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).

  • "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

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

  • "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.

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

  • "Pize"
    = to curse or strike someone

  • "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.

  • "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.

  • "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
  • "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.

  • "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)