roborant

rob•or•ant (ROB-er-uhnt)

Definition:
adj
restoring vigor or strength
n
a restorative or tonic
Origin:
1655–65; from Latin roborare "to strengthen", from robur, robus "strength," also "a special kind of oak"

Related:
Synonyms: tonic, energizing, invigorating, refreshing, reinvigorating, renewing, restorative, rousing, stimulating
Related Words: corroborate, robust

Sentence Examples:
• Extract of malt I have employed as a roborant, either alone or in conjunction with iron, in cases of debility and malnutrition, and found it of service. - The Electric Bath, George M. Schweig

• Like so many other things in medicine we owe the use of roborants to empiricism. The beneficial roborant action of a large number of remedies was determined in an empirical manner, and these were employed for a long time without any scientific explanation of their action. - Clinical excerpts, 1904

• The therapeutic action of the albumoses may be briefly summarized as follows: They act, first, as appetizers: second, by promoting intestinal functions; and, third, as nutrients. Their general effect is eminently roborant, and hence their supply for therapeutic purposes the best, because the most natural tonics. - Occidental Medical Times, 1902

Sources: Free Dictionary, WordSmith

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

Roscian

rosc•i•an (ROSH-ee-uhn)  adj

Definition:
of or related to acting



Origin:

after Quintus Roscius Gallus (c.126-62 BCE), a Roman actor famous for his talent in acting


Sentence Examples:
• He was again a man with a wrong, a lover dispossessed. On the instant his veins filled with passionate blood. The Roscian strain in him had its own tragic force and reality. - The World For Sale, Gilbert Parker

• I took what Joe gave me, and found it to be the crumpled play-bill of a small metropolitan theatre, announcing the first appearance, in that very week, of "the celebrated Provincial Amateur of Roscian renown, whose unique performance in the highest tragic walk of our National Bard has lately occasioned so great a sensation in local dramatic circles." - Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

• But the whole point of the scene is lost unless the First Player, reciting that great speech, seem to outclass his Prince as an actor. His performance must be a revelation of what a big emotional histrion can do, something absolutely Roscian. - Talking of Shakespeare, John Garrett


Wikipedia:

Endowed with a handsome face and manly figure, Quintus Roscius Gallus studied the delivery and gestures of the most distinguished advocates in the Forum, especially Q Hortensius, and won universal praise for his grace and elegance on the stage. He especially excelled in comedy. Cicero took lessons from him. The two often engaged in friendly rivalry to try whether the orator or the actor could express a thought or emotion with the greater effect, and Roscius wrote a treatise in which he compared acting and oratory. Q. Lutatius Catulus composed a quatrain in his honour, and the dictator Sulla presented him with a gold ring, the badge of the equestrian order, a remarkable distinction for an actor in Rome, where the profession was held in contempt.

Like his contemporary Aesopus, Roscius amassed a large fortune, and he appears to have retired from the stage some time before his death. In 76 BC he was sued by C. Fannius Chaerea for 50,000 sesterces, and was defended by Cicero in a famous speech.

Sources: WordSmith

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

resipiscent

re•si•pis•cent (re-si-PIS-uhnt)  adj

Definition:
returning to one's senses, or to wiser course; reforming
resipicency, resipicence noun

Origin:
from Latin resipiscere "to recover one's senses", from re- "again" + sapere "to taste, to know", ultimately from PIE root sep- "to taste or perceive"

Related:
Related Words: sage, savant, savvy, savor, sapid, sapient, and insipid

Sentence Examples:
• His endless variety of kabobs and pilaus is worthy of all commendation; and his sherbets, which refresh without a sting or a resipiscent headache next morning, are no doubt the style of phlegm-cutters and gum-ticklers which one had better patronize pretty exclusively while between the tropics.  -Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, 1875

• I think that any person, of whom it could have been believed that he was genuinely resipiscent, would have been received with open arms by the Ecclesiastical Government, and this from motives of policy. I do not think that Pius the Ninth is a tender-hearted man in such sort that sufferings inflicted on his enemies out of his sight would be heavy at his heart. The story of the life of Pius the Ninth, Thomas Adolphus Trollope

• So then scientism, troubled but not resipiscent, consents to organize experiments to expose in this Unknowable a few of its secrets. -Unruly Spirits, M. Brady Brower


Sources: Dictionary of Difficult Words, Wordsmith

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

recreant

re•cre•ant (REK-ree-uhnt)

Definition:
adj
1. cowardly or craven
2. unfaithful, disloyal, or traitorous
n
3. a coward
4. an apostate, traitor, or renegade

recreance, recreancy noun;  recreantly adverb

Origin:
 c.1300 (adj.)  from O.Fr. recreant "yielding, giving," prp. of recroire "to yield in a trial by combat, surrender allegiance," perhaps on notion of "take back one's pledge, yield one's cause," from re- "again, back"  + croire "entrust, believe," from L. credere "to believe," perhaps from PIE compound *kerd-dhe- "to believe," lit. "to put one's heart"   (Meaning "unfaithful to duty" is from 1640s. Noun sense of "one who yields in combat, coward, faint-hearted person" is first recorded c.1400.)

Related:
Synonyms: cowardly, afraid, apostate, cowering, craven, defecting, disloyal, faithless, fearful, frightened, gutless, perfidious, scared, timid, timorous, traitorous, unfaithful, unfaithful, pusillanimous
Related Words: credulous, credible, credence, miscreant, credo, credit

Sentence Examples:
• I took heart after having given some thought to my misfortunes and, artfully concealing the marks of the blows for fear that Eumolpus would make merry over my mishaps or, worse yet, that Giton might be saddened by my disgrace, I did the only thing I could do to save my self-respect, I pretended that I was sick and went to bed.  There, I turned the full fury of my resentment against that recreant which had been the sole cause of all the evil accidents which had befallen me. -The Satyricon, Petronius Arbiter

• "John of Hordle," he thundered, "you have shown yourself during the two months of your novitiate to be a recreant monk, and one who is unworthy to wear the white garb which is the outer symbol of the spotless spirit." -The White Company, Arthur Conan Doyle

• "Oh, my dear Maude," said Cecilia, "pray let him do what he pleases with himself in these the last days of his liberty. When he has got a wife he must attend to her,--more or less. Now he is as free as air. Pray let him do as he pleases, and for heaven's sake do not bother him!" Maude who had her own lover, and was perfectly satisfied with him though she had been engaged to him for nearly twelve months, knew that things were not going well, and was unhappy. But at the moment she said nothing further.
"Where is this recreant knight?" said Francesca.
-Kept in the Dark, by Anthony Trollope

Sources: Dictionary.com, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

rubicund

ru•bi•cund (ROO-bi-kuhnd)  adj

Definition:
1. red or reddish; ruddy
2. inclined to a healthy rosiness; ruddy complexion


rubicundity noun

Origin:
1495–1505; from Fr. rubicond or directly from L. rubicundus, from rubere "to be red"

Related:
Synonyms: florid, healthy, red, reddish, rosy, rubescent, ruddy
Related Words: rubescent

Sentence Examples:
• The next victim was a big, rubicund, healthy-looking man, clean shaved, with light-blue eyes that were slightly magnified by the glasses of his gold-mounted spectacles. -The Wonder, J. D. Beresford

• One of the civilians is a very small man with a black beard, the only thing notable about him being his nose, which, to judge from its size, ought not to belong to him. The other is a rubicund youth, who seems to have arrived but recently in the country. -The Social Cancer, José  Rizal

• The old man rose with hospitable haste, and opening the door, was heard condoling with the new arrival.  The new arrival also condoled with himself, so that Mrs. White said, "Tut, tut!"  and coughed gently as her husband entered the room, followed by a tall, burly man, beady of eye and rubicund of visage. -The Monkey's Paw, W.W. Jacobs

Sources: Dictionary.com, Free Dictionary, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

revanchist

re•van•chist (ruh-VAN-chist)   

Definition:
adj
of or pertaining to a political policy of regaining lost territory or standing, as of a nation or an ethnic group, esp. in order to seek vengeance for a previous military defeat

noun
an advocate or supporter of a political policy of revanche

revanche, revanchism noun; revanchistic adjective

Origin:
1926 (on model of Fr. revanchiste), from revanche "revenge, requital" (1858), especially in reference to a national policy seeking return of lost territory, from Fr. revanche, lit. "revenge," from M.Fr. revenche, back-formation from revenchier

Related:
Related Words: revenge

Sentence Examples:
• The central thesis of my Interregnum meme is "the old is dying, but the new cannot be born". This is because the revanchist forces still fight from their bunkers. Case in point, the Big Banks are fighting Obama on derivative reform. -TPM, 2009

• While Europe sleeps, he suggests, Moscow's secret police are infiltrating foreign governments, establishing a transcontinental energy monopoly and exploiting divisions between Paris, Berlin, Warsaw and Tallinn. Exacerbating all of the above is the fact that no one is doing much to counter this angry, revanchist Russia. -The New Cold War,Time, 2008

• In the months since, Kohl, along with the skilled and dogged Hans-Dietrich Genscher, has made some perspicacious moves, such as his detailed and reasonable plan for confederation in November. But he scared and angered his Eastern neighbors by letting them think he was leaving open the possibility that a unified Germany might press revanchist claims on parts of Poland. -Bringing Kohl Down to Earth, Time, 1990

The Storyline
Anna's father sought to regain the floor and began to speak, but Anna would have nothing of his revanchist ploy. "Why are you here, anyway?" she asked with uncharacteristic bluntness.

Sources: Dictionary.com, Free Dictionary, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

rumbustious

rum•bus•tious (ruhm-BUHS-chuhs)  n

Definition:
uncontrollably exuberant; unruly; rambunctious

rumbustiousness noun;  rumbustiously adverb

Origin:
1778; probably alteration of robustious (influenced by rambunctious)

Related:
Synonyms: boisterous, noisy, raucous, rough, rowdy, rude, termagant, tumultuous, turbulent, unruly


Sentence Examples:
• I had noticed that the walls, both of the bar and of the bar-parlour, were plentifully hung with paintings of ships; ships becalmed, ships in full sail, ships under bare spars; all with painful blue skies over them, and very even-waved seas beneath; and ships in storms, with torn sails, pursued by rumbustious piles of sooty cloud, and pelted with lengths of scarlet lightning. -The Hole in the Wall, Arthur Morrison

• The fairy tales are very true. The rumbustious ogre has a hitherto undescribed, but quite imaginable, gap-toothed, beetle-browed ogress of a wife. Why he married her has never been told. -Jaffery, William J. Locke

• It is easier to convert most people to the need for allowing their hildren to run physical risks than moral ones.  I can remember a relative of mine who, when I was a small child, unused to horses and very much afraid of them, insisted on putting me on a rather rumbustious pony with little spurs on my heels (knowing that in my agitation I would use them unconsciously), and being enormously amused at my terrors.  Yet when that same lady discovered that I had found a copy of The Arabian Nights and was devouring it with avidity, she was horrified, and hid it away from me lest it should break my soul as the pony might have broken my neck.  - A Treatise on Parents and Children, George Bernard Shaw

The Storyline
And while not the rumbustious flurry of activity she had briefly fantasized, the phones were put away and people did pick up their assigned labors.

Sources: Free Dictionary

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

ratiocination

ra•ti•o•ci•na•tion (rash-ee-oh-suh-NEY-shuhn)  n

Definition:
1. reasoning, conscious deliberate inference; the activity or process of reasoning
2. thought or reasoning that is exact, valid and rational
3. a proposition arrived at by such thought

ratiocinate verb; ratiocinative, ratiocinatory adjective

Origin:
1520s, from L. ratiocinationem (nom. ratiocinatio) "a reasoning," from ratiocinatus, pp. of ratiocinare "to calculate, deliberate," from ratio + -cinari, which probably is related to conari "to try"

Related:
Synonyms: argumentation, deduction, dialectic, induction, inference, logic, rationality, reason
Related Words: ratio, rational, ration, reason, reasonable

Sentence Examples:
• Let it be said that Poe invented or perfected--more exactly, perfected his own invention of--the modern short story; that is his general and supreme achievement. He also stands superlative for the quality of three varieties of short stories, those of terror, beauty and ratiocination.

• Of course, no intelligent person to-day supposes that, outside of Sir Conan Doyle's interesting novels, detectives seek the baffling criminal by means of analyzing cigar butts, magnifying thumb marks or specializing in the various perfumes in favor among the fair sex, or by any of those complicated, brain fatiguing processes of ratiocination indulged in by our old friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

• One speaks of the great masses of simple men, and it is of them, of course, that the ensuing treatise chiefly has to say. The higher and more delicately organized tribes and sects of men are susceptible to no such ready anatomizing, for the body of beliefs upon which their ratiocination grounds itself is not fixed but changing, and not artless and crystal-clear but excessively complex and obscure. -The American Credo, George Jean Nathan, H. L. Mencken, 1920

The Storyline
...her ratiocination, on the other hand, was less solid. "Remember that time when you were ten and you didn't get the magic set you wanted for your birthday, you were such a child about it."

Why This Word:
More than a fancy word for reasoning, ratiocination is more specific than its synonyms.  Most synonyms refer to an expression or quality of rational thought, but not specifically to the process of thinking rationally. Reasoning  refers to both a use and instance of rational thought, as does ratiocination. But whereas reasoning, in common use, can be specious, flawed, even irrational, ratiocination is specifically rational thought and reasoning. It begs the question of how we can expect people to learn to ratiocinate, if they don't know the word for it.

Sources: Wiktionary, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

recondite

rec•on•dite (REK-uhn-dahyt)  adj

Definition:
1. hidden from sight, concealed
2. difficult or impossible for one of ordinary understanding or knowledge to comprehend, deep
3. of, relating to, or dealing with something little known or obscure

reconditeness noun;  reconditely adverb

Related:
Synonyms: abstruse, arcane, deep, esoteric, hermetic, mysterious, secret
Related Words: scoundrel, condiment, abscond

Sentence Examples:
• There were over thirty dishes on the emblazoned menu, and of course I had wanted something that was not on it: a peculiar rusk, a rusk recondite and unheard of by my fellow-diners. The man had hopefully said that he "would see." And here lay the rusk, magically obtained. I felicitated him, as an equal. -Your United States, Arnold Bennett 1912

• Alan Merrick drew back with a vague gesture of distaste. "Oh, thank you," he replied; "but, do you know, I don't think I like deans, Mrs. Dewsbury." Mrs. Dewsbury's smile was recondite and diplomatic. "Then you'll exactly suit one another," she answered with gay wisdom. "For, to tell you the truth, I don't think SHE does either."  -The Woman Who Did, Grant Allen, 1895

• To the recognition of the apocalyptic fact that a workman can only be known by his work, and that without examination of his method and material that work can hardly be studied to much purpose, they have yet to add the knowledge of a further truth no less recondite and abstruse than this; that as the technical work of a painter appeals to the eye, so the technical work of a poet appeals to the ear. -A Study of Shakespeare, Algernon Charles Swinburne, 1918

The Storyline
"Hello, Mother," Anna answered the phone recognizing the caller ID.
"Hello, Angel," Anna's mother replied, her tone both sincere and recondite in its intentions at the same time.

Origin:
1649; from L. reconditus, pp. of recondere "store away," from re- "away, back" + condere "to store, hide, put together," from con- "together" + -dere "to put, place," comb. form of dare "to give". Meaning "removed from ordinary understanding, profound" is from 1650s; of writers or sources, "obscure," it is recorded from 1817

Sources: Merriam-Webster, Online Etymology

Why This Word:
Recondite means hidden. It's three meanings might be understood as hidden from sight, hidden from understanding and hidden by time or unfamiliarity. But we probably would not say that a child playing hide-and-seek is recondite. Recondite doesn't seem to carry the sense of hidden by act of deliberate physical removal and concealment by someone, but rather a more metaphorical hiding - hidden by the nature of the thing, a thought hidden by being kept inside.
The root condere "to store, hide" gives recondite some interesting relatives: scoundrel (to hide oneself), abscond (to hide away) and condiment (from condire "to preserve, pickle, season," variant of condere "to put away, store".)


Word-E: A Word-A-Day

rugose

ru•gose   \ˈrü-ˌgōs\   adj

Definition

1.  full of wrinkles
2.  having the veinlets sunken and the spaces between elevated

rugosity noun

Related

Synonyms: cockled, corrugated, folded, furrowed, lined, puckered, wrinkled , rugous, rumpled, unironed, withered
Related Words: corrugate

Examples
• In this clay can be found rugose corals and spiky trilobites
• First infection of rugose mosaic and leaf roll on potato has been observed generally by the last week of December until the second week of January, depending upon locality and variety.

Origin

Latin rugosus full of wrinkles, folds or creases, from ruga wrinkle; wrinkle; crease, small fold

First Known Use: 1676

Sources: Thesaurus.com,  Merriam-Webster, My Etymology

Why This Word:


When we think of wrinkled, we think of something old, damaged, something that was once smooth and that we would prefer would be still: wrinkled paper, clothing, skin. Wrinkle itself comes from an original Proto-Germanic root meaning defect, problem. In our youth obsessed culture any of the signs of senescence will surely be problematized. So wrinkle is not just an adjective describing a state of being, but a verb, describing a process. Wrinkle happens to something.

But I love rugosa roses. They're hardy, grow on their own root stock, salt resistant and, while not as showy as the floribundas, surely put on a better show than many of the flowering shrubs that would grow in like conditions. They take their names from their rugose leaves. Not wrinkled by age, but by design, and all the more beautiful for it.

If you hear the word rugose used, it's probably in connection with the roses or corrals. This desuetude, however, means that rugose does not carry the cultural baggage of wrinkled, providing us a way to describe the texture without the judgment.

 Word-E: A Word-A-Day