kef

kef (kef)  n
also kif, keif or keef

Definition:
1. a state of drowsy contentment, especially from the use of a narcotic
2. a substance, especially a smoking preparation of hemp leaves or marijuana, used to produce this state



Origin:

1808, from Arabic kaif "well-being, good-humor"; in Morocco and Algeria, it was the name for Indian hemp

Sentence Examples:
• In the cool and shady retreat from the crowd to which Gilbert's footsteps had led him, an Italian might have lain dreaming half the day, and an Oriental would have sat down to withdraw himself from the material tedium of life in the superior atmosphere of kef. - Via Crucis, F. Marion Crawford

• A design that attracts is a flight of steps feebly lighted by a solitary light, hemmed in by ancient walls; on the last step lurks an anonymous person. A fine bit of old-fashioned romance is conjured up; also memories of Piranesi. The drowning woman is indescribable, yet not without a note of pathos. Buddha is one of the artist's highest flights. The Oriental mysticism, the Kef, as ecstasy is called in the East, are admirably expressed. His studies of deep-sea life border on the remarkable.  - Ivory Apes and Peacocks, James Hune

• Yet what a difference between the orderly composure of these holiday makers, and the noisy mirth of our own compatriots. These folks take their kef, as they do every thing else, quietly. Here you may see hundreds of revellers, and not a drunkard among them. - Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 1847

Sources: Dictionary.com, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

kakistocracy

kak•i•stoc•ra•cy (kak-uh-STOK-ruh-see)  n

Definition:
government under the control of a nation's worst or least-qualified citizens

Origin:
1829; coined on analogy of aristocracy from Gk. kakistos "worst," superlative of kakos "bad" (which is perhaps related to the general IE word for "defecate") + -cracy

Related:
Related Words: cacophony, aristocracy

Sentence Examples:
• This should be borne in mind by any one who, in the milder light of a later and better era, is disposed to carp at Schiller for caricaturing the nobility. He was not concerned with aristocracy in general, but with the particular kakistocracy that had disgraced his native land.  - The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller, Calvin Thomas

• The people lived in darkness and vassalage. They were lost in the grossness of beef and ale. They had no pamphleteering societies to demonstrate that reading and writing are better than-meat and drink; and they were utterly destitute of the blessings of those " schools for "all," the house of correction and the treadmill, wherein the autochthonal justice of an agrestic kakistocracy now castigates the heinous sins which were then committed with impunity, of treading on old footpaths, picking up dead wood, and moving on the face of the earth within the sound of the whirr of a partridge. - The Edinburgh review, Sydney Smith

• They deserve not to have their eyes opened until they find themselves under the harrow for ever; as they assuredly will find themselves, if they do not take warning while there is yet time. If they think the government of the Church too aristocratic, they will find in ten years that they have exchanged it for a kakistocracy. - The Quarterly review, William Gifford, Sir John Taylor Coleridge, John Gibson Lockhart


Sources: Wikipedia, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

kinesthesia

kin•es•the•sia (kin-uhs-THEE-zhuh)  n
also kinaesthesia

Definition:
the sense that detects bodily position, weight, or movement of the muscles, tendons, and joints; muscle sense

kinesthesis noun; kinesthetic adjective; kinesthetically adverb

1880; Mod.L. compound of Gk. kinein "to move" + aisthesis "perception" from PIE base *au- "to perceive"

Related:
Related Words: anaesthesia, paraesthesia

Sentence Examples:
• The relation of our kinesthesia or muscular sense to fanaticism on the one hand and freedom of mind on the other is a matter now beginning to be studied with the promise of highly important results. -The Mind in the Making, by James Harvey Robinson

• I venture to suggest the probability that the physical or energy-aspect of feeling is numerous sets of kinesthetic neurokinetic strains or impulses relating all layers of the great cortex to its effective environment (whether the latter be outside the body or within it), the conscious inhibitory phase of the kinesthesia representing originally the feelings unpleasant in tone, and its subconscious actuating phase the pleasant emotion. -Medical record, George Frederick Shrady, Thomas Lathrop Stedman

• I ask what really matters about dance-floor practice and pursue an analysis of the kinesthesia of queer identifications and the choreography of queer desirings. -Dancing desires: choreographing sexualities on and off the stage, Jane Desmond

Sources: Free Dictionary, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

kludge

kludge (kluhj)  n
alt kluge (klooj)

Definition:
1. a workaround, a quick-and-dirty solution, a clumsy or inelegant, yet effective, solution to a problem, typically using parts that are cobbled together
2. a system, especially a computer system, that is constituted of poorly matched elements or of elements originally intended for other applications; a clever programming trick intended to solve a particular nasty case in an expedient, if not clear, manner
3. something that works for the wrong reason


Origin:
See below


Sentence Examples:
• It’s a kludge, but it works well. Since this system is going to be running Xen, it will need a bridge anyway.

• So don't think of IPS as magic security pixie dust. Think of it as a kludge to cover for your inadequate patching procedures.

• What follows is a story of hope. That even when things seem their bleakest a kludge can come along and get things limping along.


Why This Word:

The present word has alternate spellings (kludge and kluge) and pronunciations (rhyming with fudge and stooge respectively), and several proposed etymologies.

The Oxford English Dictionary kludge entry cites one source for this word's earliest recorded usage, definition, and etymology: Jackson W. Granholm's 1962 "How to Design a Kludge" article, which appeared in the American computer magazine Datamation. 

    The word 'kludge' is...derived from the same root as the German Kluge..., originally meaning 'smart' or 'witty'.... 'Kludge' eventually came to mean 'not so smart' or 'pretty ridiculous'.

The German surname Kluge derives from klug "prudent; wise". Although the OED2 notes Granholm was "jocular", it accepts his ironic etymology from a fictional "Fink and Wiggles" for Funk & Wagnalls lexicographer.

    A phone call to Phineas Burling can be revealing. Phineas Burling is the Chief calligrapher with the Fink and Wiggles Publishing Company, Inc. Fink and Wiggles are, of course, the well known publishers of the NEW MULTILINGUAL DICTIONARY. According to Burling, the word "kludge" first appeared in the English language in the early fifteen-hundreds. It was imported into the geographic region of the lowlands between King's Lynn (then Bishop's Lynn) and the Isle of Ely by Dutch settlers arriving there to reclaim tidelands of the Wash as rutabaga fields. …

    The word "kludge" is, according to Burling, derived from the same root as the German "klug" (Dutch kloog, Swedish Klag, Danish Klog, Gothic Klaugen, Lettish Kladnis and Sanskrit Veklaunn), originally meaning "smart" or "witty". In the typical machinations of language in evolutionary growth, the word "Kludge" eventually came to mean "not so smart" or "pretty ridiculous". Today the leading definition given by the NEW MULTILINGUAL is, "An ill-assorted collection of poorly-matching parts, forming a distressing whole."

    It is in this latter sense that "Kludge" is used by computer hardware men. Today "kludge" forms one of the most beloved words in design terminology, and it stands ready for handy application to the work of anyone who gins up 110-volt circuitry to plug into the 220 VAC source. The building of a Kludge, however, is not work for amateurs. There is a certain, indefinable, masochistic finesse that must go into true Kludge building. The professional can spot it instantly. The amateur may readily presume that "that's the way computers are".

This OED2 entry also includes the verbal kludge "to improvise with a kludge or kludges" and kludgemanship "skill in designing or applying kludges".

The Jargon File (a.k.a. The New Hacker's Dictionary), which is a glossary of internet slang maintained by Eric S. Raymond, differentiates kludge from kluge and cites usage examples predating 1962.

This Jargon File entry notes kludge apparently derives via British military slang from Scots kludge or kludgie meaning "a common toilet", and became confused with U.S. kluge during or after World War II.

This entry notes kluge, which is now often spelled kludge, "was the original spelling, reported around computers as far back as the mid-1950s and, at that time, used exclusively of hardware kluges". The Jargon File gives possible etymologies from naval slang (cf. jury rig) or printing equipment.

First, kluge "was common Navy slang in the WWII era for any piece of electronics that worked well on shore but consistently failed at sea". A 1947 article in the New York Folklore Quarterly recorded the classic shaggy dog story "'Murgatroyd the Kluge Maker' then current in the Armed Forces, in which a 'kluge' was a complex and puzzling artifact with a trivial function." When Murgatroyd enlists into the Navy, he gives "kluge maker" as his occupation. Because none of the officers knows what a kluge is, Murgatroyd ascends through the ranks, eventually becoming "kluge maker, first class". When an admiral demands that Murgatroyd build him a kluge, he constructs a strange object with springs in all directions. He then drops it over the side of the ship into the ocean, where it goes "kkluuge".

Second, the "Kluge paper feeder" was an automatic paper feeder for printing presses, which was first manufactured by Brandtjen and Kluge in 1919. It supposedly had a Rube Goldberg machine reputation, and was "temperamental, subject to frequent breakdowns, and devilishly difficult to repair — but oh, so clever!"

The Jargon File further includes kluge around "to avoid a bug or difficult condition by inserting a kluge", kluge up "to lash together a quick hack to perform a task". After Granholm's 1962 "How to Design a Kludge" article popularized the kluge variant kludge, both were interchangeably used and confused. The Jargon File concludes:

    The result of this history is a tangle. Many younger U.S. hackers pronounce the word as /klooj/ but spell it, incorrectly for its meaning and pronunciation, as 'kludge'. … British hackers mostly learned /kluhj/ orally, use it in a restricted negative sense and are at least consistent. European hackers have mostly learned the word from written American sources and tend to pronounce it /kluhj/ but use the wider American meaning! Some observers consider this mess appropriate in view of the word's meaning.

Other suggested folk etymologies or backronyms for kludge or kluge is from klumsy, lame, ugly, dumb, but good enough, or klutzy, lashup, under, going, engineering.

Sources: Wikipedia

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

katabasis

ka•tab•a•sis (kuh-TAB-uh-sis)  n

Definition:
1. a descent of some type, esp. a military retreat (in allusion to that of the ten thousand Greeks under Xenophon, related by him in his Anabasis)
2. a trip from the interior of a country down to the coast
3. the sinking of the winds or sun
4. a trip to the underworld
5. gradual descending of emphasis on a theme within a sentence or paragraph (poetry and rhetoric)

katabaseis plural


Origin:
1830–40;  < Gk katábasis  a going down, descent, equiv. to kataba-  (s. of katabaínein  to go down) + -sis

Related:
Antonyms: anabasis


Sentence Examples:
• The story of this anabasis has been told in hundreds and thousands of fragments--the anabasis that has had no katabasis--the literal going up of a people, as we shall see, from primitive husbandry and handicraft and a neighborly individualism, to another level, of machine labor, of more comfortable living, and of socialized aspiration. -The French in the Heart of America, John Finley
• Like Western civilization itself, as his friend and chief critical promoter Harold Rosenberg sardonically remarked, De Kooning was always in decline. This katabasis is supposed to have begun in the early '50s, with the Women series. -1994

The Storyline
So Anna began to wind down the phone call with her mother, knowing that it would take her katabasis on all fronts to pull herself out, but also knowing that, this time at least, she was aware of this tactical move.

Why This Word:
More than a descent, a katabasis is a journey down toward (or away from) something and a transformational process. Derived from the Greek meaning descent, it has several meanings, some contextually specific, but each entails some sort of journey and change. The katabasis into the underworld in stories like The Iliad or The Divine Comedy involve the hero going down to acquire some knowledge, to be altered by the experience.
While we generally associate progress or positive transformation with ascent or advance, it's instructive to remember what can be gained in retreat and descent.

Sources: Wikipedia, Dictionary.com

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

kerf

kerf (kurf) \ˈkərf\

Definition
n
1. a cut or incision made by a saw, an ax or the like in a piece of wood (or metal)
2. the width of cut made by a saw or the like
3. (mining) a deep cut a few inches high, used to undermine a portion of a coal or mineral seam
4. a stroke with a weapon
v
to make a kerf or kerfs

Related
Synonyms: chip, hack, indent, indentation, indenture, notch, nick
Related Words: carve

Examples
• When the kerf is well started, the whole weight of the saw may be applied. An easy light stroke is better than a furious one.
• Wood was dirt cheap in mid-19th-century America. So we made fast saws with a wide kerf -- like half an inch. Then we choked on the resulting sawdust.

The Storyline
... his face pressed against the kerfs in the wood frame left by the ill-advised attempt to cut their way in the last time Tyler and Kurt locked themselves out.

Origin
bef. 1000;  ME kerf, kirf,  OE cyrf  a cutting

Sources: Merriam-Webster, Dictionary.com, Wordnik

Why This Word:
It's a fun little word, kerf. It's also a word with a long history. Cutting things with a saw or an ax is in some ways that moment we became human as a species. We take it for granted today, unless you're a woodworker. But the cut itself, what's taken out, eventually became a significant problem at the point we needed to start to conserve materials and reduce waste. The kerf is an idea that is surprisingly rich in metaphorical implications, if we think about it.  It's what isn't there, what's removed, the cut itself. The kerf is the empty space created in the process of remaking the physical world. And by way of metaphor, there are more possibilities as well: the kerf of a budget cut, or severed relationship. Maybe it's time we started thinking about the kerf once again.

Word-E: A Word-A-Day