coetaneous

co•e•ta•ne•ous (koh-i-TEY-nee-uhs)  adj

Definition:
of equal age, duration, or period; coeval

coetaneity noun; coetaneously adverb

Origin:
1600–10; from L.L. coaetanus "one of the same age," from com- "with, together with" + aetat- "age" + adj. suffix -aneus

Related:
Synonyms: contemporary, coeval, coexistent, coexisting, concomitant, contemporaneous, simultaneous, synchronic, synchronous

Sentence Examples:
• But it is unnecessary to multiply evidence in proof of the antiquity of the Negro. His presence in this world was coetaneous with the other families of mankind: here he has toiled with a varied fortune; and here under God—his God—he will, in the process of time, work out all the sublime problems connected with his future as a man and a brother. -History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880, George W. Williams

• So is it with us, now skeptical or without unity, because immersed in forms and effects all seeming to be of equal yet hostile value, and now religious, whilst in the reception of spiritual law. Bear with these distractions, with this coetaneous growth of the parts; they will one day be members, and obey one will. On that one will, on that secret cause, they nail our attention and hope. -Essays, Ralph Waldo Emerson

• We have shown that entire sanctification is coetaneous with the baptism with the Holy Ghost, in fact, that the two experiences are in an important sense identical, or, at least, so related to each other that whoever has one has the other. It is Christ and none other who baptizes with the Holy. Ghost. -The Theology of Holiness, Dougan Clark

The Storyline
Suddenly she became aware that her headache was in fact coetaneous with the time she'd been in the store.

Sources: Wordnik, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

feculent

fec•u•lent (FEK-yuh-luhnt)  adj

Definition:
full of foul or impure matter; fecal

feculence noun; feculency adjective

Origin:
1425–75; from M.Fr. féculent, from L. faeculentus "abounding in dregs," from stem faec-

Related:
Synonyms: dirty, polluted, fecal, foul, impure, miry, nasty, putrid, soiled, unclean, vile
Related Words: fecal, feces

Sentence Examples:
• In due time he was dragged across, half strangled, and dreadfully beslubbered by the feculent waters.  "There," said the Ferryman, hauling him ashore and disengaging him, "you are now in the City of Political Distinction.  It has fifty millions of inhabitants, and as the colour of the Filthy Pool does not wash off, they all look exactly alike." -Fantastic Fables, Ambrose Bierce

• The political cesspool is deeper, broader, filthier and more feculent than ever. Seward is triumphant, and the patriots have very much elongated countenances. -Diary, Adam Gurowski
 
• And as the real source of all this mischief is either a foul and feculent humour or a black and gross vapour, which obscures, empoisons, and contaminates the animal spirits, it is proper afterwards that he should have a bath of pure and clean water, with abundance of whey; to purify, by the water, the feculency of the foul humour, and by the whey to clarify the blackness of the vapour. -Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, Molière

The Storyline
And watching the clear disregard her staff had for her moved that mood from sour to foul to feculent.

Sources: Free Dictionary, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

matutinal

ma•tut•in•al (muh-TOOT-n-l)  adj

Definition:
of, relating to, or occurring in the morning

matutinally adverb
Origin:
1650s, from L. matutinalis, from matutinus, from Matuta, Roman goddess of dawn, related to maturus “early”

Sentence Examples:
• The tiny lizard in his comfortable position on the summit of a gigantic pumpkin can continue his matutinal sleep in peace; the stork can continue undisturbed his preparations for his impending long voyage over seas. Man has not yet thought to break by travail or by song the peaceful silence of the plain. -A Bride of the Plains, Baroness Emmuska Orczy

• Can there be anything more dreadful than the matutinal apparition of an ugly old maid at her window? Of all the grotesque sights which amuse the eyes of travellers in country towns, that is the most unpleasant. -Pierrette, Honore de Balzac

• Breakfast, gentlemen, breakfast. The matutinal coffee and one of Brader’s rolls, not like the London French, but passably good; and there is some cold stuffed chine. -The Weathercock, George Manville Fenn

The Storyline
Anna's matutinal dislocations left her in no mood however for business as usual.

Why This Word:

Matutinal is a term used in the life sciences, to describe an organism that is only or primarily active in the pre-dawn hours or early morning. The variant term matinal is used apparently only in entomology, often used in literature on the natural history and ecology of bees.

Sources: Free Dictionary, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

venial

ve•ni•al (VEE-nee-uhl, VEEN-yuhl)  adj

Definition:
able to be forgiven or pardoned; not seriously wrong; excusable; trifling; minor


veniality, venialness noun; venially adverb

Origin:
c.1300, from O.Fr. venial, from L. venialis "pardonable," from venia "forgiveness, indulgence, pardon," related to venus "sexual love, desire"

Related:
Synonyms: pardonable, defensible, excusable, forgivable, justifiable, minor, tolerable


Sentence Examples:
• He was brought up with Spartan severity by his father and his aunt. The most venial self-indulgence was regarded as criminal. -The Reign of Henry the Eighth, James Anthony Froude

• It was once thought a venial offence, in very many countries of Europe, to destroy an enemy by slow poison. Persons who would have revolted at the idea of stabbing a man to the heart, drugged his pottage without scruple. Ladies of gentle birth and manners caught the contagion of murder, until poisoning, under their auspices, became quite fashionable. -Memoirs Of Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness of Crowds, Charles Mackay

• To an Englishman, it is hoped it may be a source of venial self-congratulation, that the first publication upon Norman architecture originates in his own island: he will likewise probably not be displeased to find, that this collection of the finest remaining specimens of Norman art upon the continent, contains nothing which he cannot rival, indeed surpass, at home. -Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, John Sell Cotman

The Storyline
Her venial interruption was soon forgiven and the staff returned to their phones.

Sources: Dictionary.com, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

zetetic

ze•te•tic (zeh-TEH-tic)  adj

Definition:
proceeding by or arrived at through inquiry


Also, noun: a seeker; -- a name adopted by some of the Pyrrhonists

zeteticly adverb

Origin:
1640s, from Mod.L. zeteticus, from Gk. zetetikos "searching, inquiring," from zetetos, verbal adj. of zetein "seek for, inquire into"


Sentence Examples:
• To do this chief justice, he is probably far less confident about the flatness of the earth than any of his disciples. Under the assumed name of Parallax he visited most of the chief towns of England, propounding what he calls his system of zetetic astronomy. Why he should call himself Parallax it would be hard to say; unless it be that the verb from which the word is derived signifies primarily to shift about or dodge, and secondarily to alter a little, especially for the worse. His employment of the word zetetic is less doubtful, as he claims for his system that it alone is founded on the true seeking out of Nature's secrets. -Myths and Marvels of Astronomy, Richard A. Proctor

• In our courts of Justice we have also an example of the zetetic process. A prisoner is placed at the bar; evidence for and against him is advanced; it is carefully arranged and patiently considered; and only such a verdict given as could not in justice be avoided. -Zetetic astronomy,Samuel Birley Rowbotham

• A zetetic sceptic feels sure or unsure about remote possibilities of error in relation to the knowledge claims he has witnessed. He does not deny that he may often be linguistically, or better, socially, justified in accepting such claims as legitimate. The social and linguistic warrant to use the phrase "I know that . . ." is for him not a sufficient reason actually to use it. -The selected works of Arne Naess

The Storyline
She decided to proceed by the zetetic process. "Can anyone tell me where they are and why they're here?"

Sources: Answers.com, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

temerarious

tem•e•rar•i•ous (tem-uh-RAIR-ee-uhs)  adj

Definition:
presumptuously or recklessly daring

temerariousness noun;  temerariously adverb

Origin:
1532; from L. temerarius “fortuitous, rash,” from temere “blindly, rashly”, related to tenebrae "darkness," from PIE base *temes- "dark"

Related:
Synonyms: reckless, rash, brash, daring, foolhardy, heedless
Related Words: temerity

Sentence Examples:
• The Master of the Horse was a young officer of a brave and even temerarious disposition.  He greeted the news with delight, and hastened to make ready.  -New Arabian Nights, Robert Louis Stevenson

• To look back upon the past year, and see how little we have striven and to what small purpose: and how often we have been cowardly and hung back, or temerarious and rushed unwisely in; and how every day and all day long we have transgressed the law of kindness;--it may seem a paradox, but in the bitterness of these discoveries, a certain consolation resides. -A Christmas Sermon, Robert Louis Stevenson

• When the guard mounted to his post he was sure he saw a temerarious Yankee in front of him, and hastened to slay him.  -Andersonville, John McElroy

The Storyline
... and she tried to formulate the best way to suggest something so temerarious as getting back to work.


Sources: Free Dictionary, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

beatific

be•a•tif•ic (bee-uh-TIF-ik)  adj

Definition:
1. bestowing bliss, blessings, happiness, or the like
2. blissful; saintly

beatifically adverb

Origin:
1630s, from L.L. beatificus, from L. beatus "blessed"

Related:
Synonyms: serene, exalted, angelic, blissful, euphoric, happy, joyful
Related Words: beatify, beatitude

Sentence Examples:
• Come then, let us unite our ideas, let us speak together, but let us yet mention as present, those beatific thoughts and imaginings which are indeed past. Let us ever remember and cherish in our heart of hearts those golden fore-tastes of future eternity, or those rapturous reminiscences of past, which prove beyond logical demonstration, the existence of some vital principle in man, godlike in faculties, in essence immaterial, in duration, immortal! - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, 1829

• A fumbling is heard outside the door.  It is opened suddenly; Jack Barthwick seems to fall into the room.  He stands holding by the door knob, staring before him, with a beatific smile. He is in evening dress and opera hat, and carries in his hand a sky-blue velvet lady's reticule.  His boyish face is freshly coloured and clean-shaven.  An overcoat is hanging on his arm. -The Silver Box, John Galsworthy

• The increasing crowd stares with beatific placidity. People emerge impatiently from the bowels of the throbbing motor-bus and slip down from its back, and either join the crowd or vanish. -The Author's Craft, Arnold Bennett

The Storyline
She tried to paste on her best beatific smile.

Sources: Dictionary.com, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

cynosure

cyn•o•sure (SAHY-nuh-shoor, SIN-uh-)  n

Definition:
1. a center of attraction or attention
2. one that serves to direct or guide
3. the northern constellation Ursa Minor; also : north star

Origin:
1565; from M.Fr. cynosure (16c.), from L. Cynosura, lit. "dog's tail," the constellation (now Ursa Minor) containing the North Star, the focus of navigation, from Gk. kynosoura, lit. "dog's tail," from kyon (gen. kynos) + oura "tail"

Related:
Related Words: cynic

Sentence Examples:
• Relate how I was born of rich yet honest parents, was reared in the 'nurture and admonition of the Lord,' and, according to the bent of a froward youth, have stumbled along to become the cynosure of a ribald age. -Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions, Slason Thompson

• The present generation is prone to forget that when the rivals met in joint debate fifty years ago, on the prairies of Illinois, it was Senator Douglas, and not Mr. Lincoln, who was the cynosure of all observing eyes. -Stephen A. Douglas, Allen Johnson

• Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
  Whilst the landskip round it measures:
  Russet lawns, and fallows grey,
  Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
  Mountains on whose barren breast
  The labouring clouds do often rest;
  Meadows trim, with daisies pied;
  Shallow brooks, and rivers wide;
  Towers and battlements it sees
  Bosomed high in tufted trees,
  Where perhaps some beauty lies,
  The cynosure of neighbouring eyes.
-L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas, John Milton

The Storyline
"Hey, guys," she said in a loud voice when she saw that each person's phone had become the cynosure of their private universe.

Sources: Merriam-Webster, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

motile

mo•tile (MOHT-l, MOH-til)

Definition:
adjective
moving or capable of moving spontaneously
noun
a person whose prevailing mental imagery takes the form of inner feelings of action

motility noun

Origin:
1864, from Latin mot-, pp. stem of movere "move, set in motion"

Related:
Related Words: motion, mobile, remove, motor, promote, emotion, motive, commotion

Sentence Examples:
• This group of the protophytes is unquestionably closely related to certain low animals (Monads or Flagellata), with which they are sometimes united. They are characterized by being actively motile, and are either strictly unicellular, or the cells are united by a gelatinous envelope into a colony of definite form. -Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany, Douglas Houghton Campbell

• To accomplish this latter end of its journey the spermatozoon is endowed with some form of motile apparatus, and this frequently takes the form of a long flagellum, or whip-like process, by the lashing of which the little creature propels itself much as a tadpole with its tail. -Mendelism, Third Edition

• The more motile organisms are constantly, by very reason of their motility, encountering situations which put a strain upon the attention. -Sex and Society, William I. Thomas

The Storyline
And this was one of those days that she questioned if all of her employees were truly motile.

Sources:Merriam-Webster, Dictionary.com, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

simony

si•mo•ny (SAHY-muh-nee, SIM-uh-)  n

Definition:
1. the making of profit out of sacred things
2. the sin of buying or selling ecclesiastical preferments, benefices, etc

simonist noun

Origin:
175–1225; from O.Fr. simonie, from L.L. simonia, from Simon Magus, the Samaritan magician who was rebuked by Peter when he tried to buy the power of conferring the Holy Spirit (Acts viii:18-20)


Sentence Examples:
• He had smiled, perhaps, and shaken his head dubiously, as he heard simple folk talk of a Pope Angelico, who was to come by-and-by and bring in a new order of things, to purify the Church from simony, and the lives of the clergy from scandal—a state of affairs too different from what existed under Innocent the Eighth for a shrewd merchant and politician to regard the prospect as worthy of entering into his calculations.  -Romola, George Eliot

• It was customary for the chapter to lease at a handsome price to seignorial families, and even to rich burghers, the right to be present at the services, themselves and their servants exclusively, in the various lateral chapels of the long side-aisles of the cathedral. This simony is in practice to the present day. -Maitre Cornelius, Honore de Balzac

• Herbert was a prelate of a type that in the early days helped [4]to build up the Church and give her stability. His nature must have been curiously complex; on the one hand, a man of action and with great capability of administration, often justifying his means by the end he had in view, and not being debarred from realising his schemes by any delicate scruples, he yet, on the other hand, presents in his letters a chastened spirituality that is not compatible with the methods he pursued when thinking only of the temporal advantages which might accrue on any certain line of action. But it may be said that his letters appear to date from the later period of his life, and after he had founded the cathedral as an expiation of that sin of simony he appears to have so deeply repented. -Bell's Cathedrals, C. H. B. Quennell

The Storyline
The lack of business weighed on her. She'd even considered paying her brother to pray for the store, excepting it vaguely smacked of simony.

Why This Word:

Simony is the crime of paying for sacraments and consequently for holy offices or positions in the hierarchy of a church, named after Simon Magus, who appears in the Acts of the Apostles 8:18-24. Simon Magus offers the disciples of Jesus, Peter and John payment so that anyone on whom he would place his hands would receive the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the origin of the term simony but it also extends to other forms of trafficking for money in "spiritual things".

Sources: Dictionary.com, Online Etymology, Wikipedia

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

apiary

a•pi•ar•y (EY-pee-er-ee)  n

Definition:
a place where bees and beehives are kept, especially a place where bees are raised for their honey


Origin:
1654; from L. apiarium "beehouse, beehive," neut. of apiarius "of bees," from apis "bee," a mystery word unrelated to any similar words in other I.E. languages

Related:

Related Words: apiarist: beekeeper

Sentence Examples:
• How the bees love it, and they bring the delicious odor of the blooming plant to the hive with them, so that in the moist warm twilight the apiary is redolent with the perfume of buckwheat -Locusts and Wild Honey, John Burroughs

• The scene was deep in the forests of Ohio, a short distance from the Miami river. An Indian town of twenty-five or thirty lodges here stood, resembling a giant apiary, with its inhabitants flitting in and out, darting hither and thither, like so many bees. -Oonomoo the Huron, Edward S. Ellis

• On the contrary, the exhibition of the wealth and strength of the colonies during that war, excited her jealousy, led to greater exactions, and were made a pretense for more flagrant acts of injustice. She seemed to regard the Americans as industrious bees, working in a hive in her own apiary, in duty bound to lay up stores of honey for her especial use, and entitled to only the poor requital of a little treacle. -Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851

The Storyline
When she managed to break away, she went out into the shop where she hoped to find buzzing, chirping hive of activity.  But what she found was neither apiary nor aviary.


Sources: Free Dictionary, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

juvenescent

ju•ve•nes•cent (joo-vuh-NES-uhnt)  adj

Definition:
1. being or becoming youthful; young
2. young in appearance
3. having the power to make young or youthful

juvenescence noun

Origin:
1815–25;  from L juvene-scent-  (s. of juvene-sce-ns,  prp. of juvene-scere  to become youthful), equiv. to juven-  young  + -escent

Related:
Related Words: juvenal, rejuvenate, juvenile, junior

Sentence Examples:
• "But it's just like her," he said. "She is the sort of relative who always does turn up unexpectedly, Dolly. How does she look?"
"Juvenescent," said Dolly; "depressingly so to persons who rely upon her for the realizing of expectations. A very few minutes satisfied me that I should never become Mrs. Griffith Donne upon her money."
-Vagabondia, Frances Hodgson Burnett

• It had been a dull, wet day and he was sitting by his fire, when there came a tap at his door. "Flora;" by which juvenescent name his aged Indian handmaid was known, usually announced her presence with an imitation of a curlew's cry: it could not be her. -Drift from Two Shores, Bret Harte

• She was the great passion of every soul, she, the Virgin most powerful, the Virgin most merciful, the Mirror of Justice, the Seat of Wisdom. All hands were stretched towards her, Mystical Rose in the dim light of the chapels, Tower of Ivory on the horizon of dreamland, Gate of Heaven leading into the Infinite. Each day at early dawn she shone forth, bright Morning Star, gay with juvenescent hope. Lourdes, Emile Zola

The Storyline
While only in her late 20s, Anna was the oldest person on the juvenescent staff at the bookstore.


Sources: Dictionary.com

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

cicatrize

cic•a•trize (SIK-uh-trahyz)  v
also cicatrise (British)

Definition:
to heal or become healed by the formation of scar tissue

cicatrized past participle; cicatrized past tense; cicatrizing present participle; cicatrizes 3rd person singular present; cicatrization, cicatrizer noun; cicatrizant adjective; cicatrizingly adverb

Origin:
1350–1400; from Middle English cicatrizen, from Old French cicatriser , from Medieval Latin cictrizre, alteration of Late Latin cictrcr, "to scar over", from Latin cictrx, cictrc-, cicatrix

Related:
Related Words: cicatrice or cicatrix: a scar left by the formation of new connective tissue over a healing sore or wound

Sentence Examples:
• Whoever should once make my soul lose her footing, would never set her upright again: she retastes and researches herself too profoundly, and too much to the quick, and therefore would never let the wound she had received heal and cicatrise. -The Essays of Montaigne, Michel de Montaigne

• The wailful cries of “La Ilah illa Allah!” reached to the Caliph, who was eager to cicatrise himself and attend the ceremonial; nor could he have been dissuaded, had not his excessive weakness disabled him from walking; at the few first steps he fell on the ground, and his people were obliged to lay him on a bed, where he remained many days in such a state of insensibility, as excited compassion in the Emir himself.  -The History of the Caliph Vathek, William Beckford

• There he found the identical seal with which he had had the encounter in the morning, suffering most grievously from a tremendous cut in its hind-quarter.  The seal-killer was then desired, with his hand, to cicatrise the wound, upon doing which it immediately healed, and the seal arose from its bed in perfect health.  -Folk-Lore and Legends, Anonymous

The Storyline
But Anna's attention was pulled away from Jack's soliloquy by the wound on his had that had begun to cicatrize, that he refused to cover.

Sources: Free Dictionary

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

pervicacious

per•vi•ca•cious (pur-vi-KEY-shuhs)  adj

Definition:
extremely willful; obstinate; stubborn

pervicaciousness noun; pervicaciously adverb

Origin:
1625–35;  from Latin pervica-c-,  s. of pervica-x  stubborn, willful ( per-  + vic-,  var. s. of vincere  to conquer  + -a-x  adj. suffix denoting tendency or ability) + -ious

Related:
Synonyms: adamant, bullheaded, cantankerous, contumacious, inexorable, inflexible, intractable, mulish, obdurate, pertinacious, pigheaded,  refractory, tenacious, unbending, unreasonable, unshakable, willful

Sentence Examples:
• For a girl to lay so much stress upon going to church, and yet resolve to defy her parents, in an article of the greatest consequence to them, and to the whole family, is an absurdity.  You are recommended, Miss, to the practice of your private devotions.  May they be efficacious upon the mind of one of the most pervicacious young creatures that ever was heard of! -Clarissa, Samuel Richardson

• Of late, I am told by shopkeepers, the tin box with the pervicacious cover is becoming popular; but I remain true to my sponge in a bottle: for, unlike the leopard, I am able to change my spots. -The Perfect Gentleman, Ralph Bergengren

• It happened a little while thereafter that he made a most heavy regret thereof to his father, attributing the causes of his bad success in pacificatory enterprises to the perversity, stubbornness, froward, cross, and backward inclinations of the people of his time; roundly, boldly, and irreverently upbraiding, that if but a score of years before the world had been so wayward, obstinate, pervicacious, implacable, and out of all square, frame, and order as it was then, his father had never attained to and acquired the honour and title of Strife-appeaser so irrefragably, inviolably, and irrevocably as he had done.  -Gargantua and Pantagruel, Francois Rabelais

The Storyline
... not the least of which was due to his pervicaciousness in fighting these petty battles.

Sources: Dictionary.com

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

nescience

nes•ci•ence (NESH-uhns, NESH-ee-uhns, NES-ee-)  n

Definition:
absence of knowledge or awareness; ignorance

nescient adjective

Origin:
1612; from L.L. nescientia, from nesciens prp. of nescire, from ne "not" + scire "to know"

Related:
Synonyms: ignorance, illiteracy, incomprehension, inscience, sciolism
Related Words: sciolist, prescience, conscience, science, inscience

Sentence Examples:
• Only a man who knows nothing of motors talks of motoring without petrol; only a man who knows nothing of reason talks of reasoning without strong, undisputed first principles. Here he had no strong first principles. Flambeau had been missed at Harwich; and if he was in London at all, he might be anything from a tall tramp on Wimbledon Common to a tall toast-master at the Hotel Metropole. In such a naked state of nescience, Valentin had a view and a method of his own.  -The Innocence of Father Brown, G. K. Chesterton

• These tribes, socially less advanced than the Arunta, have not the Arunta nescience of the facts of procreation, a nescience which I regard as merely the consequence and corollary of the Arunta philosophy of reincarnation. -The Euahlayi Tribe, K. Langloh Parker

• It is wise in them, to keep them in abject ignorance, for the strong man armed must be bound before we can spoil his house--the powerful intellect of man must be bound down with the iron chains of nescience before we can rob him of his rights as a man; we must reduce him to a thing before we can claim the right to set our feet upon his neck, because it was only all things which were originally put under the feet of man by the Almighty and Beneficent Father of all, who has declared himself to be no respecter of persons, whether red, white or black. -An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South, Angelina Emily Grimke

The Storyline
She understood that it just his fear and nescience, but it was still annoying.

Sources: Free Dictionary, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

misoneism

mis•o•ne•is•m (mis-oh-NEE-iz-uhm)  n

Definition:
a hatred, fear, or intolerance of innovation or change

misoneist noun; misoneistic adjective

Origin:
1886; Italian misoneismo, from Greek misein + neos new + Italian -ismo -ism

Related:
Related Words:from neo: neon, neophyte, new
from miso: misogamy, misogyny, misandry

Sentence Examples:
• Every progress in nature is the result of a struggle between the tendency to immobility, manifested by misoneism, or the hatred of novelty, and a foreign force which seeks to conquer this tendency. -Criminal Man, Gina Lombroso-Ferrero

• In the hypothesis of collective invention, it seems that the mass of people should applaud inventors, recognizing itself in them, seeing its confused thought take form and body: but most often the contrary happens. The misoneism of crowds seems to me one of the strongest arguments in favor of the individual character of invention. -Essay on the Creative Imagination, Th. Ribot

• Philoneism may be nobler and more humane, but, unfortunately, it is only misoneism that is true. Generally speaking, every man only works in order to avoid unpleasantness.  -Anarchism, E. V. Zenker

The Storyline
"What is this?!",  was the voice that turned her eyes up for the stack of papers. Her assistant was holding the schedule in the new format and was clearly agitated. This was no surprise. Each time Anna tried to innovate or improve, Jack's misoneism provoked a clash.

Sources: Merriam-Webster

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

hesternal

he•ster•nal (he-STER-nuhl)  adj

Definition:
of or pertaining to yesterday


Origin:
from Latin hesternus "of yesterday"

Related:
Synonyms: yester
Related Words:
hodiernal (ho-di-ER-nuhl) of or pertaining to the present day
nudiustertian (nu-di-uhs-TUR-shuhn) of or relating to the day before yesterday
crastinal (tense) is a future tense for the following day

Sentence Examples:
• "There is ice at both poles, north and south—all extremes are the same—misery belongs to the highest and the lowest only,—to the emperor and Pg 24the beggar, when unsixpenced and unthroned. There is, to be sure, a damned insipid medium—an equinoctial line—no one knows where, except upon maps and measurement.
"'And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.'
I will keep no further journal of that same hesternal torch-light; and, to prevent me from returning, like a dog, to the vomit of memory, I tear out the remaining leaves of this volume, and write, in Ipecacuanha,—'that the Bourbons are restored!!!'—'Hang up philosophy.' To be sure, I have long despised myself and man, but I never spat in the face of my species before—'O fool! I shall go mad.'"
 -Life of Lord Byron, Thomas Moore

• I rose by candle-light, and consumed, in the intensest application, the hours which every other individual of our party wasted in enervating slumbers, from the hesternal dissipation or debauch. -Pelham, Edward Bulwer-Lytton

• Indoor smoking is detestable. Life has few direr disenchanters than the morning smells of obsolete tobacco, relics though they be of hesternal beatitude. -Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce, E. R. Billings

The Storyline
The unfinished hesternal papers and reports were right where she had left them No kind soul had completed the tasks in the interim and they didn't vanish on their own accord.

Sources: Wordsmith

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

ligneous

lig•ne•ous (LIG-nee-uhs)  adj

Definition:
consisting of or having the texture or appearance of wood; woody

lignum noun

Origin:
1626; from Latin ligneus, from lignum "wood"

Related:
Synonyms: arboraceous, wooden, xyloid, timbered, woody


Sentence Examples:
• The coarser metals are in gross abundance. Lately evidences of bituminous coal have been detected. My theory has ever been that coal is a ligneous formation. I told Col. Whitman, in times past, that the neighborhood of Dayton (Nevada) betrayed no present or previous manifestations of a ligneous foundation, and that hence I had no confidence in his lauded coal mines. -Roughing It, Mark Twain

• No sooner had the beautiful Madame Rabourdin decided to interfere in her husband's administrative advancement than she fathomed Clement des Lupeaulx's true character, and studied him thoughtfully to discover whether in this thin strip of deal there were ligneous fibres strong enough to let her lightly trip across it from the bureau to the department, from a salary of eight thousand a year to twelve thousand. -Bureaucracy, Honore de Balzac

• We are about to discuss a subject as critical and important to take up as the abdominal aorta; for should we offend the class we are about to portray, there are fifteen hundred medical students, arrived this week in London, ripe and ready to avenge themselves upon our devoted cranium, which, although hardened throughout its ligneous formation by many blows, would not be proof against their united efforts. -Punch,
Or The London Charivari, 1841

The Storyline
She didn't have long to worry about that though. Her bus arrived at her stop.She got off and walked the block and half to the bookstore. She entered, waved hello to a coworker, and paused for a moment at the counter in the center of the store, ran her hand over the smooth, polished ligneous surface and headed towards her office.


Sources: Free Dictionary, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

epigone

ep•i•gone (EP-uh-gohn)  n

Definition:
1. an inferior imitator, especially of some distinguished writer, artist, musician, or philosopher.
2. a follower or disciple

epigonism noun; epigonic, epigonous adjective

Origin:
1865; from Gk. epigonoi, in classical use with reference to the sons of the Seven who warred against Thebes; plural of epigonos “born afterward” from epi  + -gonos, from root of gignesthai “to be born” related to genos "race, birth, descent"

Related:
Synonyms: imitator, disciple
Related Words: genus

Sentence Examples:
• They only started the notion of an epigone-age in order to secure peace for themselves, and to be able to reject all the efforts of disturbing innovators summarily as the work of epigones. -Thoughts out of Season, Friedrich Nietzsche

• Violent to exaggeration in composition, morbidly mystic, there are power and emotional quality revealed in his work; above all else he anticipated Velasquez in his use of cool gray tones, and as a pupil or at least a disciple of Titian he is, as his latest biographer, Señor Manuel B. Cossio, names him, "the last epigone of the Italian Renaissance." -Promenades of an Impressionist, James Huneker
 
• Allende is not just an epigone of Garcia Marquez. Writing in the tradition of Latin America's magic realists, she has a singular talent for producing full- scale representational portraits with comic surreal touches. -Time, 1985

The Storyline
Routine completed, Anna pulled out her notebook to review her notes for her all-in-progress novel she'd never really started in earnest. Having spent so long drinking in great literature, she couldn't shake the feeling that anything she might create would be only an epigone of her favorite works.

Sources: Dictionary.com, Wiktionary, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

renascent

re•nas•cent (ri-NEY-suhnt)  adj

Definition:
being reborn; springing again into being or vigor

renascence noun;  renascently adverb

Origin:
1727, from renascent, from L. renascentem (nom. renascens), prp. of renasci "be born again"

Related:
Synonyms: awakened,  invigorated,  reactivated, reanimated, reborn, recovered, recrudescent, regenerated, rejuvenatd, renewed, restored,  resurrected, revitalizated, revived, revivified
Related Words: from renasci: Renaissance
from nasci: natal, cognate, nascent, innate, native, nation

Sentence Examples:
• And yet, starting from this last platitude, one may perhaps be suffered to speculate as to the particular forms that our renascent drama is likely to assume.  For our drama is renascent, and nothing will stop its growth.  It is not renascent because this or that man is writing, but because of a new spirit. -Essays Concerning Letters, John Galsworthy

• In the early days of renascent humanism, the first to renew the pastoral tradition, broken for some ten centuries, was Francesco Petrarca. -Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama, Walter W. Greg

• Altogether, these public parks, which are now being planted all over south Italy, testify to renascent taste; they and the burial-places are often the only spots where the deafened and light-bedazzled stranger may find a little green content. -Old Calabria, Norman Douglas

The Storyline
which now included flossing on her way to work, owing to her renascent interest in dental hygiene and her nascent willingness to ignore the stares of her fellow passengers.


Sources: Dictionary.com, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

diurnal

di•ur•nal (dahy-UR-nl)  adj

Definition:
1. of or pertaining to a day or each day; daily
2. of or belonging to the daytime
3. showing a periodic alteration of condition with day and night, as certain flowers that open by day and close by night (botany)
4. active by day, as certain birds and insects ( opposed to nocturnal)
5. a service book containing offices for the daily hours of prayer (liturgy)
6. a diary (archaic)
7. a newspaper, esp. a daily one (archaic)

diurnalness noun;  diurnally adverb

Origin:
late 14c., from L.L. diurnalis "daily," from L. dies "day" + -urnus, an adj. suffix denoting time.  Dies "day" is from PIE base *dyeu-  lit. "to shine"

Related:
transdiurnal, undiurnal 
Synonyms: circadian, daily, everyday, quotidian
Related Words: quotidian, circadian, diary, diet, per diem, meridian, dial, dismal

Sentence Examples:
• The early astronomers had, moreover, learned to recognise the fixed stars. It was noticed that, like the sun, many of these stars rose and set in consequence of the diurnal movement, while the moon obviously followed a similar law. -The Story of the Heavens, Robert Stawell Ball

• Rabbits and hares are crepuscular and possibly more nocturnal than diurnal. So far as I know they do not store food as do their diurnal relatives, the pikas. -A Synopsis of the North American Lagomorpha, E. Raymond Hall

• He has adhered to the diurnal form of narrative, for the sake of recording, for the benefit of future travellers, the numbers, marks, latitude, etc., of each camp, and endeavoured to compass by this composite method the value of a work of record with the interest of a narrative. -The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine, Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine

The Storyline
As she contemplated, she began to fall into her diurnal routine.

Sources: Dictionary.com, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

subdolous

sub•do•lous (SUB-duh-luhs)  adj

Definition:
somewhat crafty; sly; cunning; artful; deceitful

Origin:
from Latin subdolus, from sub- (slightly) + dolus (deceit)

Related:
Synonyms: crafty; sly; cunning; artful; deceitful
Related Words:sedulous: se- "without, apart" + dolo, ablative of dolus "deception, guile"

Sentence Examples:
• We are not denied a glimpse of him as he appears when engaged in the subdolous practices in which common fame makes him an expert; but it is only a glimpse that we get, and a distant one. -The Nation, 1873

• She looked at the subdolous, pale-green eyes, with their predatory restlessness, at the square-blocked, flaccid jaw, and the beefy, animal-like massiveness of the strong neck, at the huge form odorous of gin and cigar smoke, and the great, hairy hands marked with their purplish veinings.  It seemed like a ghost out of some long-past and only half-remembered life. -Phantom Wires, Arthur Stringer

• Such impenetrable prudence on all sides had often blunted the subdolous ingenuity of the architect and plotter of comedies! -Curiosities of Literature, Isaac Disraeli

The Storyline
She knew she was running late and she began planning a subdolous ruse to ease her way into her day.


Sources: Wordnik

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

xeric

zer•ic (ZEER-ik)  adj

Definition:
of, pertaining to, or adapted to a dry environment

xerically adverb

Origin:
1926;  from Greek xerós dry + -ic

Related:
hydric, characterized by, relating to, or requiring an abundance of moisture
mesic, characterized by, relating to, or requiring a moderate amount of moisture 
Related Words: xerasia, excessive dryness of hair
xerophyte, a plant which is able to survive in an environment with little available water
xerotic, dry
xerosis, an abnormal dryness of the skin or mucus membranes

Sentence Examples:
• Even greater differences in the local aspect of woodland on the hillsides are caused by slope exposure. On south facing slopes, [Pg 93] especially, the woodland is noticeably different from that in other situations, and of more xeric aspect. -The Forest Habitat of the University of Kansas Natural History Reservation, Henry S. Fitch, Ronald L. McGregor

• As he points out, that species requires hydric communities of cool climates, and in the Wisconsin Glacial age such climates probably prevailed in the high mountainous region where San Josecito is located. Since the time when a more mesic boreal environment occurred at San Josecito, climatic shifts have favored more xeric conditions as are found in the vicinity of the cave today. -Pleistocene Pocket Gophers From San Josecito Cave, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, Robert J. Russell

• The aridity of western Coahuila restricts, to a large extent, the diversity of the breeding populations of its avifauna. Xeric conditions surrounding some of the higher mountains are barriers to movement of some species. -Birds from Coahuila, Mexico, Emil K. Urban

The Storyline
Meanwhile Anna was on the bus headed to work, staring out the window at the plants struggling to survive, ill-suited to the xeric conditions brought on by the recent drought.

Sources: Dictionary.com

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

lucubration

lu•cu•bra•tion (loo-kyoo-BREY-shuhn)  n

Definition:
1. laborious work, study, thought, etc., esp. at night
2. the result of such activity, as a learned speech or dissertation
3. any literary effort, esp. of a pretentious or solemn nature (often in the plural: lucubrations)
4. to write in a scholarly fashion; produce scholarship

lucubrate verb

Origin:
1595; from L. lucubrationem (nom. lucubratio) "nocturnal study, night work," from lucubratus, pp. of lucubrare, lit. "to work by artificial light," from stem of lucere "to shine"

Related:
Related Words: from lucere: lucent, lucid, luminary, luster

Sentence Examples:
• "It has, among other unusualities, (I hope you like the gentleness of the word!) those dashes which—You ought to have learned by this time that They don't like to read over dashes."
"Why not?" asked I, again. "I like them. And, they are my own!"
"Well, you know a dash necessitates lucubration. It stands for something which you trust your reader to supply. That is unfair. If you are writing a book and receiving an honorarium for it, do not expect him to do it. It is a bit like eating. One does not go to a restaurant, and pay for his food, then cook it himself."
-The Way of the Gods, John Luther Long

• This man--why, he was clean to look at, his eyes were blue, with the tired look of scholarly lucubrations, and his skin had the normal pallor of sedentary existence. -Revolution and Other Essays, Jack London

• Verbosity --This is the power of writing two columns in answer to a three-line paragraph--of twisting, turning, transmogrifying, dissecting, kicking, cuffing, illustrating, turning inside out, and outside in again the aforesaid paragraph. The real master of this art will show his skill by the great number of times in which he will manage to say "We" in the course of his lucubration. -Punchinelli

The Storyline
While once he had aspirations to write a history of the late middle ages, today his lucubrations produced an undifferentiated mix of fact and fiction that helped explain his intolerable circumstances.

Sources: Dictionary.com, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

garniture

gar•ni•ture (GAHR-ni-cher)  n

Definition:
1. something that garnishes; decoration; adornment
2. a set of plate armor having pieces of exchange for all purposes (armor)


Origin:
1525–35;  from French, equiv. to Middle French garnir  to garnish  + -ture

Related:
Synonyms: adornment, beautification, decoration, embellishment, garnishment, gilding, ornament, ornamentation
Related Words: garnish, garment

Sentence Examples:
•   The snows of winter crown them with a crystal crown,
    And the silver clouds of summer round them cling;
  The autumn's scarlet mantle flows in richness down;
    And they revel in the garniture of spring.
-The Mountains, Washington Gladden, 1859

• No epoch of time can claim a copyright in these immortal fables. They seem never to have been made; and certainly, so long as man exists, they can never perish; but, by their indestructibility itself, they are legitimate subjects for every age to clothe with its own garniture of manners and sentiment, and to imbue with its own morality. -A Wonder Book for Girls & Boys, Nathaniel Hawthorne

•They were mounted on horses or mules of every color, shape, and size,—themselves yellow-faced, ragged, and dirty; nevertheless, their deadly garniture, rifles, revolvers, and bowie-knives, and their fierce and shaggy looks, kept them from being laughed at. -Atlantic Monthly, 1859

The Storyline
And he decorated that story with the garniture of his new station - the layers of clothing, the abandoned shopping cart stuffed with possessions, ready-made cardboard signs for various occasional - playing to expectations he understood only too well


Sources: Dictionary.com

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

fescennine

fesc•e•nnine (FES-uh-nyn)  adj

Definition:
licentious, obscene, scurrilous

Origin:
1601; Latin fescennini (versus), ribald songs sung at rustic weddings, from Fescinninus of Fescennium, a town of ancient Etruria known for its licentious poetry

Related:
Synonyms: bawdy, coarse, crude, dirty, foul, indecent, lascivious, lewd, profane, raunchy, ribald, smutty, vulgar, wanton, licentious, obscene, scurrilous

Sentence Examples:
• Chance and jollity first found out those verses which they called Saturnian and Fescennine; or rather human nature, which is inclined to poetry, first produced them rude and barbarous and unpolished, as all other operations of the soul are in their beginnings before they are cultivated with art and study. -Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry, John Dryden
• In him it was allied to a mordant humour, a certain fescennine abstraction which sometimes offends: this, however, does not excuse the use of the word "eccentric," more misapplied than any word in the English language, except perhaps "grotesque" and "picturesque." All great art is eccentric to the conservative multitude. -Aubrey Beardsley, Robert Ross
• Moore finely says of the same conversation,that it must have been like the procession of a Roman triumph, exhibiting power and riches at every step, occasionally mingling the low Fescennine jest with the lofty music of the march, but glittering all over with the spoils of a ransacked world. -Talks on Talking, Grenville Kleiser

The Storyline
The contempt and mistreatment he had experienced since his katabasis into the underside of society had built an ongoing narrative in his, alternately supernal and fescinnine, that he could no longer turn off.

Sources: Merriam-Webster

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

transpicuous

tran•spic•u•ous (tran-SPIK-yoo-uhs)  adj

Definition:
easily understood or seen through

transpicuously adverb
Origin:
1638; from Latin transpicere to look through, from trans- + specere to look

Related:
Synonyms: transparent, clear, apprehensible, comprehensible, evident, graspable, lucent, lucid, obvious, perceptible, plain, unambiguous
Antonym: recondite
Related Words: from specere to look: conspicuous, perspicuous, specimen, spectrum, speculum, aspect, spectacle, respect, introspection, expect, suspect, despicable, circumspect, speculation, perspective, inspection

Sentence Examples:
•                     On earth no wave
How clean soe'er, that would not seem to have
Some mixture in itself, compar'd with this,
Transpicuous, clear; yet darkly on it roll'd,
Darkly beneath perpetual gloom, which ne'er
Admits or sun or moon light there to shine.
-Purgatory, Dante Alighieri

• Relations with uncooked food are, in Versailles, distinguished by an unwonted intimacy. No one, however dignified his station or appearance, is ashamed of purchasing the materials for his dinner in the open market, or of carrying them home exposed to the view of the world through the transpicuous meshes of a string bag. -A Versailles Christmas-Tide, Mary Stuart Boyd

• Inside and outside he was transpicuous; his virtues were more than a model to the world. -The Zen Experience, Thomas Hoover

The Storyline
His name was Roger, the homeless man on the street. And he had become accustomed to be both invisible and opaque, neither seen nor understood, neither conspicuous nor transpicuous. It was this liminal space that he made his home, and it played games with his mind.

Sources: Merriam-Webster, Free Dictionary, Dictionary.com

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

degringolade

de•grin•go•lade (dey-grang-guh-LAHD)  n

Definition:
a rapid decline, deterioration, or collapse (of a situation)

Origin:
from French, from dégringoler (to tumble down, fall sharply), from Middle French desgringueler, from des- (de-) + gringueler (to tumble), from Middle Dutch crinkelen (to curl)

Related:
Synonyms: atrophy, corrosion, crumbling, decaying, decline, decomposition, degradation, depreciation, dilapidation, disintegration,  disrepair, downfall, downturn, fall, rotting, ruin, spoiling, worsening


Sentence Examples:
• At Rome, in the keenest time of her degringolade, when there was gambling even in the holy temples, great ladies (does not Lucian tell us?) did not scruple to squander all they had upon unguents from Arabia. -The Works of Max Beerbohm

• O, what a degringolade! The great career I had mapp'd out for me— Nipp'd i' the bud. -Title: Seven Men, Max Beerbohm

• As she sat in the box looking on at this gross impertinence, she seemed to herself to be watching herself after a long degringolade, which had brought her, not to the gutter, but to the smart restaurant, the smart music-hall, the smart night club; the smart everything else that is beyond the borderland of even a lax society.  -The Woman With The Fan, Robert Hichens

The Storyline
It wasn't always thus for him. Before the debilitating depression that precipitated his degringolade, he was once a respected teacher.

Sources: Answers.com

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

contumely

con•tu•me•ly (KON-too-muh-lee)  n

Definition:
1. insulting display of contempt in words or actions; contemptuous or humiliating treatment
2. a humiliating insult; an insolent or arrogant remark or act


contumeliousness noun; contumelious adjective; contumeliously adverb

Origin:
1350–1400; from O.Fr. contumelie, from L. contumelia "a reproach, insult," probably related to contumax "haughty, stubborn," from com-, intensive prefix, + tumere "to swell up"

Related:
Synonyms: abuse, arrogance, contempt, disdain, insolence, insult, scorn
Related Words: from tumere: tumid, tuber, tumulus, tumult, tumor

Sentence Examples:
• Mr. John Bailey, in a volume of essays entitled 'The Claims of French Poetry,' discussed the qualities of Racine at some length, placed him, not without contumely, among the second rank of writers, and drew the conclusion that, though indeed the merits of French poetry are many and great, it is not among the pages of Racine that they are to be found. -Books and Characters, Lytton Strachey

• When M. Zola first championed Manet and his disciples he was only twenty-six years old, yet he did not hesitate to pit himself against men who were regarded as the most eminent painters and critics of France; and although (even as in the Dreyfus case) the only immediate result of his campaign was to bring him hatred and contumely, time, which always has its revenges, has long since shown how right he was in forecasting the ultimate victory of Manet and his principal methods. -His Masterpiece, Emile Zola

• They were fined in Massachusetts and Connecticut for resistance to oppressive ecclesiastical laws, they were imprisoned in Virginia, and throughout the land were subjected to contumely and reproach. This dislike to the Baptists as a sect, or rather to their principles, was very naturally shared by the higher institutions of learning then in existence. -The New England Magazine, 1886

The Storyline
Interpreting Anna's forbearance as contumely, the man muttered a curse under his breath.

Sources: Dictionary.com, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

vatic

vat•ic (VAT-ik)  adj

Definition:
of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a prophet; prophetic, oracular

vatication noun; vatical adjective; vaticate verb

Origin:
1603; from L. vates "seer" + -ic

Related:
Synonyms: delphian, apocalyptic, augural, divinatory, divinitory, fatidic, fatidical, foreshadowing, mantic, occult, oracular, predictive, presaging, prescient, prognostic, prophetical, pythonic, sibylline, vatical, vaticinal, veiled, visionary


Sentence Examples:
• It is plain, then, that, writing in the year 1800, Wordsworth believed that a kind of modified and sublimated didactic poetry would come into vogue in the course of the nineteenth century. He stood on the threshold of a new age, and he cast his vatic gaze across it much in the same spirit as we are trying to do to-day. -The Future of English Poetry, Edmund Gosse
• His vatic eloquence carries no conviction. Men and women of the younger generation, whatever their views, find no support in him, because he appeals to axioms and postulates which to them seem unreal. -Pot-Boilers, Clive Bell
• The ex-Minister opened the door and looked out into the outer room, then, assured that no one was listening, he resumed his former seat, crossed his legs, and meditatively beat his knee. In his face was an expression which a psychologist would have admired, a commingling of the vatic and the amused, accentuated by sarcasm. -Eden, Edgar Saltus

The Storyline
And then the man on the sidewalk said something which will prove to be vatic, "Your possessions will be your undoing."


Sources: Dictionary.com

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

imprecation

im•pre•ca•tion (im-pri-KEY-shuhn)  n

Definition:
1. a curse; malediction; a prayer that a curse or calamity may befall someone
2. the act of cursing, invoking evil upon any one


imprecated past participle; imprecated past tense; imprecating present participle; imprecates 3rd person singular present; imprecate verb; imprecatory adjective; imprecatorily adverb

Origin:
1575–85; from L. imprecationem (nom. imprecatio), from imprecatus, pp. of imprecari "invoke, pray," from in- "within" + precari "to pray, ask, beg, request"

Related:
Synonyms: curse, malediction
Related Words: deprecation (from de- "away" + precari "pray"); prayer (from precari "pray")

Sentence Examples:
• Not since the labour of men’s hands began have they ceased to furrow it with menace and sow it with imprecation, cursing while their very corn ripens under midsummer skies, cursing as they gather in their store of wine and victual. -A Cursory History of Swearing, Julian Sharman

• The young man called Bertie dashed forward, and barely succeeded in snatching the child from under the wheel. A scramble of horses' feet, an imprecation or two shouted by the irritated driver, a noisy declaration from the "fare" that he should lose his train, and the scuffle was over. -A Crooked Path, Mrs. Alexander

• An implacable melancholy, a ghastly fatality, overshadows the artist's work. It resembles a bitter imprecation upon the fate of mankind. -The Devil's Pool, George Sand

The Storyline
But she forgave his imprecations with a gentler prayer of her own.


Sources: Dictionary.com, Wordnik, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day