Saturday's the day I try to get caught up on the week's worth of emails and other various and sundry tasks I've been shunting down the to-do list, so I've decided to make it my weekly vocabulary forum (JT suggested this back a few months ago for Fridays - I'm taking but modifying her suggestion).
Without further ado, whilst Harry and I work on this month's edition of the Sisters in Crime - Middle Tennessee newsletter, here is this week's offering of words (courtesy of ArcaMax) to add to your verbal treasure trove:
salutary \SAL-yuh-ter-ee\ (adjective) - 1 : Producing or contributing to a beneficial effect; beneficial; advantageous. 2 : Wholesome; healthful; promoting health.
"Though their presence was often exasperating to the enthusiasts, it was salutary, for it was a guarantee against extravagance and against tyranny." -- Olaf Stapledon, 'Last and First Men and Star Maker'.Salutary derives from Latin salutaris, from salus, salut-, "health."
berate \bih-RAYT\ (transitive verb) - To scold severely or angrily.
"To crawl into her bed, hug her pillow, and berate herself for being a stupid fool. Berate herself and rid herself of the remnants of any lingering wisps of her crazy dreams." -- Brenda Joyce, 'The Finer Things'.Berate is from be-, "thoroughly" + rate, "to scold, to chide," from Middle English raten.
limn \LIM\ (transitive verb) - 1 : To depict by drawing or painting. 2 : To portray in words; to describe.
"...Her excellent memory could not limn her lover's features clearly; she had to reread his love letters to be sure that in truth he had existed, that they had loved one another and that the nights in the room of the armoires were not her invention." -- Isabel Allende, 'Daughter of Fortune'.Limn is from Middle English limnen, alteration of luminen, from enluminen, from Medieval French enluminer, from Late Latin illuminare, "to illuminate," ultimately from Latin lumen, "light."
preponderate \prih-PON-duh-rayt\ (intransitive verb) - 1 : To exceed in weight. 2 : To incline or descend, as the scale of a balance; to be weighed down. 3 : To exceed in influence, power, importance, number, amount, etc.
"Amour is the one human activity of any importance in which laughter and pleasure preponderate, if ever so slightly, over misery and pain." -- Aldous Huxley, 'Crome Yellow'.Preponderate comes from the past participle of Latin praeponderare, "to weigh more, to exceed in weight," from prae, "before" + ponderare, "to weigh," from pondus, ponderis, "a weight."
caesura \sih-ZHUR-uh; -ZUR-\ (noun) plural caesuras or caesurae \sih-ZHUR-ee; -ZUR-ee\ - 1 : A break or pause in a line of verse, usually occurring in the middle of a line, and indicated in scanning by a double vertical line; for example, "The proper study || of mankind is man" [Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man]. 2 : Any break, pause, or interruption.
"You have improperly placed the cleft in those loaves; the caesura belongs in the middle, between the hemistichs!" -- Edmond Rostand, 'Cyrano de Bergerac'.Caesura comes from Latin caesura, "a cutting off, a division, a stop," from the past participle of caedere, "to cut."
And here's a bit of vocab trivia for you to enjoy too (also courtesy of ArcaMax - remember, I get 19 ezines a day from these people):
Where did the term 'grease monkey' come from?
The word "grease monkey" comes from the person (usually a young boy) that would crawl up in the rafters to grease all of the pulleys and belts that ran all of the equipment in a blacksmith shop or machine shop.
There, now - did you learn something new today?
I'm off to do ... what I do. Read a book. It's good for you.
=) JB
"I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed."
--Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) American educator
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