived from the Spanish "¿con quién?" meaning "with whom?"

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 17, 2010 is:

Danelaw • \DAYN-law\  • noun
1 : the law in force in the part of England held by the Danes before the Norman Conquest *2 : the part of England under the Danelaw

Example sentence:
In the 11th and 12th centuries, the Danelaw between the Rivers Tees and Thames was governed much differently than areas to the south and west.

Did you know?
When the Vikings invaded the east coast of England in the late 800s, their conquests reached as far as the southern kingdom of Wessex, where they were halted by the army of Alfred the Great. The invaders, many of whom were Danish, retreated back north and east to the lands they had conquered, and settled there. This region -- stretching from Essex, just above London, through East Anglia and the eastern Midlands, all the way up to Northumbria -- was distinguished from the surrounding territory by its unique legal practices, which, because they were decidedly Danish in influence, made up what Old English folks down south called the "Dena lagu" or, in today's English, the "Danes' law." Historians later applied the term "Danelaw" not only to the legal system of the region but to that geographical area itself.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 18, 2010 is:

noetic • \noh-ET-ik\  • adjective
: of, relating to, or based on the intellect

Example sentence:
Among the events sponsored by the neighborhood bar were monthly quiz nights, which Jeanne enjoyed attending because they satisfied her thirst for noetic stimulation.

Did you know?
"Noetic" derives from the Greek adjective "noētikos," meaning "intellectual," from the verb "noein" ("to think") and ultimately from the noun "nous," meaning "mind." ("Nous" also gave English the word "paranoia" by joining with a prefix meaning "faulty" or "abnormal.") "Noetic" is related to "noesis," a rare noun that turns up in the field of philosophy and refers to the action of perceiving or thinking. The most notable use of "noetic" might be in the name of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, a research organization based in California that is devoted to studies of consciousness and the mind.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 16, 2010 is:

interdigitate • \in-ter-DIJ-uh-tayt\  • verb
: to become interlocked like the fingers of folded hands

Example sentence:
"The edges [of bridge expansion joints] often are shaped like combs, the teeth of one interdigitating with teeth of the other." (The Washington Post, January 14, 1998)

Did you know?
It probably won’t surprise you to learn that "interdigitate" comes from the prefix "inter-," as in "interlock," and the Latin word "digitus," meaning "finger." "Digitus" also gave us "digit," which is used in English today to refer to (among other things) the finger or toe of any animal. "Interdigitate" usually suggests an interlocking of things with fingerlike projections, such as muscle fibers or the teeth of an old-fashioned bear trap. The word can also be used figuratively to imply a smooth interweaving of disparate things, such as the blending of two cultures within a shared region.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 15, 2010 is:

incoherent • \in-koh-HEER-unt\  • adjective
1 a : lacking coherence: as b : lacking cohesion : loose* c : lacking orderly continuity, arrangement, or relevance : inconsistent d : lacking normal clarity or intelligibility in speech or thought

Example sentence:
I found myself unable to follow the movie’s rambling and incoherent plot.

Did you know?
Something that is coherent holds or sticks together firmly, with resistance to separation (that is, it coheres). “Coherent,” ultimately from the Latin “co-” (“together”) and “haerēre” (“to stick or cling”), entered English in the 16th century and almost from the beginning was used both of physical things (“coherent stone”) and of things which hold together in a much less palpable way (“coherent thoughts”). Its antonym, “incoherent,” entered the language about three-quarters of a century later. Like “coherent,” “incoherent” can be applied to both the tangible and the intangible. But, whether we are speaking of sand or logic, all things incoherent have one thing in common: they do not hold together, literally or figuratively, in a unified or intelligible whole.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 14, 2010 is:

doldrums • \DOHL-drumz\  • noun
*1 : a spell of listlessness or despondency 2 often capitalized : a part of the ocean near the equator abounding in calms, squalls, and light shifting winds 3 : a state or period of inactivity, stagnation, or slump

Example sentence:
"A vacation on a tropical island could be just the thing you need to fight against the winter doldrums," said Christine as she handed me the resort's brochure.

Did you know?
Everyone gets the doldrums -- a feeling of low spirits and lack of energy -- every once in a while. The doldrums experienced by sailors, however, are usually of a different variety. In the mid-19th century, the word once reserved for a feeling of despondency came to be applied to certain tropical regions of the ocean marked by the absence of strong winds. Sailing vessels, reliant on wind propulsion, struggled to make headway in these regions, leading to long, arduous journeys. The exact etymology of "doldrums" is not certain, though it is believed to be related to the Old English "dol," meaning "foolish" -- a history it shares with our adjective "dull."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 13, 2010 is:

triskaidekaphobia • \triss-kye-dek-uh-FOH-bee-uh\  • noun
: fear of the number 13

Example sentence:
"Billy Hart suffers absolutely no triskaidekaphobia. The Salem Avalanche infielder has worn No. 13 for six years…." (Katrina Waugh, The Roanoke Times [Virginia], July 14, 2007)

Did you know?
It's impossible to say just how or when the number thirteen got its bad reputation. There are a number of theories, of course. Some say it comes from the Last Supper because Jesus was betrayed afterwards by one among the thirteen present. Others trace the source of the superstition back to ancient Hindu beliefs or Norse mythology. But if written references are any indication, the phenomenon isn't all that old (at least, not among English speakers). Known mention of fear of thirteen in print dates back only to the late 1800s. By circa 1911, however, it was prevalent enough to merit a name, which was formed by attaching the Greek word for "thirteen" -- "treiskaideka" (dropping that first "e") -- to "phobia" ("fear of").

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 12, 2010 is:

suborn • \suh-BORN\  • verb
*1 : to induce secretly to do an unlawful thing 2 : to induce to commit perjury; also : to obtain (perjured testimony) from a witness

Example sentence:
"In the first place, a jury could not easily be suborned by any one." (Theodore Dreiser, The Financier)

Did you know?
The Latin word that gave us "suborn" in the early part of the 16th century is "subornare," which translates literally as "to secretly furnish or equip." The "sub-" that brings the "secretly" meaning to "subornare" more commonly means "under" or "below," but it has its stealthy denotation in the etymologies of several other English words, including "surreptitious" (from "sub-" and "rapere," meaning "to seize") and the verb "suspect" (from "sub-" or "sus-" and "specere," meaning "to look at"). The "ornare" of "subornare" is also at work in the words "ornate," "adorn," and "ornament."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 11, 2010 is:

pied-à-terre • \pee-ay-duh-TAIR\  • noun
: a temporary or second lodging

Example sentence:
The couple owns a home in San Francisco and a pied-à-terre in Greenwich Village.

Did you know?
In French, "mettre pied à terre" means "to dismount." In the cavalry, dismounting at the end of the day meant occupying whatever temporary quarters were available. French speakers began using "pied-à-terre" (literally, "foot to the ground") for a temporary lodging of any sort back in the 1700s. English speakers adopted the term in the early 1800s, using it, as the French did, for a home away from home. Depending on who you are, a pied-à-terre can be anything from a sprawling villa in Naples to a one-room cabin on the Snake River, but nowadays it most frequently refers to an apartment maintained in the city.