Word of The Day

[Miss Melissa]

I'm starting a new thread....Word of the Day. I subscribe to Word of the day on the net and some of the words are pretty neat, so I shall start:

Word of the Day for Saturday February 12, 2005

nefarious \nuh-FAIR-ee-uhs\, adjective:
Wicked in the extreme; iniquitous.

Despite involvement in protection, narcotics, strong-arm debt collecting, strikebreaking, and blackmail, among other nefarious activities, all of them professed to be a cut above mobsters in other lands.
--Robert Whiting, [1]Tokyo Underworld

[Miss Melissa]

Word of the Day for Monday February 14, 2005

inamorata \in-am-uh-RAH-tuh\, noun:
A woman whom one is in love with; a mistress.

Each of the gubernatorial candidates has been vying to
prove that he is the least likely to take a state plane to
the beach for a date with his inamorata or get involved
with a struggle over how to evict his spouse from the
governor's mansion.
--Gail Collins, "Uncontested Contests," [1]New York Times,
November 2, 1999

There are cynical experts on romanticism who counsel one to
switch from one young inamorata to another in the nick of
time.
--Paul West, [2]Life With Swan

[Pina]

Each year the Washington Post's Style Invitational asks readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing only one letter, and supply a new definition.

Intaxication
Euphoria at getting a tax refund,which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

Reintarnation
Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Foreploy
Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

Giraffiti
Vandalism painted very, very high.

Sarchasm
The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

Inoculatte
To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

Hipatitis
Terminal coolness.

Osteopornosis
A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit).

Karmageddon
It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

Glibido
All talk and no action.

Dopeler Effect
The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

Ignoranus
A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

Bozone
The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down any time soon.

Cashtration
The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

Decafalon
The gruelling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

Caterpallor
The colour you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.

[Miss Melissa]

Good ones Pina!!

[Miss Melissa]

Word of the Day for Tuesday February 15, 2005

diffident \DIF-uh-dunt; -dent\, adjective:
1. Lacking self-confidence; distrustful of one's own powers;
timid; bashful.
2. Characterized by modest reserve; unassertive.

He lived naturally in a condition that many greater poets
never had, or if they had it, were embarrassed or diffident
about it: a total commitment to his own powers of
invention, a complete loss of himself in his materials.
--James Dickey, "The Geek of Poetry," [1]New York Times,
December 23, 1979

This schism is embodied in Clarence's two sons: cheerful,
pushy, book-ignorant Jared, a semicriminal entrepreneur who
has caught "the rhythm of America to come" and for whom
life is explained in brash epigrams from the trenches,
versus slow, diffident Teddy, the town postman,
uncomfortable with given notions of manhood, uncompetitive
("yet this seemed the only way to be an American") and
disturbed that others misstate "the delicate nature of
reality as he needed to grasp it for himself."
--Julian Barnes, "Grand Illusion," [2]New York Times,
January 28, 1996

Minny was too delicate and diffident to ask her cousin
outright to take her to Europe.
--Brooke Allen, "Borrowed Lives," [3]New York Times, May
16, 1999

[Miss Melissa]

Word of the Day for Wednesday February 16, 2005

polymath \POL-ee-math\, noun:
A person of great or varied learning; one acquainted with
various subjects of study.

A century after Aristotle, in 240 B.C., a brilliant
polymath, Eratosthenes, is appointed chief librarian of the
Museum at Alexandria--the most cosmopolitan city and center
of learning in the Mediterranean world.
--Alan Gurney, [1]Below the Convergence

Alan Kay, for instance, one of the wizards of PARC and now
an Apple fellow, is a polymath accomplished in math,
biology, music, developmental psychology, philosophy, and
several other disciplines.
--Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman, [2]Organizing
Genius