Archive for June, 2006
My favorite new word from recent weeks is "moulage." MW11 has a relatively staid definition: "an impression or cast made for use especially as evidence in a criminal investigation." But...
According to James Clavell's Shogun, "[a] rutter was a small black book [used for ocean navigation] containing the detailed observation of a pilot who had been there before." Such a...
According to Wikipedia, "spaewife [...] is a Scottish term for a fortune-telling woman." It adds: "'Spae' is derived from the Old Norse 'spá,' meaning prophesy." MW3 suggests that synonyms include...
I think after I looked this one up, I remembered having seen it before. But it's a good word, so: an "ogive" is (among other things) a pointed arch. It's...
"Arthrogryposis" is any of several congenital conditions in which one or more joints get stuck in an extended position. Not sure where I came across this; someone's blog, maybe?...
I saw the movie of The Da Vinci Code the other day, which led eventually to my reading the Wikipedia entry on the (fictional, as it turns out) organization known...
I think (judging by the MW11 definition) that "strake" is the generic term for any strip or band of hull planking (or plating) on a boat or ship. Hard to...
"Presbycusis" is the condition of hearing less well as you get older. And yes, the "presby" part is as in "Presbyterian." In Greek, "presbyteros" apparently means (or meant) "priest" or...
According to Wikipedia, an entheogen is "a psychoactive substance [. . .] that occasions enlightening spiritual or mystical experience." Specifically: In a strict sense, only those vision-producing drugs that can be shown...
I always vaguely wondered how "lysergic acid diethylamide" got abbreviated as "LSD." I think I figured (or had been told) that the S came from "lySergic," but that didn't make...