She did all this with a frenetic alacrity, as if her mind had to make up for her body's inactivity.A Book for Today: Serena by Ron Rash
They knew that tone and obeyed with alacrity, leaving me alone with him.
Borrowing from Plato's teleological ideas, [Aristotle] looked for final causes that explained not only the motions of the heavenly objects, but everything else that moved, from animals and plants to projectiles and people.A Book for Today: The Dancing Universe by Marcelo Gleiser
In short, here as everywhere else, let us beware of superfluous teleological principles.
The lack of humour is yours, Doctor, not mine. Yours is choleric while mine is phlegmatic.A Book for Today: Serena by Ron Rash
Falling ill of some edematous swelling, Heraclitus went to the village doctors to ask for help.A Book for Today: The Dancing Universe by Marcelo Gleiser
I must say I find her augury deficient.
I would have assumed a woman as enlightened as you would deny belief in augury.A Book for Today: Serena by Ron Rash
Uh, it is asked," says the [French] translator, "what is your philosophe - philosphy - of mise-en-scene?"
The trades over here are all trying to figure out whether anyone ever has gotten an award at Cannes for editing, or montage, or mise-en-scene or whatever fancy word they're using.A Book for Today: Zeroville by Steve Erickson
Creel: A basket used to hold fish caught fish.He slid the negative [sic, exposed photographic film] into its protective metal sleeve, then went to his truck and took out a wicker fishing creel he slung over his shoulder before procuring another plate.A Book for Today: Serena by Ron Rash
Moviola: Throughout the history of film editing, starting with the 1924 Moviola, this company has been the standard - Moviola being both the equipment and the company. Unlike many other companies that worked with film (Kodak and Polaroid come immediately to mind), Moviola is not resting on its Oscars, but has made the transition to digital. This twentieth century word shares its etymology with Victrola.Dot lights a cigarette and lowers herself slowly in a chair by the moviola. Next to the moviola is a Jack Daniels bottle.A Book for Today: Zeroville by Steve Erickson
Besides, Campbell and I are putting down the stobs for the new spur line.
The only markers were four wooden stobs.A Book for Today: Serena by Ron Rash
Apotheosis: An apotheosis is something elevated to the heavenly/divine heights - the embodiment of a godly ideal. It first shares its etymology with theology, theocracy, and theism. Secondarily, apotheosis shares its etymology with apogee, apoplexy, and apostrophe.The apotheosis for the forties studio system's so-called 'women's picture'? Like I don't know it's Now, Voyager."A Book for Today: Zeroville by Steve Erickson
Bringing John D Rockefeller's own personal pettifogger with him too.A Book for Today: Serena by Ron Rash
The (floating) city had an insular look.A Book for Today: Ringworld Engineers by Larry Niven
Dihedral: Dihedral refers to the intersection of two surfaces. Dihedral most immediately shares its etymology with the platonic solids: tetrahedron, hexahedron (aka cube), octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron. More distantly dihedral shares it etymology with sit and chair. In algebra, a dihedral group is a finite group with both rotational and reflective symmetries.The bird ascended and began a dihedral [?] circle over the twenty acres of stumps behind Galloway's crew.A Book for Today: Serena by Ron Rash
Halrloprillalar's people must be closer to their brachiating past than Earth's people.A Book for Today: Ringworld Engineers by Larry Niven
She laid cold poultices on the child's forehead and fed him clabber.A Book for Today: Serena by Ron Rash
He sat down clumsily in a wicker chair by the table and waited until she returned, bringing him a plate of sandwiches and a tall glass full of clabber, which he had never tasted before.
Halrloprillalar was nearly bald, and had lips no everted than a monkey's.A Book for Today: Ringworld Engineers by Larry Niven
Jesses: Leather leg collars used in falconry. Jess shares its etymology with the verb jet, as in he jetted the falcon into the air.With the eagle came two small leather bags. In one was a gauntlet of goat skin to cover the forearm from wrist to elbow, in the other the leather hood and jesses and swivels and the leash.A Book for Today: Serena by Ron Rash
Eighteenth-century critics, unconstrained by libel laws, could be savage in their ad hominem attacks.A Book for Today: Samuel Johnson by Jeffrey Meyers
Limn: To limn (silent n) is to make line drawings, to outline something, to highlight it, or metaphorically to emphasize a concept or idea. With all this outlining, you might expect some etymological relation to line. However, with limn, as with many words, you must understand the origins to understand the meaning. Limn originally meant to illustrate a manuscript - before printing presses when most manuscripts were religious, most of the limners were in monasteries, and the illustrations they created were call illuminations. Here we discover that limn shares it etymology with illuminate, even though it sounds so similar to line and many writers seem to be drawn by the proximity.Surratt leaned over the tombstone and blew a limn of white dust from over of the chiseled letters.A Book for Today: Serena by Ron Rash
When I think of the farm, I think of mud. Limning my husband's fingernails and encrusting the children's knees and hair.
Later, when [Ian] Fleming limned his work in intelligence for Casino Royale ... he was very self-deprecating and would always say, "Of course, I'm just laying about. My stuff is nothing, despicable stuff, but [Roald Dahl's] is literature."Quotation from:
Johnson, who read extensively in religion, called William Law's recently published book "the finest piece of hortatory theology in any language."A Book for Today: Samuel Johnson by Jeffrey Meyers
Fylfot: Swastika - primarily used in British heraldry.They looked at the [grave stone], the name Abraham Harmon etched in the marble, above it a fylfot Rachel had chosen from the sketch pad.A Book for Today: Serena by Ron Rash
In London, where poverty could quickly lead to starvation or prison, he committed himself to the uncertain and exiguous income of a hack writer on Grub Street.A Book for Today: Samuel Johnson by Jeffrey Meyers
She had a rudimentary knowledge of the law and her faith in the police was generally exiguous.
Puncheon: Puncheon is associated with the etymology of punch, as in hole punch and leather punch, and puncture. However, its meanings are all over the map, from an 84-gallon barrel to a plank road. A puncheon is also a rough hewn log with at least one flat side (pictured).Rachel stared at the puncheon floor and listened, the way she'd done for two months now.A Book for Today: Serena by Ron Rash
... Johnson's weaknesses, real and alleged - his indolence, his oddities and asperity of manner, his excesses in eating and drinking, his profanity and bawdy, his sexual lapses, his intellectual narrowness and prejudice, his use of drugs, his insanity ...A Book for Today: Samuel Johnson by Jeffrey Meyers
Kaolin: Kaolin is a silicate mineral, mined all over the world, and used in many manufacturing processes from medicine, to incandescent light bulbs, to coated paper. However, it primary application is in the manufacture of porcelain.Will he be looking for anything other than kaolin and copper?
...setting out first the tin forks and spoons and coffee cups, thick kaolin plates and bowls soon to be heaped with food.A Book for Today: Serena by Ron Rash
[Portia] took a moment to congratulate herself on at least not having drown their breakup in whatever Shiraz or Merlot or , she supposed, unredeemable plonk might be down there.A Book for Today: Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz ***
You may do battle with some snuff-breathed harridan and learn the same way I have.A Book for Today: Serena by Ron Rash
You foul-mouthed harridan. You have no idea the sacrifices I have made.
Celeriac: Obviously sharing its etymology with celery, celeriac is celery root (yuck!).The celeriac wasn't something she ordered on purpose. She wasn't entirely sure what it was.A Book for Today: Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz ***
Bluchers: A blucher (also known as a derby) is a casual shoe with laces and the tongue cut of the same piece of leather as the part above the forefoot (also known as the vamp). It is named after a Prussian general who distinguished himself fighting Napoleon.His polished bluchers gleamed, the white cotton dress shirt fresh pressed.A Book for Today: Serena by Ron Rash
Come on, come see how we really live on the Main Line.A Book for Today: Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz ***
Boater: A straw hat. During the time when gentlemen were expected to wear hats, a boater was proper for formal summer wear.The backward-stepping undergraduate at the head of the group caught her eye as he passed, for the unusual rhythm of his gait and the bright white of his Princeton marching Band boater.A Book for Today: Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz ***
Besides, how long was this odd lacuna of inactivity going to last?
It was like kernels of crop beginning to pop. first slowly, with lacunae, and then in a solid mass.A Book for Today: Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz ***
Scientists hit a black box, a lacuna in knowledge they can't describe despite understanding more or less what fed into and what evolved out of it.
I became an autodidact at eight years old, when I realized that my teachers were not going to be able to teach me.
A self-proclaimed autodidact, he is essentially been a home schooled student in a school setting.A Book for Today: Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz ***
Kilim: Kilim rugs are woven across southern Asia from the Balkans to Pakistan and are often used for prayer rugs, but can also be decorative wall hangings, or just plane rugs. The weaving style uses a tight weft (woof) with the warp all but unseen. The rug have no pile and the designs are generally geometric.In the homey waiting room, there were framed prints of massive Native American women with their arms full of corn, fat kilim-covered pillows on the floor, and long. deep sofas.A Book for Today: Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz ***
Zester: A zester is a kitchen utensil to make zest (duh). Since zest is simply orange or lemon peel, the market is flooded with a wide variety of zesters. This is because complex problems yield very few solutions (e.g. computer operating systems, DNA, intelligent life), while simple problems yield a surplus of solutions (e.g. mouse traps, can openers, vegetable slicers). Interestingly, the first definition for zest is the lemon peel, dating from the 17th century. The more common contemporary uses for zest are metaphors.In vain had she once attempted to understand how a zester featured in a meal of shepard's pie and green salad.
He came out of the kitchen wearing a green Whole Foods apron and holding out his hands, which were wet and stuck with tiny bits of mesclun.
Seitan: Seitan is a processed food made from wheat gluten. Like tofu, seitan is used are a vegetarian meat substitute. The etymology of seitan is Japanese of recent origin.Technically, we don't have a policy about it one way or the other, but the students - or I guess the parents - skew heavily in favor of tofu and seitan.
I hate the stuff. ... I mean seitan. I don't mind tofu.
From the wings I heard and watched the parvane of tragedy move steadily towards its climax.
It was all well and good to say we would be with out parents, but after all, who were they? Would they be more severe with our didoes that she? That would be bad. Or more lax? Which would be even worse.
Pique: Pique, also called macrcella, and related to twill, is a weave that produces cloth with a three-dimensional texture. Pique is often used to make polo shirts, though tradition has it that it was invented for white tie formal wear because pique took starch better than the more planar weaves.My class was wearing butter-yellow pique dresses, and momma launched out on mine. She smocked the yoke into tiny puckers, and then shirred the rest of the bodice.
Pergola: A pergola is a horizontal trellis covering a patio or walkway intended to be covered by foliage, such as grapes, bougainvillea (pictured) or wisteria. (Also called an arbor.)Pioneer Square was actually shaped like a triangle, and had at its center a small park, dominated by a wrought-iron pergola, with antique clocks mounted above.
It was too much. I went to the window and shouted down to the pergola.
Captain Duparc of the Press Liaison Service nodded and becked [?].
He should be in his royal apartments with servants at his beck and call.
Zareba: A zareba is an enclosure, usually for animals in Africa, constructed of brush. It derives from the Arabic word for pen.The men disembarked and ran for the store, as though they were charging a mob, but there was not mob - only a zareba of bicycles.
Counterpane: This is a pidgin-like word, in that it has strayed far from its etymological origins. Counter by a long circuitous route shares its etymology with quilt, and pane by a different by similarly tortuous path is related to puncture, implying stitching in this case. A counterpane is a quilt or a bedspread!She had gone through to the bedroom and was pulling the counterpane straight where I had lain.
I found the place with difficulty and almost by accident, the godown gates were open.
I found Mr Chou's godown and mounted to Mr Chou's house.the
