Words

Just some words I like.

  • "Agnotology"
    = the study of deliberate, culturally induced ignorance or doubt, typically to sell a product, influence opinion, or win favour, particularly through the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data (disinformation).

  • "Amanuensis"
    = A person employed to write or type what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another. It may also be a person who signs a document on behalf of another under the latter's authority.

  • "Atopy"
    = A hereditary disorder marked by the tendency to develop localized immediate hypersensitivity reactions to allergens such as pollen food, etc...

  • "Brobdingnagian"
    = enormous, gigantic, of colossal size.

  • "Collywobbles"
    = a feeling of fear, apprehension, nervousness

  • "Curring"
    = To make a murmuring sound (as of doves)

  • "Cynosure"
    = A person or thing that is the center of attention

  • "Echt"
    = True or genuine.

  • "Elision"
    = the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run together by the omission of a final sound.

  • "Encomium"
    = a Latin word deriving from the Ancient Greek enkomion (ἐγκώμιον), meaning "the praise of a person or thing." Another Latin equivalent is laudatio, a speech in praise of someone or something. Originally was the song sung by the chorus at the κῶμος, or festal procession, held at the Panhellenic Games in honour of the victor, either on the day of his victory or on its anniversary. The word came afterwards to denote any song written in celebration of distinguished persons, and in later times any spoken or written panegyric whatever.

  • "Loglines"
    = a brief (usually one-sentence) summary of a television program, film, short film, or book that states the central conflict of the story

  • "Ludo-Capitalism"
    = the idea of ludo-capitalism explores the relationship between playing games, having fun/feeling pleasure, and creating value (in an economic sense). [...] If people are willing to perform some activity, which they view as play and from which they derive enough pleasure to keep doing, and another person or entity can create value from that activity, then you are entering the space of ludo-capitalism.

  • "Mythopoeic"
    = of or pertaining to myth-making.

  • "Paralipsis"
    = Paralipsis is from the Greek word paraleipein, which means “to omit,” or “to leave something on one side.” It is defined as a rhetorical device in which an idea is deliberately suggested through a brief treatment of a subject, while most of the significant points are omitted. It is explained through the use of this device that some points are too obvious to mention. Also, paralipsis is a way of emphasizing a subject by apparently passing over it. Example from Merriam-Webster: "I confine to this page the volume of his treacheries and debaucheries"

  • "Phonophobia"
    = also called ligyrophobia or sonophobia, is a fear of or aversion to loud sounds (for example firecrackers)—a type of specific phobia. It is a very rare phobia which is often the symptom of hyperacusis. Sonophobia can refer to the hypersensitivity of a patient to sound and can be part of the diagnosis of a migraine. Occasionally it is called acousticophobia.

  • "Pianoforte"
    = [The] pianoforte instrument used hammers to strike the string. Not only is the sound different, but it also feels very different to play. Leather-covered hammers hit the strings on the fortepiano/pianoforte. The strings themselves, in the first instance, were not vastly different from those of harpsichords, but this would soon change. Equally, the casing of the pianoforte was quite slight in comparison to today’s robust pianos. Pianofortes were a very responsive instrument with a reasonably light touch. This is quite different from many of the pianos built today.

    - CMUSE
  • "Pize"
    = to curse or strike someone

  • "Scrim"
    = a very light textile made from fiber based materials, such as yarn. Also a name for the the fade out effect that goes behind walls that sit in front of websites

  • "Sintering"
    = or frittage is the process of compacting and forming a solid mass of material by pressure or heat without melting it to the point of liquefaction.

  • "Splenetic"
    = used to describe a person who easily becomes angry or annoyed, or their behavior. Marked by a bad temper, spiteful, or malevolent

  • "Tec"
    = a detective

  • "Trews"
    = Modern trews are more like trousers with the fabric cut on the straight grain but without a side seam, and are often high-waisted, usually to be worn with a short jacket, as an alternative to the kilt.

  • "antimacassar"
    = a small cloth placed over the backs or arms of chairs, or the head or cushions of a sofa, to prevent soiling of the permanent fabric underneath. The name also refers to the cloth flap 'collar' on a sailor's shirt or top, used to keep macassar oil off the uniform.

  • "chiral"
    = asymmetric in such a way that the structure and its mirror image are not superimposable. Chiral compounds are typically optically active; large organic molecules often have one or more chiral centers where four different groups are attached to a carbon atom.

  • "clerestory"
    = An upper portion of a wall containing windows for supplying natural light to a building.

  • "cline"
    = A gradual change in a character or feature across the distributional range of a species or population, usually correlated with an environmental or geographic transition.

  • "coracle"
    = A coracle is a small, rounded, lightweight boat of the sort traditionally used in Wales, and also in parts of the West Country and in Ireland, particularly the River Boyne, and in Scotland, particularly the River Spey. The word is also used of similar boats found in India, Vietnam, Iraq, and Tibet. The boat is small, usually handmade, and often is designed to be carried on one's back. It is an effective fishing vessel because, when powered by a skilled person, they hardly disturb the water or the fish, and they can be easily manoeuvred with one arm

  • "dorodango"
    = (lit. 'mud dumpling') is a Japanese art form in which earth and water are combined and moulded, then carefully polished to create a delicate shiny sphere resembling a billiard ball. Making the basic dorodango is a traditional pastime for school children.

  • "eliding"
    = to suppress or alter (something, such as a vowel or syllable) by elision; to strike out (something, such as a written word); to leave out of consideration, omit

  • "exarchate"
    = The office, dignity, or administration of an exarch, or the territory ruled by an exarch

  • "frou-frou"
    = 1. (onomatopoeia) A rustling sound, particularly the rustling of a large silk dress. 2. Highly ornamented, overly elaborate; excessively girly. 3. Unimportant, silly, useless.

  • "furze"
    = Ulex (commonly known as gorse, furze, or whin) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae. The genus comprises about 20 species of thorny evergreen shrubs in the subfamily Faboideae of the pea family Fabaceae. The species are native to parts of western Europe and northwest Africa, with the majority of species in Iberia.

  • "heiau"
    = A heiau is an ancient Hawaiian temple, a tall rock structure. To the northwest of this heiau is a pāahupuaʻa, a prehistoric Hawaiian land division. Both remind us of the peninsula's rich past. Archeological evidence shows that Hawaiians lived here 1,000 years ago.

  • "ibogaine"
    = a hallucinogenic compound

  • "immiseration"
    = economic impoverishment

  • "irredentism"
    = a policy of advocating the restoration to a country of any territory formerly belonging to it.

  • "lenticular"
    = shaped like a lentil or relating the the lens of an eye.

  • "manes"
    = The souls or spirits of dead ancestors, conceived as deities or the subjects of reverence.

  • "menehune"
    = Menehune are a mythological race of dwarf people in Hawaiian tradition who are said to live in the deep forests and hidden valleys of the Hawaiian Islands, hidden and far away from human settlements. The Menehune are described as superb craftspeople. Legend has it that the Menehune appear only during the night hours to build masterpieces. But if they fail to complete their work in the length of the night, they will leave it unoccupied. No one but their children and humans connected to them can see the Menehune.

  • "neofeudalism"
    = the consolidation of elite wealth and power far beyond the control of ordinary people and the mechanisms of democratic consent.

    - The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff
  • "nim"
    = A game in which players in turn remove small objects from a collection, such as matchsticks arranged in rows, and attempt to take, or avoid taking, the last one. / To Take, To Steal, To Filch

  • "patrimonial capitalism"
    = a reversion to a premodern society in which one’s life chances depend upon inherited wealth rather than meritocratic achievement.

    - The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff
  • "penates"
    = The household deities thought to watch over the houses and storerooms of ancient Rome. Synonym of household deities in other contexts.

  • "pirozhki"
    = Russian baked or fried yeast-leavened boat-shaped buns with a variety of fillings. Pirozhki are a popular street food and comfort food in Eastern Europe.

  • "prandial"
    = during or relating to the eating of food.

  • "rax"
    = To perform the act of reaching or stretching; stretch one's self; reach for or try to obtain something

  • "reify"
    = (also known as concretism, hypostatization, or the fallacy of misplaced concreteness) is a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction (abstract belief or hypothetical construct) is treated as if it were a concrete real event or physical entity.[1][2] In other words, it is the error of treating something that is not concrete, such as an idea, as a concrete thing. A common case of reification is the confusion of a model with reality: 'the map is not the territory'.

  • "rive"
    = to rend, tear apart or break into pieces

  • "samizdat"
    = the clandestine copying and distribution of literature banned by the state, especially formerly in the communist countries of eastern Europe.

  • "satrap"
    = a governor of the provinces of the ancient Median and Persian (Achaemenid) Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic empires. A satrapy is the territory governed by a satrap. A satrap served as a viceroy to the king, though with considerable autonomy. The word came to suggest tyranny or ostentatious splendour, and its modern usage is a pejorative and refers to any subordinate or local ruler, usually with unfavourable connotations of corruption.

  • "shedu"
    = a šēdum protective deity (a male spirit or demon representing the individual's vital force)

  • "shibboleth"
    = a custom or usage regarded as distinguishing one group from others

  • "susurrus"
    = whispering, murmuring, or rustling

  • "tendentious"
    = Marked by or favoring a particular point of view; partisan. Having a tendency; written or spoken with a partisan, biased or prejudiced purpose. Implicitly or explicitly slanted.

  • "threnody"
    = a lament, dirge, requiem

  • "tilth"
    = the cultivation of land.

  • "valence"
    = 1. The combining capacity of an atom, functional group, or radical determined by the number of atoms of hydrogen with which it will unite, or the number of electrons that it will gain, lose, or share when it combines with other atoms, etc. 2. The number of binding sites of a molecule, such as an antibody or antigen. 3. The number of arguments that a verb can have, including its subject, ranging from zero to three or, less commonly, four. 4. A one-dimensional value assigned by a person to an object, situation, or state, that can usually be positive (causing a feeling of attraction) or negative (repulsion)