Word of the Day: Pedantic

Word of the Day: Pedantic

Word of the Day: Pedantic

pe-dan-tic / pi-ˈdan-tik
 
adjective
 
1.      of or relating to a person who makes a show of knowledge
Facts are what pedantic, dull people have instead of opinions.
A.A. Gill, 1954-2016
 
2.      ostentation in one’s learning
Slothful, feeble, pretentious, pedantic, elitist – these are some of the epithets that eventually become associated with the absent-minded scholar, the poor sighted reader, the book worm, the nerd.
Alberto Manguel, 1948-
 
3.      overly concerned with minutiae or formalism
A good designer must rely on experience, on precise, logic thinking; and onpedantic exactness.
Niklaus Wirth, 1934-
 
4.      dull; unimaginative
Nothing is as peevish and pedantic as men’s judgments of one another.
Desiderius Erasmus, 1466-1536
 
Etymology
This word is an adjective form of the noun pedant. The noun was first recorded in the 1580s and meant ‘schoolmaster’. Spelling and meaning came from the french word pédant and the Italian word pedante. The adjective was formed c. 1600 and the first known recorded use was in John Donne’s ‘Sunne Rising’.
4.      dull; unimaginative
Nothing is as peevish and pedantic as men’s judgments of one another.
Desiderius Erasmus, 1466-1536

Thank you for including the Dictionary Project in the good work you do in your club.  In my club, we have provided Dictionaries for third-grade students for enough years that now we are having former students help us to present dictionaries each year.  They are often returning to the same classrooms that they were third-grade students.  Teachers plead every year for us to NEVER quit this valuable project.  They tell us that students NEED paper books to learn to read, to learn to do research and to do independent study.  Please send me pictures of your presentations and tell me about your visits to the schools to give dictionaries to the students. To be included in our newsletter you can send me your stories at DG.2019@5630mail.org.

Word of the Day: Pedantic

Word of the Day: Convivial

Word of the Day: Convivial

con-vi-vi-al / kən-ˈviv-yəl
 
adjective
 
1.      friendly; agreeable
It is a curious truth that many cats enjoy warmer, more convivial, even affectionate relationships with humans than they could ever do with fellow felines.
Bruce Fogle, 1944-
 
2.      jovial; fond of merrymaking
When you’re younger, you go out and you’re convivial because you have to be.
Jim Shaw, 1952-
 
3.      of or related to merrymaking
Home-made bread rubbed with garlic and sprinkled with olive oil, shared – with a flask of wine – between working people, can be more convivial than any feast.
Patience Gray, 1917-2005
 
Etymology
First used in the 1660s, the word meant ‘pertaining to or the nature of a feast’.Convivial comes from the Late Latin convivialis (‘pertaining to a feast’), which comes from convivium (‘a feast’), which came from the verb convivere (‘to carouse together’). The meaning associated with definition 1 was first used in the 18th century.

Thank you for including the Dictionary Project in the good work you do in your club.  In my club, we have provided Dictionaries for third-grade students for enough years that now we are having former students help us to present dictionaries each year.  They are often returning to the same classrooms that they were third-grade students.  Teachers plead every year for us to NEVER quit this valuable project.  They tell us that students NEED paper books to learn to read, to learn to do research and to do independent study.  Please send me pictures of your presentations and tell me about your visits to the schools to give dictionaries to the students. To be included in our newsletter you can send me your stories at DG.2019@5630mail.org.

Word of the Day: Pedantic

Word of the Day: Fatuous

Word of the Day: Fatuous

fat-u-ous / ˈfa-chü-əs
 
adjective
 
1.      foolish or inanely silly
No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction.
Samuel Butler, 1835-1902
 
2.      unreal; illusory
Everybody who’s been on television more than once wears in public an expression of fatuous affability.
Quentin Crisp, 1908-1999
 
Etymology
This word, first recorded in the 1530s, comes from the Latin fatuus, meaning ‘foolish, insipid, silly’. There is some debate over the origin of the Latin word, but many suggest it comes from a Proto-Italic word, fatowo, which means ‘speech’. Interestingly, Fatuus is believed to be an alternate name for the god Faunus, who predicted the future in Roman mythology.

Thank you for including the Dictionary Project in the good work you do in your club.  In my club, we have provided Dictionaries for third-grade students for enough years that now we are having former students help us to present dictionaries each year.  They are often returning to the same classrooms that they were third-grade students.  Teachers plead every year for us to NEVER quit this valuable project.  They tell us that students NEED paper books to learn to read, to learn to do research and to do independent study.  Please send me pictures of your presentations and tell me about your visits to the schools to give dictionaries to the students. To be included in our newsletter you can send me your stories at DG.2019@5630mail.org.

Word of the Day: Pedantic

Word of the Day: Dam and Damn

Word of the Day: Dam and Damn

Dam
dam / dăm 
noun
  1. a wall built across a river or lake that controls water flow
    Words, like tranquil waters behind a dam, can become reckless and uncontrollable torrents of destruction when released without caution and wisdom.  William Arthur Ward, 1921 – 1994
  2. a barrier controlling the flow of liquids or other matter
    Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929 – 1968
  3. a body of water contained by a wall or other barrier
    With irrigation channels and rivers running dry and municipal water storage dams reaching record lows, California’s politicians are getting desperate for solutions to a drought that seemingly has no end. Marc Levine, 1974 –
  4. the mother of a domestic animal
    Those rocky islands the ship had passed were the resort of great numbers of seals, and some young seals that had lost their dams, or some dams that had lost their cubs, must have risen nigh the ship and kept company with her, crying and sobbing with their human sort of wail. From “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville, 1819 – 1891
verb
  1. to retain water or control its flow by means of a constructed barrier
    It is easier to dam a river than to stop gossip. Filipino Proverb
  2. to obstruct; to block
    How prone poor Humanity is to dam up the minutest remnants of its freedom, and build an artificial roof to prevent it looking up to the clear blue sky. E. T. A. Hoffmann, 1776 – 1822

Damn
damn / dăm 
adjective

  1. repugnant, detestable
    And he’s bad, bad Leroy Brown, The baddest man in the whole damn town, Badder than old King Kong, Meaner than a junkyard dog. Lyrics from the song “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” by Jim Croce, 1943- 1973
adjective, adverb (prenomial) (slang)
  1. used to add emphasis
    Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit. Elbert Hubbard, 1856 – 1915
adverb
  1. extremely
    Why is it so damn hard for people to talk? Tennessee Williams, 1911 – 1983
noun
  1. nothing at all
    Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.  From the 1939 movie “Gone with the Wind”
interjection
  1. used to express anger, contempt or annoyance
    Damn! I don’t have that much time! Mitch Hedberg, 1968 – 2005
verb
  1. to curse or swear
    Do your duty as you see it, and damn the consequences. George S. Patton, 1885 – 1945
  2. to condemn to failure, ruin or some other terrible fate
    Better have men reproach you for being good, than have God damn you for being wicked.  Thomas Watson, c. 1620 – 1686
  3. to judge as a failure
    Acquittal of the guilty damns the judge. Horace, 65 BC – 8 BC
  4. to condemn to eternal hell
    The man who is always worrying whether or not his soul would be damnedgenerally has a soul that isn’t worth a damn. Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1809 – 1894
  5. to denounce or criticize greatly
    You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.  Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884 – 1962

Thank you for including the Dictionary Project in the good work you do in your club.  In my club, we have provided Dictionaries for third-grade students for enough years that now we are having former students help us to present dictionaries each year.  They are often returning to the same classrooms that they were third-grade students.  Teachers plead every year for us to NEVER quit this valuable project.  They tell us that students NEED paper books to learn to read, to learn to do research and to do independent study.  Please send me pictures of your presentations and tell me about your visits to the schools to give dictionaries to the students. To be included in our newsletter you can send me your stories at DG.2019@5630mail.org.

Word of the Day: Pedantic

Word of the Day: Sisyphean

Word of the Day: Sisyphean

sis-y-phe-an / ˌsisəˈfēən
 
adjective
 
1.     referring to the mythological character Sisyphus, of or relating to a task that seems endless or as if no progress will be made
Life is a Sisyphean race, run ever faster toward a finish line that is merely the start of the next race.
Matt Ridley, 1958

Thank you for including the Dictionary Project in the good work you do in your club.  In my club, we have provided Dictionaries for third-grade students for enough years that now we are having former students help us to present dictionaries each year.  They are often returning to the same classrooms that they were third-grade students.  Teachers plead every year for us to NEVER quit this valuable project.  They tell us that students NEED paper books to learn to read, to learn to do research and to do independent study.  Please send me pictures of your presentations and tell me about your visits to the schools to give dictionaries to the students. To be included in our newsletter you can send me your stories at DG.2019@5630mail.org.