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原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 30, 2019 is: buttress • \BUTT-russ\  • noun 1 architecture : a projecting structure of masonry or wood for supporting or giving stability to a wall or building 2 : something that resembles a buttress: such as a : a projecting part of a mountain or hill b biology : a horny protuberance on a horse’s hoof at the heel c botany : the broadened base of a tree trunk or a thickened vertical part of it 3 : something that supports or strengthens Examples: “The root system of one of the cedars has been hollowed out into a den, in which Neasloss finds black bear hair. One of the tree’s buttresses has been chopped long ago by what he recognizes was a nephrite ax, the green jade axes that the coastal people used until 1846, when they adopted steel axes.” — Alex Shoumatoff, Smithsonian , September 2015 “The modifications to Isabella [Dam] include raising the profile of the main and auxiliary dams 16 feet, adding...

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原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 29, 2019 is: Elysian • \ih-LIZH-un\  • adjective 1 : of or relating to Elysium 2 : blissful , delightful Examples: “On such a balmy summer day, on this Elysian isle, anything seemed possible.” — Dorothy West, The Wedding , 1995 “No matter what one’s childhood is, a seeming Elysian remembrance or a parental vendetta, the understanding of the afflatus of a poet lies elsewhere.” — Edward Dahlberg, “Hart Crane” (1966), reprinted in The Company They Kept (2006) Did you know? In classical mythology, Elysium, also known as the Elysian Fields , was the paradise reserved for the heroes immortalized by the gods. Ancient Greek poets imagined it as the abode of the blessed after death, but in English the concept has more often been applied figuratively. In his history play Henry V , William Shakespeare used the place-name as a word for a peaceful state of sleep enjoyed by a mere mortal, and 18th-century English lexicog...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 28, 2019 is: hegemony • \hih-JEM-uh-nee\  • noun 1 : preponderant influence or authority over others : domination 2 : the social, cultural, ideological, or economic influence exerted by a dominant group Examples: “According to Chinese analysts’ telling of World War II, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and the invasion of China proper in 1937 were part of the U.S. strategy to pit the two Asian nations against each other in an endless war that would prevent either from rising to threaten American hegemony in the western Pacific.” — Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon , 2015 “The sweeping restrictions come as New York and other cities fundamentally rethink the role of cars in the face of unrelenting traffic that is choking their streets, poisoning the environment and crippling public transit systems by trapping buses and light rail systems in gridlock. It is becoming a moment of reckoning—and, ...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 27, 2019 is: cleave • \KLEEV\  • verb 1 : to divide (something) by or as if by a cutting blow : split 2 : to separate (something) into distinct parts and especially into groups having divergent views 3 : to subject to chemical cleavage 4 : to split especially along the grain 5 : to penetrate or pass through something by or as if by cutting Examples: “The surface you’re cutting against will have a greater impact on your knife’s edge than the food you’re chopping up, assuming you aren’t regularly cleaving through massive bones.” — Paul Stephen, The San Antonio Express News , 10 July 2019 “Of course, single-item restaurants are nothing new…. But they don’t usually serve something so divisive as polenta . You see, the slow-cooked dish of maize  cleaves  opinion like a Justin Bieber concert. You either love it or loathe it—and ever has it been so.” — Samuel Muston, The Independent (London), 30 Jan. 2...

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原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 26, 2019 is: frowsy • \FROW-zee\  • adjective 1 : musty , stale 2 : having a slovenly or uncared-for appearance Examples: The lamp, discovered in a frowsy Midwestern antique store, turned out to be quite valuable. “On good days, I could also manage super boring reality TV shows, like ‘Escape to the Country,’ in which retired British couples go on slow searches for frowsy new homes in sleepy towns, and nobody gets excited about anything.” — Yvonne Abraham, The Boston Globe , 24 Nov. 2018 Did you know? The exact origins of frowsy are perhaps lost in an old, frowsy book somewhere, but some etymologists have speculated that frowsy (also spelled frowzy ) shares a common ancestor with the younger, chiefly British, word frowsty , a synonym of frowsy in both its senses. That ancestor could be the Old French word frouste , meaning “ruinous” or “decayed,” or the now-obsolete English word frough or frow , meaning “b...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 25, 2019 is: lèse-majesté • \layz-MAJ-uh-stee\  • noun 1 a : a crime (such as treason ) committed against a sovereign power b : an offense violating the dignity of a ruler as the representative of a sovereign power 2 : a detraction from or affront to dignity or importance Examples: “David’s grandfather, President Eisenhower , had left David all his clothes in his will, and David felt obliged to wear them…. Naturally, it would be something along the lines of lèse-majesté for him to remove the presidential jacket and vest and sit in his shirtsleeves, so he gamely continued to sweat in the sweltering heat, out of respect for Ike.” — Michael Korda, Another Life , 2000 “Thai law makes it illegal to defame, insult or threaten ‘the King, the Queen, the Heir-apparent or the Regent.’ … Though other countries still have similar laws—both Spain and the Netherlands have lèse-majesté laws on the books—Thailand’s enf...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 24, 2019 is: axiomatic • \ak-see-uh-MAT-ik\  • adjective 1 : taken for granted : self-evident 2 : based on or involving an axiom or system of axioms Examples: “It’s axiomatic that intellectuals like to deal with ideas. Ideas are to the intellectual what paint is to the painter and stone is to the mason.” — Jonah Goldberg, The Baltimore Sun , 10 June 2019 “Value of life? How could I answer the question on the spur of the moment? The sacredness of life I had accepted as axiomatic . That it was intrinsically valuable was a truism I had never questioned.” — Jack London, The Sea-Wolf , 1904 Did you know? An axiom is a principle widely accepted on the basis of its intrinsic merit, or one regarded as self-evidently true. A statement that is axiomatic, therefore, is one against which few people would argue. Axiomatic entered English from Middle Greek axiōmatikos , and axiom derived, via Latin, from Greek axiōma ...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 23, 2019 is: suffuse • \suh-FYOOZ\  • verb : to spread over or through in the manner of fluid or light : flush , fill Examples: “Also beguiling … are such installation works as ‘Spatial Environment in Red Light’…. It’s a walk-through enclosure containing six parallel corridors and suffused  with a neon redness that, having saturated your optic nerves, turns the world green when you exit.” — Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker , 4 Feb. 2019 “The dessert I still dream about from the summer of 2018 is … a creamy, multi-textured bonbon suffused … with the flavor of black licorice from Denmark. — Jeff Gordinier, Esquire , 28 Nov. 2018 Did you know? The Latin word suffendere , ancestor to suffuse by way of Latin suffūsus , has various meanings that shed light on our modern word, among them “to pour on or in (as an addition)” and “to fill with a liquid, color, or light that wells up from below.” Suffundere is...

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原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 22, 2019 is: detritus • \dih-TRYE-tus\  • noun 1 geology : loose material (such as rock fragments or organic particles) that results directly from disintegration 2 a : a product of disintegration, destruction, or wearing away : debris b : miscellaneous remnants : odds and ends Examples: “Much to our shock, when my roommates and I opened the cabinets above and underneath our sink, we stood witness to an unbelievable mess. All of the detritus left as a result of the incomplete, shoddy work of ‘renovating’ the apartment appeared to have just been shoved behind the doors. Bags of random trash, dust bunnies, and paper towels filled the space.” — Daniel Varghese, GQ.com , 6 Aug. 2019 “As telescopes grow more advanced, astronomers have become more adept at finding not just white dwarf systems, but also the detritus that sometimes surrounds them. Often these objects–which might be planets, asteroids, comets, or ...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 21, 2019 is: redoubtable • \rih-DOUT-uh-bul\  • adjective 1 : causing fear or alarm : formidable 2 : illustrious , eminent ; broadly : worthy of respect Examples: The theater has hired a redoubtable director to direct its upcoming production. “There, amid the planers and sawdust, 46 craftsmen create custom-built pieces for private clients and for such redoubtable  institutions as 10 Downing Street , Westminster Abbey, and even Hogwarts.” — Mark Rozzo, Vanity Fair , May 2019 Did you know? The word redoubtable is worthy of respect itself, if only for its longevity. It has been used in English for things that cause fear, dread, and apprehension since at least the 15th century and comes to us through Middle English from the Anglo-French verb reduter , meaning “to dread.” That word comes ultimately from Latin dubitare , “to be in doubt” (by way of Anglo-French duter , douter , meaning “to doubt,” also the s...

原文链接 IFTTT ：你发了几篇啊 嗯，WordPress.com发来了通知说1000篇了。 然后就这样吧。 最近在中文Minecraft Wiki所以应该会在用户页上更新很多信息。 Lake桑 2019.9.21

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 20, 2019 is: misprision • \mis-PRIZH-un\  • noun 1 a : neglect or wrong performance of official duty b : concealment of treason or felony by one who is not a participant in the treason or felony c : seditious conduct against the government or the courts 2 : misunderstanding , misinterpretation Examples: The article asserts that the health guru’s recommendations are based on a misprision of what it means to be healthy. “The charge, misprision of a felony, is one prosecutors often deploy against defendants who have agreed to help the government make its case.” — Grace Toohey, The Advocate (Baton Rouge, Louisiana), 8 Mar. 2019 Did you know? All but one of the following words traces back to Latin prehendere , meaning “to seize.” Which word doesn’t belong? apprehend – comprehend – misprision – misprize – prison – surprise It’s easy to see the prehendere connection in apprehend and comprehend , whereas yo...

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原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 19, 2019 is: issuable • \ISH-oo-uh-bul\  • adjective 1 : open to contest, debate, or litigation 2 : authorized for issue 3 : possible as a result or consequence Examples: “The common shares issuable upon exercise of the options are subject to a four-month hold period from the original date of grant.” — Yahoo! Finance , 25 July 2019 “Questions calling for inadmissible proof which is damaging and prejudicial should be objected to on any and every possible ground. Even if an attorney appears to be making an excessive number of objections, this is preferable to admitting without contest  issuable evidence devastating in its effect.” — Mason Ladd, Case and Comment , Vol. 44, No. 6, 1922 Did you know? Although issuable now tends to appear in financial contexts (such as in reference to shares that are eligible to be issued, or made available, according to a company’s articles of incorporation ), it was orig...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 18, 2019 is: bivouac • \BIV-uh-wak\  • verb 1 : to make a usually temporary encampment under little or no shelter : camp 2 : to take shelter often temporarily 3 : to provide temporary quarters for Examples: The search party bivouacked under a nearby ledge until the storm passed. “Isakson said Native American artifacts were found on the site, along with plenty of evidence to suggest Union soldiers had bivouacked there after the Civil War.” — Lawrence Specker, The Huntsville (Alabama) Times , 17 Mar. 2019 Did you know? In the 1841 edition of An American Dictionary of the English Language , Noah Webster observed bivouac to be a French borrowing having military origins. He defined the noun bivouac as “the guard or watch of a whole army, as in cases of great danger of surprise or attack” and the verb as “to watch or be on guard, as a whole army.” The French word is derived from the Low German word biwacht , a...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 17, 2019 is: labile • \LAY-byle\  • adjective 1 : readily or continually undergoing chemical, physical, or biological change or breakdown : unstable 2 : readily open to change Examples: “From the outset, we see Queen Anne—portrayed brilliantly by Olivia Colman—as frail, obese and emotionally- labile . One minute, she’s calmly speaking to her confidante…. The next, she’s accosting a boy servant in a hysterically bizarre scene…. — Lipi Roy, Forbes.com , 24 Feb. 2019 “‘A desirable long-term outcome would be to create [contact] lenses from polymers that are fine-tuned to be inert during use but labile and degradable when escaping into the environment.’ As for members of the public concerned they are polluting the environment, [Dr. Rolf] Halden said: ‘Used plastic lenses ideally should be returned to the manufacturer for recycling….'” — Kashmira Gander, Newsweek , 20 Aug. 2018 Did you know? We are confident that ...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 16, 2019 is: Yooper • \YOO-per\  • noun : a native or resident of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan — used as a nickname Examples: “The district has always elected Yoopers to represent them in Congress, rather than someone from the lower peninsula like Morgan.” — Melissa Nann Burke, The Detroit News , 6 Nov. 2018 “Mezydlo and Turnquist live in the Upper Peninsula community of Mohawk, which is about 25 miles south of Copper Harbor, the northernmost tip of the U.P.’s remote Keweenaw Peninsula. The region is known for having notoriously long, snowy winters—but snow lingering through July? Shocking, even for a lifelong Yooper like Turnquist.” — Emily Bingham, MLive.com , 26 July 2019 Did you know? The word Yooper comes from the common nickname of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula—the “U.P.”—and the etymology requires the same follow-up question that a challenging joke does: “Get it?” If you’re not there yet, try saying th...

原文链接 一周又开始了。加油工作！（由 IFTTT 发送） Lake桑 September 16, 2019 at 07:00AM

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 15, 2019 is: continual • \kun-TIN-yoo-ul\  • adjective 1 : continuing indefinitely in time without interruption 2 : recurring in steady usually rapid succession Examples: The continual blaring of the car’s alarm outside made it very difficult for Jane to focus on her work that morning. “Cows can drink upwards of 50 gallons of water a day, so making sure the animals have continual access to clean water is a must.” — Stephanie Blaszczyk, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel , 19 July 2019 Did you know? Since the mid-19th century, many grammarians have drawn a distinction between continual and continuous . Continual should only mean “occurring at regular intervals,” they insist, whereas continuous should be used to mean “continuing without interruption.” This distinction overlooks the fact that continual is the older word and was used with both meanings for centuries before continuous appeared on the scene. Toda...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 14, 2019 is: travail • \truh-VAIL\  • noun 1 a : work especially of a painful or laborious nature : toil b : a physical or mental exertion or piece of work : task , effort c : agony , torment 2 : labor , childbirth Examples: “Time and again, the company made shrewd business decisions that, through the many travails of two centuries, has left it standing.” — Robert Klara, Adweek.com , 20 May 2019 “The [Rolling] Stones have survived it all by this point: near-breakups, the death of one member, the voluntary departure of a few others, medical maladies, as well as all the typical travails that have doomed countless other bands coming up in their wake.” — Corbin Reiff, Billboard.com , 22 June 2019  Did you know? Etymologists are pretty certain that travail comes from trepalium , the Late Latin name of an instrument of torture. We don’t know exactly what a trepalium looked like, but the word’s history g...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 13, 2019 is: abscond • \ab-SKAHND\  • verb : to depart secretly and hide oneself Examples: “The camera tracked [the black bear] as he moved in a sturdy lurch, … holding his dangling, unnecessary arms close to his chest like a mime absconding with a snatched purse.” — Jon Mooallem, The New York Times Magazine , 21 Dec. 2016 “The historian Plutarch wrote that about a million Gauls were killed in the campaign and another million enslaved. Some Gallic fighters may have absconded to Britannia—not yet governed by the Roman Empire—rather than face the legions.” — Isaac Schultz, Atlas Obscura , 30 July 2019 Did you know? Abscond derives from Latin abscondere, meaning “to hide away,” a product of the prefix ab- and condere, a verb meaning “to conceal.” ( Condere is also the root for recondite , a word meaning “concealed” as well as “hard to understand” or “obscure.”) Abscond retained the meaning of its Latin par...

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原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 12, 2019 is: deleterious • \del-uh-TEER-ee-us\  • adjective : harmful often in a subtle or unexpected way Examples: “With an injury, the body automatically responds with an inflammatory process to neutralize the toxic microorganisms, repair the affected tissues and eliminate debris from the wound. That is beneficial, but chronic inflammation is deleterious , causing a continuous supply of free-radicals , overwhelming our antioxidant immunities.” — Phyllis Van Buren, The St. Cloud (Minnesota) Times , 24 Apr. 2019 “But Superior Court Judge Peter Bariso ruled in 2016 that the landfill could stay open because its closure ‘would have drastic and deleterious effects on the surrounding communities and their taxpayers.'” — Scott Fallon, The Record (Bergen County, New Jersey), 24 May 2019 Did you know? Pernicious , baneful , noxious , and detrimental are the wicked synonyms of deleterious . All five words refer to som...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 11, 2019 is: repertoire • \REP-er-twahr\  • noun 1 a : a list or supply of dramas, operas, pieces, or parts that a company or person is prepared to perform b : a supply of skills, devices, or expedients ; broadly : amount , supply c : a list or supply of capabilities 2 a : the complete list or supply of dramas, operas, or musical works available for performance b : the complete list or supply of skills, devices, or ingredients used in a particular field, occupation, or practice Examples: “But the make-or-break element of any interior Mexican restaurant is its mole repertoire , and I was curious to see how these sauces would turn out. My favorite was a light, sweet, chile-based mole served with chunky butternut squash topped with sweet-potato crisps.” — Patricia Sharpe, The Texas Monthly , June 2019 “For decades, immunologists had reasoned that the T-cell surveillance system might be able to detect and ki...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 10, 2019 is: pell-mell • \pel-MEL\  • adverb 1 : in mingled confusion or disorder 2 : in confused haste Examples: When the final bell of the day rang, the children bolted from their desks and streamed pell-mell out the door into the schoolyard. “The grammar school dropout was forever on the move. There were times he bolted into the darkroom of his employer’s photographic studio to hide from an approaching truant officer. More often, the errand boy ran  pell-mell  to the offices of New York City newspapers and magazines, lugging a pouch stuffed with the newsy photographs of the day….” — Bill Case, The Pilot (Southern Pines, North Carolina), 14 July 2019 Did you know? The word pell-mell was probably formed through a process called reduplication. The process—which involves the repetition of a word or part of a word, often including a slight change in its pronunciation—also generated such terms as boww...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 9, 2019 is: olfactory • \ahl-FAK-tuh-ree\  • adjective : of or relating to the sense of smell Examples: “The glands located between the cat’s toes secrete a scent whenever he scratches on objects such as a tree or a scratching post. This activity provides an olfactory territory mark in addition to the visual.” — Pam Johnson-Bennett, Think Like a Cat , 2011 “Young male anglerfish face the challenge of finding a mate in the ocean’s vastness. They have large olfactory organs, which suggests that suitors follow a trail of pheromones .” — William J. Broad, The New York Times , 29 July 2019 Did you know? Olfactory derives from the past participle of the Latin olfacere (“to smell”), which was formed from the verb olēre (“to give off a smell”) and facere (“to do”). Olfactory is a word that often appears in scientific contexts (as in “olfactory nerves,” the nerves that pass from the nose to the brain and contain t...

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原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 8, 2019 is: bas-relief • \bah-rih-LEEF\  • noun art : sculptural relief in which the projection from the surrounding surface is slight and no part of the modeled form is undercut ; also : sculpture executed in bas-relief Examples: “Three [works] that caught my eye were Maksymowicz’s solemn plaster bas-relief of bones and tools, Gina Michaels’ bronze sculpture of a prickly pear cactus with pads in the shapes of human feet, and Burnell Yow’s totemic found-object sculpture topped with an animal skull.” — Edith Newhall, The Philadelphia Inquirer , 18 July 2019 “Lorraine Hansberry’s 60-year-old American classic about a black family in Chicago’s South Side in the 1950s that has a shot at the American dream is given a volatile production that, like a bas-relief , brings out details and layers that have not been so clearly defined in more traditional approaches.” — The Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, Massachusetts), 5 J...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 7, 2019 is: germane • \jer-MAYN\  • adjective : being at once relevant and appropriate : fitting Examples: The message board moderator politely reminded new members to keep their posts germane to the topic being discussed. “‘Most places we used to play have been demolished, and this one hasn’t,’ [Mick Jagger] said, and while he was mixing up his venues, his point was germane . Buildings, eras, styles of music, and the people that play them come and go. But the [Rolling] Stones carry on, seemingly immortal.” — Dan DeLuca, The Philadelphia Inquirer , 24 July 2019 Did you know? “Wert thou a Leopard, thou wert Germane to the Lion.” So wrote William Shakespeare in his tragic play Timon of Athens , using an old (and now-obsolete) sense of germane meaning “closely akin.” Germane derives from the Latin word germen, meaning “bud” or “sprout,” which is also at the root of our verb germinate , meaning “to sprout” or “...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 6, 2019 is: skulk • \SKULK\  • verb 1 : to move in a stealthy or furtive manner 2 : to hide or conceal something (such as oneself) often out of cowardice or fear or with sinister intent Examples: The cat often skulks around the foyer, waiting for someone to open the front door. “Engineers did not, for instance, want the robot to silently skulk up and scare anyone—but how exactly should it announce itself? They tested a wide range of noises, from Road Runner-style ‘beep-beeps’ to the honks of reversing forklifts before settling on a pleasant yet insistent chirp they mixed from a clip of birdsong.” — Drew Harwell, The Washington Post , 6 June 2019 Did you know? Here’s one for the word-puzzle lovers. Can you name three things that the word skulk has in common with all of these other words: booth , brink , cog , flit , kid , meek , scab , seem , and skull ? If you noticed that all of the terms on that list have ...

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原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 5, 2019 is: adscititious • \ad-suh-TISH-us\  • adjective : derived or acquired from something extrinsic Examples: “I left the warm embrace of government work for adscititious reasons, driven not by boredom or indignation, but mainly by itchy feet .” — John Derbyshire, The National Review , 17 July 2002 “We should choose our books as we would our companions, for their sterling and intrinsic merit, not for their  adscititious  or accidental advantages.” — Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon , 1832 Did you know? Adscititious comes from a very “knowledgeable” family—it ultimately derives from scīscere , the Latin verb meaning “to get to know, ascertain, vote for, approve.” The related scīre means “to know” and is fundamental to science , conscience , prescience (“foreknowledge”), nescience (“lack of knowledge”), as well as adscititious . Admittedly, adscititious is more akin to adscīscere , which means “to ad...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 4, 2019 is: minim • \MIN-im\  • noun 1 : a musical half note 2 : something very minute 3 : a unit of capacity equal to 1/60 fluid dram Examples: “And yet there are transcendent sparks in [writer Raymond Carver’s work that] I keep going back to, moments of human communion that raise his people briefly above the wreckage of their worlds.… What’s notable here is the clause he felt able to let her go , and also what he does immediately after these lines: ‘He brought his arm down and turned to his children.’ … There’s a minim of grace in that gesture, of self-forgiveness and, yes, of hope, however fugitive.” — William Giraldi, Commonweal , 23 Apr. 2019 “He thanked me with a smiling nod, measured out a few minims of the red tincture and added one of the powders.” — Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , 1886 Did you know? Like the more common minimum , minim derives from the L...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 3, 2019 is: fecund • \FEK-und\  • adjective 1 : fruitful in offspring or vegetation : prolific 2 : intellectually productive or inventive to a marked degree Examples: As an artist, she gets most of her inspiration from nature; her daily walks in the woods are a fecund source of ideas. “As if there aren’t enough bugs around, get this: insects are amazingly fecund and can reproduce quickly, laying thousands of eggs in a short time.” — Terri Schlichenmeyer, The Montgomery Herald (Oak Hill, West Virginia), 23 July 2019 Did you know? Fecund and its synonyms fruitful and fertile all mean producing or capable of producing offspring or fruit, literally or figuratively. Fecund applies to things that yield offspring, fruit, or results in abundance or with rapidity (“a fecund herd,” “a fecund imagination”). Fruitful emphasizes abundance, too, and often adds the implication that the results attained are desirable ...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 2, 2019 is: extemporize • \ik-STEMP-puh-ryze\  • verb 1 : to do something extemporaneously : improvise ; especially : to compose, perform, or speak extemporaneously 2 : to get along in a makeshift manner Examples: “Donald’s own trio consisted of piano, bass and cello. Each player’s part was written, not extemporized .” — Anthony Weller, The Los Angeles Times , 3 Feb. 2019  “The name Cher Horowitz was extemporized by Wallace Shawn, who plays a teacher in ‘Clueless.’ Wallace Shawn is also Jewish, and he came up with the catchy Jewish-sounding designation for the film’s star during a scene where he was taking attendance in the classroom.” — Tamar Skydell, The Forward , 31 Dec. 2018 Did you know? Extemporize means to say or do something on the spur of the moment , an appropriate meaning given the word’s history. Extemporize was coined by adding the suffix -ize to Latin ex tempore , meaning “instantane...

原文链接 一周又开始了。加油工作！（由 IFTTT 发送） Lake桑 September 02, 2019 at 07:05AM

原文链接 一周又开始了。加油工作！（由 IFTTT 发送） Lake桑 September 02, 2019 at 07:00AM

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for September 1, 2019 is: calliope • \kuh-LYE-uh-pee\  • noun 1 capitalized Calliope : the Greek Muse of heroic poetry 2 : a keyboard musical instrument resembling an organ and consisting of a series of whistles sounded by steam or compressed air Examples: The distant song of a calliope let everyone know the carnival was back in town. “And on Saturday, Minns, now 22, once again took his place behind the keyboard on the nearly 100-year-old calliope blasting out jovial circus tunes to the crowds that lined the streets during the longest running and only circus parade left in the country.” — Carson Gerber, The Rushville (Indiana) Republican , 21 July 2019 Did you know? With a name literally meaning “beautiful-voiced” (from kallos , meaning “beauty,” and ops , meaning “voice”), Calliope was the most prominent of the Muses—the nine sister goddesses who in Greek mythology presided over poetry, song, and the arts and sciences...