obnubilate
Thanks to Naomi B for my favorite word of the week. It means to becloud or obscure something. Example: "It is the pity of the world, Dr. McAdam, to see...
Archive for New-to-me Words
o’clock
I recently encountered the phrase pattern "[activity noun x] o'clock" meaning "it's time to do x": once as "sex o'clock" (link is not work-safe), once as "pray o'clock" (in an...
nibling, niephling, niefling, etc
In honor of my new niephling Avery: A few years back, Arthur E introduced me to the word "niephling," a gender-neutral word for nieces and nephews. Most useful when the...
CXO
The abbreviation "CXO" or "CxO" refers to the set of executives whose titles start with "Chief" and end with "Officer"--CEO, CFO, CIO, etc. For details and a cite, see Word...
23rd hour
I've of course heard of things happening "at the 11th hour"--very late in a process. But apparently things can happen even later than that: Alicia Summers of El Mirage, Arizona[,...
gayelle
Two lesbian friends of mine alerted me tonight to a new word: "gayelle." It's a fascinating attempt to coin a new word. The people over at gayelle.org (a.k.a. sapphicchic.com) are...
leaper, leapling
According to a Detroit Free Press article, "Leap year babies hop through hoops of joy, pain of novelty birthday" (doesn't "Hoops of Joy" sound like it should be part of...
arb
"Arb" is apparently a short form of "arbitrage trader." The Wall Street Journal had a blog entry recently that, a couple paragraphs after referring to arbitrage traders, included the phrase...
dule and teen
Dante Gabriel Rossetti's translation of Villon's "The Ballad of Dead Ladies" (the poem whence comes the phrase "But where are the snows of yesteryear") includes this line: (From Love he...
presidential glass
According to Wikipedia, "presidential glass" is another term for a particular kind of mostly-transparent teleprompter commonly used by US Presidents....