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原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for May 31, 2020 is: palmy • \PAH-mee\  • adjective 1 : marked by prosperity : flourishing 2 : abounding in or bearing palms Examples: “The new breed of the Silicon Valley lived for work. They were disciplined to the point of back spasms. They worked long hours and kept working on weekends. They became absorbed in their companies the way men once had in the palmy  days of the automobile industry.” — Tom Wolfe, Hooking Up , 2000 “In Beaufort Road was a house, occupied in its palmier days, by Mr Shorthouse, a manufacturer of acids….” — J.R.R. Tolkien, letter, July 1964 Did you know? The palm branch has traditionally been used as a symbol of victory. It is no wonder then that the word palm came to mean “victory” or “triumph” in the late 14th century, thanks to the likes of Geoffrey Chaucer. Centuries later, William Shakespeare would employ palmy as a synonym for triumphant or flourishing in the tragedy Hamlet when t...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for May 30, 2020 is: gamut • \GAM-ut\  • noun 1 : the whole series of recognized musical notes 2 : an entire range or series Examples: “Possibly the most interesting man-made structural material is reinforced concrete …. It is economical, available almost everywhere, fire-resistant, and can be designed to be light-weight to reduce the dead load or to have a whole gamut of strengths to satisfy structural needs.” — Mario Salvadori, Why Buildings Stand Up , 1990 “[Beverly] Long, whose previous novels run a limited gamut from romance to paranormal romance to romantic suspense, scores well in her transition to hard-boiled thriller.” — Jay Strafford, The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Virginia), 21 Mar. 2020 Did you know? To get the lowdown on gamut , we have to dive to the bottom of a musical scale to which the 11th-century musician and monk Guido of Arezzo applied his particular system of solmization —that is, of using syl...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for May 29, 2020 is: assail • \uh-SAIL\  • verb 1 : to attack violently : assault 2 : to encounter, undertake, or confront energetically 3 : to oppose, challenge, or criticize harshly and forcefully 4 a : to trouble or afflict in a manner that threatens to overwhelm b : to be perceived by (a person, a person’s senses, etc.) in a strongly noticeable and usually unpleasant way Examples: Most worthwhile achievements require that one persevere even when assailed by doubts. “What does it even mean to be good in a world as complex as ours, when great inequity remains unaddressed and often seems too daunting to assail , and when seemingly benign choices—which shoes to buy, which fruit to eat—can come with the moral baggage of large carbon footprints or the undercompensated labor of migrant workers?” — Nancy Kaffer, The Detroit (Michigan) Free Press , 9 Jan. 2020 Did you know? Assail comes from an Anglo-French verb, assaill...

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原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for May 28, 2020 is: empirical • \im-PEER-uh-kul\  • adjective 1 : originating in or based on observation or experience 2 : relying on experience or observation alone often without due regard for system and theory  3 : capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment  4 : of or relating to empiricism Examples: “‘We have really good empirical  research dating back to the 1980s demonstrating that kids who are restricted around treat foods often just want to eat them more,’ said Charlotte Markey, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Rutgers University….” — Virginia Sole-Smith, The New York Times , 17 Apr. 2020 “Burger King’s advertising has been telling us that the Impossible Whopper tastes just like a Whopper. And so, in the spirit of empirical science and discovery, I ventured to a Burger King this week to test the claim.” — Eric Felten, The Examiner (Washington, DC), 31 Oct. 2019 Di...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for May 27, 2020 is: longueur • \lawn-GUR\  • noun : a dull and tedious passage or section (as of a book, play, or musical composition) — usually used in plural Examples: The otherwise crisp pacing of the movie is marred by some unnecessary longueurs that do little to advance the main story. “Small, clever musicals are fragile things, though, and I don’t want to oversell this one in praising it. ‘Scotland, PA’ still needs to cure a few structural hiccups (the first act seems to end twice) and to address its longueurs and lapses of logic.” — Jesse Green, The New York Times , 23 Oct. 2019 Did you know? You’ve probably come across long, tedious sections of books, plays, or musical works before, but perhaps you didn’t know there was a word for them. English speakers began using the French borrowing longueur in the late 18th century. As in English, French longueurs are tedious passages, with longueur itself literally meaning “...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for May 26, 2020 is: homonymous • \hoh-MAH-nuh-mus\  • adjective 1 : ambiguous 2 : having the same designation 3 : of, relating to, or being homonyms Examples: “The Chelyabinsk meteorite became a media celebrity after the videos of its explosion in mid-air, occurring in February 2013 near the homonymous city, went viral on social networks.” — Luca Maltagliati, Nature , 17 Feb. 2017 “Like the bird homonymous with his name, ‘Cro’ operates like he’s under the cover of night. Though Cromartie’s numerically best game came against Tulane this fall, in which the senior recorded six tackles and a sack, Downing tabbed South Florida and Connecticut as the raider’s brightest.” — Katherine Fominykh, The Capital Gazette (Annapolis, Maryland), 12 Dec. 2019 Did you know? The “ambiguous” sense of homonymous refers mainly to words that have two or more meanings. Logicians and scientists who wanted to refer to (or complain about) such e...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for May 25, 2020 is: instigate • \IN-stuh-gayt\  • verb : to goad or urge forward : provoke Examples: “The big thing about effective advertising is that it uses data effectively to instigate behavior.” — Nicole Ortiz, Adweek , 14 Apr. 2020 “In his usual genuine and silly fashion, [Chris] Martin sincerely explained his intent for making the live video and instigating  a new series of live Instagram performances. ‘What would be nice would be to check in with some of you out there and see how you’re doing…. I had an idea that we could call this thing “Together At Home.” And who knows, maybe tomorrow someone else will take it over,’ he said.” — Sean Glaister, The Johns Hopkins (University) News-Letter , 6 Apr. 2020 Did you know? Instigate is often used as a synonym of incite (as in “hoodlums instigating violence”), but the two words differ slightly in their overall usage. Incite usually stresses an act of stirring somet...

原文链接 一周又开始了。加油工作！（由 IFTTT 发送） Lake桑 May 25, 2020 at 07:00AM

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for May 24, 2020 is: xeriscape • \ZEER-uh-skayp\  • noun : a landscaping method developed especially for arid and semiarid climates that utilizes water-conserving techniques (such as the use of drought-tolerant plants, mulch , and efficient irrigation) Examples: After the severe drought led to local water restrictions, some residents began to look into xeriscape for more easily maintainable yards. “This perennial has evergreen leaves from 2­-3 feet in length while the flower stalks can rise up to 5 feet with coral-colored tubular flowers. It’s drought-resistant, and the flowers can attract hummingbirds. This one would be great for xeriscape or low-maintenance gardens.” — Tom Ingram, The Tulsa (Oklahoma) World , 29 Feb. 2020 Did you know? Xēros is the Greek word for “dry” that is the base for a handful of English words related to mainly dry printing ( xerography ) and dry, or xerophilous , habitats and their plants. In the ...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for May 23, 2020 is: shaggy-dog • \shag-ee-DAWG\  • adjective : of, relating to, or being a long-drawn-out circumstantial story concerning an inconsequential happening that impresses the teller as humorous or interesting but the hearer as boring and pointless; also : of, relating to, or being a similar humorous story whose humor lies in the pointlessness or irrelevance of the plot or punch line Examples: “Like most of Irving’s other books, ‘Owen Meany’ is kind of a shaggy-dog  story. It wanders all over the place and there are many seemingly loose ends.” — Neil Gittleman, quoted in The Dayton (Ohio) Daily News , 13 Apr. 2020 “A shaggy-dog tale that treats crisscrossing forklift traffic as a sight worthy of the Blue Danube waltz, the German feature ‘In the Aisles’ mostly takes place in an anonymous, highway-side megastore….” — Ben Kenigsberg, The New York Times , 13 June 2019 Did you know? The origin of the adjective sh...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for May 22, 2020 is: preen • \PREEN\  • verb 1 of a bird : to groom with the bill especially by rearranging the barbs and barbules of the feathers and by distributing oil from the uropygial gland 2 : to dress or smooth (oneself) up : primp 3 : to pride or congratulate (oneself) on an achievement 4 : to make oneself sleek 5 :  to behave or speak with obvious pride or self-satisfaction Examples: “Adding a water source to your yard also will attract birds, providing not only drinking water for them but a place to wash their feathers and preen .” — Joan Morris, The Mercury News (San Jose, California), 13 Apr. 2020 “We keep tight control over our [Instagram] accounts’ aesthetics, down to the color scheme…. A select few follow the lead of celebrities who log on to publicize their lavish lives to millions, turning Instagram into a place to preen and present a reality far above the mundane.” — Diti Kohli, The Boston Glo...

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原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for May 21, 2020 is: cowcatcher • \KOW-ketch-er\  • noun : an inclined frame on the front of a railroad locomotive for throwing obstacles off the track Examples: For his entry in the town parade, John outfitted his black truck with a cowcatcher and smoke stack to resemble a 19th-century locomotive. “Not in this show, unfortunately, is the amazing ‘Galloping Goose,’ which Springer photographed. Until the early 1950s its modified truck-boxcar mashup—with a  cowcatcher  in front—lumbered from Ridgway to Lizard Head Pass in Colorado.” — Harriet Howard Heithaus, The Naples (Florida) Daily News , 17 June 2019 Did you know? New Jersey’s Camden and Amboy Railroad was the first in the U.S. to adopt the cowcatcher, adding it to its John Bull locomotive in the early 1830s. But, as the Model Railroader Cyclopedia warned, “don’t ever let a railroad man hear you use ‘cowcatcher.'” In its heyday, railroad workers preferred the na...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for May 20, 2020 is: neoteric • \nee-uh-TAIR-ik\  • adjective : recent in origin : modern Examples: “From the runways of Paris to the boutiques of New York to the time-sucking scroll of my social media-feeds, it seemed as if every few weeks I encountered some neoteric innovation that made me smirk or scratch my head, sometimes simultaneously.” — Jacob Gallagher, The Wall Street Journal , 30 Dec. 2019 “The projects I have designed mirror the correlation between past and present, always celebrating the old and welcoming the neoteric . I am respectful of the strong impressive history and strive to elevate the level of what has been left behind in time.” — Melinda Bell Dickey, quoted in The Danville (Virginia) Register & Bee , 15 Mar. 2020 Did you know? An odd thing about neoteric is that this word for things that are modern and new is itself rather old. It’s been part of English since at least 1596, and its roots go back e...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for May 19, 2020 is: disabuse • \diss-uh-BYOOZ\  • verb : to free from error, misconception, or fallacy Examples: “While it’s difficult to predict how the practice of hiring will evolve over time, one thing is clear: it is extremely difficult to disabuse  people of their biases, especially when those biases become cultural norms.” — Mark Travers, Forbes , 22 Mar. 2020 “[Anton] Chekhov has a way of disabusing  us of our specialness, of making us realize that our problems are, in fact, just like everyone else’s.” — Megan O’Grady, The New York Times , 19 Feb. 2020 Did you know? We know the verb abuse as a word meaning “to misuse,” “to mistreat,” or “to revile .” But when disabuse first appeared in the early 17th century, there was a sense of abuse , now obsolete, that meant “to deceive.” Sir Francis Bacon used that sense, for example, when he wrote in 1605, “You are much abused if you think your virtue can withstand ...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for May 18, 2020 is: exiguous • \ig-ZIG-yuh-wus\  • adjective : excessively scanty : inadequate Examples: New computer equipment would be prohibitively expensive, given the rural school’s  exiguous  resources. “[Adam] Smith’s death was the subject of rather little interest, in England and even in Scotland. The published obituaries were exiguous ….” — Emma Rothschild, Economic Sentiments , 2001 Did you know? Exiguous is so expansive sounding that you might expect it to mean “extensive” instead of “meager.” Even a scanty glimpse at the word’s etymology will disabuse you of that notion, however. Exiguous derives from the Latin exiguus , which has the same basic meaning as the modern English term. Exiguus , in turn, derives from the Latin verb exigere , which is variously translated as “to demand,” “to drive out,” or “to weigh or measure.” The idea of weighing or measuring so precisely as to be parsimonious or petty g...

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原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for May 17, 2020 is: malapropism • \MAL-uh-prah-piz-um\  • noun : the usually unintentionally humorous misuse or distortion of a word or phrase; especially : the use of a word sounding somewhat like the one intended but ludicrously wrong in the context Examples: “A malapropism is using the wrong word, but one that sounds similar to the right word—like saying that medieval cathedrals are supported by flying buttocks. A good malapropism can throw you off, so that you scrape your head trying to figure out the error, and then having to think what the word should have been. (It’s flying buttresses , by the way).” — Britt Hanson, The Tuscon (Arizona) Weekly , 3 July 2014 “[Gilda Radner] brought a lot of charm and energy as a player [on Saturday Night Live]; from her impressions of Lucille Ball … to her unforgettable characters like … the malapropism -prone Emily Litella, the geeky Lisa Loopner and the letter-reading Roseanne Rosea...

原文链接 原文链接 Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day for May 16, 2020 is: bodacious • \boh-DAY-shuss\  • adjective 1 Southern & Midland : outright , unmistakable 2 : remarkable , noteworthy 3 : sexy , voluptuous Examples: “House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has made a bodacious  name for himself on several fronts. The California lawmaker has now set an all-time annual fundraising record for any Republican….” — Jennifer Harper, The Washington Times , 29 Jan. 2020 “The other period elements, as always, remain intact: jousting on horseback, outrageous cockney accents from bearded storytellers strumming lyres, and many bodacious , curvy bodices.” — Phillip Valys, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel , 10 Feb. 2020 Did you know? Some of our readers may know bodacious as a word that figured prominently in the lingo of the 1989 film Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure . Others may recall the term’s frequent use in the long-running “Snuffy Smith” comic strip. Neither the crea...