lubricious

lu•bri•cious (loo-BRISH-uhs)  adj

Definition:
1. arousing or expressive of sexual desire; lustful; lecherous
2. having a slippery or smooth quality
3. shifty or tricky
lubriciousness, lubricity noun;  lubriciously adverb

lubricous
lu•bri•cous (LOO-bri-kuhs) adj
1. (of a surface, coating, etc.) having an oily smoothness; slippery
2. unstable; shifty; fleeting

Origin:
1580s, from L. lubricus "to make slippery or smooth," from lubricus "slippery"

Related:
Synonyms: concupiscent, lascivious, carnal, immoral, indecent, lecherous, lewd, libertine, libidinous, licentious,  lustful, obscene, prurient, salacious, sensual, wanton; slick, greasy, oily, oleaginous, sleek, slippery; crafty, crooked, cunning, deceptive, devious, dishonest, disingenuous, fraudulent, guileful, shady, shifty, sneaky, stealthy, surreptitious, treacherous, tricky, underhanded, unscrupulous, wily
Related Words: lubricant

Sentence Examples:
• The great number of severe accidents annually caused by the idiotic custom of casting orange-peel and such other lubricious integuments recklessly about the side-walks, has long furnished a topic for public animadversion. Some of our leading citizens have taken the matter in hand--or, to speak more correctly, on foot. - Punchinello, 1870

• Schiller is always in pursuit of the intense, the extraordinary, the ecstatic, and sometimes fails to impress through sheer superabundance of the impressive. His imagination wanders between a wild sensuality,--so lubricious in its suggestions, now and then, as to occasion gossip to the effect that he had become a libertine,--and a sublimated philosophy based on Platonic conceptions of a prenatal existence, or upon Leibnitzian conceptions of a pre-established harmony. - The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller, Calvin Thomas

• It is on the side of sex that the appointed virtuosi of virtue exercise their chief repressions, for it is sex that especially fascinates the lubricious Puritan mind; but the conventual reticence that thus becomes the enforced fashion in one field extends itself to all others. - A Book of Prefaces, by H. L. Mencken

Why This Word:
Lubricious and lubricous are synonyms excepting lubricous lacks the sense of being wanton or lascivious.

Sources: Free Dictionary, Dictionary.com, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

lineament

lin•e•a•ment (LIN-ee-uh-muhnt)  n
often used in the plural

Definition:
1. a distinctive shape, contour, or line, especially of the face
2. a definitive or characteristic feature3. any long natural feature on the surface of the earth, such as a fault, esp as revealed by aerial photography (geology) 

lineamental adjective

Origin:
early 15c.;  from M.Fr. lineament, from L. lineamentum "contour, outline," from lineare "to reduce to a straight line," from linea;  figurative sense of "a characteristic" is attested from 1630s

Related:
Related Words: line, align, delineate; lineage, linear

Sentence Examples:
• A gleam of exultation shot across the darkly-painted lineaments of the inhabitant of the forest, as he traced the route of his intended victims, who rode unconsciously onward, the light and graceful forms of the females waving among the trees, in the curvatures of their path, followed at each bend by the manly figure of Heyward, until, finally, the shapeless person of the singing master was concealed behind the numberless trunks of trees, that rose, in dark lines, in the intermediate space. - The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper

• At the second fireplace sat his son, and, though a mere boy, the lineaments of his father marked the youth's face with a painful exactness. - The Fortunes Of Glencore, Charles James Lever

• She has been such as she now appears to be for these last five and twenty years; her figure as you see, rather en-bon point, is friendly to the ravages of time, and every lineament of age is artfully filled up by an expert fille de chambre, whose time has been employed at the toilette of a celebrated devotee in Paris. - Real Life in London, Pierce Egan


Sources: Free Dictionary, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

luculent

lu•cu•lent (LOO-kyoo-luhnt)  adj

Definition:
1. clear or lucid
2. convincing; cogent
3. bright or shining; glowing 

luculently adverb

Origin:
1375–1425; late Middle English  from Latin luculentus  "bright", equivalent to luc-  (stem of lux ) "light" + -ulentus "full of"

Related:
Synonyms: comprehensible, intelligible, lucid, pellucid, perspicuous, transpicuous, unambiguous
Related Words: corpulent

Sentence Examples:
• We shall know at any rate that to Grumkow, in the Autumn 1731, these words were luculent and significant: consciously they tell us something of young Friedrich; unconsciously a good deal of Lieutenant-General Schulenburg, who with his strict theologies, his military stiffnesses, his reticent, pipe-clayed, rigorous and yet human ways, is worth looking at, as an antique species extinct in our time. - History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Thomas Carlyle

• The thundering acclamations, which greeted the close of that luculent and powerful exposition, the zeal with which the concourse hailed him unanimously Savior of Rome and Father of his country, the eagerness of affection with which all ranks and ages thronged around him, expressing their gratitude and their devotion, by all means imaginable, proved satisfactorily that, whatever might have been the result had massacre, plunder, and conflagration fallen upon them unawares, the vast mass of the people were now loyal, and true to their country.  -The Roman Traitor, Henry William Herbert

• I have heard, for example, a luculent description of poor Allister Campbell, and another drudge of the same class, running a race after dinner for a new pair of breeches, which Mr. David Bridges, tailor in ordinary to this northern potentate,--himself a wit, a virtuoso, and the croupier on that day in lieu of Rigdum,--had been instructed to bring with him, and display before the threadbare rivals.  - Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, John Gibson Lockhart

Sources: Dictionary.com, Free Dictionary

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

lambent

lam•bent (LAM-buhnt)  adj

Definition:
1. brushing or flickering gently over a surface
2. glowing or luminous, but lacking heat
3. exhibiting lightness or brilliance of wit; clever or witty without unkindness

lambency noun; lambently adverb

Origin:
1647; from figurative use of L. lambentem (nom. lambens), prp. of lambere "to lick," from PIE base *lab-

Related:
Synonyms: beaming, brilliant, candescent, effulgent, fulgent, glowing, incandescent, bright, lucent, luminous, lustrous, radiant, refulgent, bright
Related Words: lamprey

Sentence Examples:
• His wit is bright, his humour attractive, but both bear the same relation to his serious genius that the mere lambent sheet-lightning playing under the edge of the summer-cloud does to the electric death-spark hid in its womb. -Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte

• As she spoke, the beautiful apparition held up her delicate hand. From the tip of each of her long taper fingers issued a lambent flame of such surpassing brilliancy as would have plunged a whole gas company into despair--it was a 'Hand of Glory,' -Grey Dolphin, Richard Harris Barham

• The rolling of heaven’s artillery seemed to afford inexpressible satisfaction to his little heart, but it was the lightning that affected him most. It filled him with a species of awful joy. No matter how it came—whether in the forked flashes of the storm, or the lambent gleamings of the summer sky—he would sit and gaze at it in solemn wonder.  -The Battery and the Boiler, R.M. Ballantyne

The Storyline
The room was dead. All three were paralyzed and not sure they had understood what had just happened in the past few minutes. Perhaps it was the long needed release, perhaps it was a cognitive break but softly a lambent change began to flicker in her eyes.

Sources: Wiktionary, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

lissom

lis•som (lis-uhm)  adj
(also lissome, non-standard spelling)

Definition:
1. easily bent; supple
2. having the ability to move with ease; limber


lissomness noun; lissomly adverb

Origin:
c.1800, variant of lithesome; O.E. liðe "soft, mild, gentle, meek," from P.Gmc. *linthijaz, from PIE base *lent- "flexible" + some

Related:
Synonyms: agile, flexible, graceful, limber, lithe, nimble, pliant
Related Words: lithe

Sentence Examples:
• Brief though their acquaintance had been, both of these lissom young gentlemen admired Sally immensely.  -The Adventures of Sally, P. G. Wodehouse

• Baldassare brooded, chewing straws. What a clear colour that girl had, to be sure! What a lissom rascal it was! A fine long girl like that should be married; by all accounts she would make a man a good wife. -Little Novels of Italy, Maurice Henry Hewlett

• Lauriston thrust his hands in his pockets and looked at the girl in sheer perplexity. She was a very pretty, dark girl, nearly as tall as himself, slender and lissom of figure, and decidedly attractive.- The Orange-Yellow Diamond, J. S. Fletcher

The Storyline
Right on cue, in walked an unfamiliar lissom younger woman who stopped and stood just behind Anna's father.

Sources: Free Dictionary, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

longanimity

lon•ga•nim•i•ty (long-guh-NIM-i-tee)  n

Definition:
calmness and patience in the face of suffering and adversity; forbearance

longanimous  adjective
Origin:
1400–50; Middle English longanymyte, from Late Latin longanimitat-, longanimitas, from longanimis patient, from Latin longus long + animus soul

Related:
Synonyms: patience, endurance, equanimity, forbearance, imperturbability, perseverance, resignation, restraint, stoicism, tolerance, toleration
Related Words: from Latin longus long: longevity, longitude, elongation, prolong, long

Sentence Examples:
• Annunziata's eyes clouded. A kind of scorn, a kind of pity, and a kind of patient longanimity looked from them. -My Friend Prospero, Henry Harland

• I have been congratulating our friends on their surpassing cheerfulness. Even Zeus is displaying a marvellous longanimity in his adverse state, and Pallas is positively frivolous. -Hypolympia, Edmund Gosse

• Whatever provocation was offered from without or within, he would not attack, nor let his friends attack, until the enemy was in his hand. You, who know what longanimity may be and how hard a thing to come at, may admire him for this. -The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay, Maurice Hewlett

The Storyline
It worked. He could well see in her eyes the absence of her usual longanimity.

Sources:Wordnik, Merriam-Webster

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

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

Laputan

La•pu•tan (luh-PYOO-tuhn)  adj

Definition:
1. an inhabitant of a flying island in Swift's Gulliver's Travels characterized by a neglect of useful occupations and a devotion to visionary projects
2. absurdly impractical or visionary, especially to the neglect of more useful activity

Related:
Synonyms: visionary, windy, airy, impractical, utopian


Sentence Examples:
• His friends wished that so ingenious and agreeable a fellow might have more prosperity than they ventured to hope for him, their chief regret on his account being that he did not concentrate his talent and leave off forming opinions on at least half-a-dozen of the subjects over which he scattered his attention, especially now that he had married a "nice little woman" (the generic name for acquaintances' wives when they are not markedly disagreeable). He could not, they observed, want all his various knowledge and Laputan ideas for his periodical writing which brought him most of his bread, and he would do well to use his talents in getting a speciality that would fit him for a post. -Impressions of Theophrastus Such, George Eliot, 1879

• It is a guess, even a wild Laputan conjecture But we are here concerned with Laputan themes and speculations; like Mr. Darwin, we are making " fools' experiments." -Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Society for Psychical Research, 1901

•He is, however, just as wide of the mark as the Laputan architect, who contrived a new method for building houses by beginning at the roof and continuing the walls down to the ground. -Centennial Magazine, 1890

The Storyline
But trying to argue the point was about as Laputan an effort as her childhood attempt to teach her goldfish to read lips, so Anna remained silent.

Origin:
1726, After the flying island of Laputa in Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, where absurd projects are pursued and useful pursuits neglected.

Sources: Merriam-Webster, Free Dictionary

Why This Word:
That Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels became an argosy of toponyms and eponyms is a testament to how well Swift captured the variety of human archetypes. In addition to Laputan, there's Brobdingnagian, yahoo and Lilliputian. Of these, only yahoo has become a word in its own right sufficiently that we no longer need to capitalize it. When we call some a yahoo it isn't through reference to the group of people in Gulliver's Travels. When we refer to someone or something as Lilliputian or Brobdingnagian, it is.

As "la puta" means "the whore", some Spanish editions of "Gulliver's Travels" use "Lapuntu" and "Lupata" as euphemisms. It is likely, given Swift's way of satire, that he was aware of the Spanish meaning (Gulliver himself claimed Spanish among the many languages in which he was fluent).

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

limen

li•men (LY-muhn)  n

Definition:
a threshold of a physiological or psychological response: point at which a stimulus is of sufficient intensity to generate a response 

liminal adjective; liminality adverb

Related:
Synonyms: threshold
Related Words:: limit (from O.Fr. limite "a boundary," from L. limitem "a boundary, embankment between fields, border," related to limen)
preliminary (from prae "before" + limen)
subliminal (from sub "below" + limen)
eliminate (from ex "off, out"  + limine, ablative of limen)
sublime (from sub "up to" + limen)

Sentence Examples:
• A subliminal association, then, may have its strength measured by the number of repetitions needed to bring it above the limen.
• Our thesis has not been controverted, namely that the upper limen of feeble-mindedness should be determined by ascertaining the limiting degree of intelligence necessary to make a living in the various occupations afforded by society, and not by the study of pathological institutional material.
• The in-between landscapes of the horizontal city are liminal because they remain at the margins awaiting a societal desire to inscribe them with value and status.

The Storyline
Crossing the threshold was also reaching the limen of another epiphany: she had littered her life with one distraction after another and that was no longer sufficient to keep her self-doubts at bay.

Origin:
1895, Latin  limen transverse beam in a door frame, threshold

Sources: Wordsmith, Merriam-Webster, Online Etymology

Why This Word:
Limen is obviously a useful concept for psychologists, physiologists and social scientists. But limen and, in particular, liminal have also been appropriated by cultural theorists and their ilk who see limen not as a line but as a space. It's easy to see why the idea of a transitional space, neither here nor there and yet also both here and there, in between. Here, liminal is being used in a very different sense then it is for the psychologist or physiologist. The liminal person is in the process of moving between social statuses. The limen is the space they occupy during that transition.

While in the liminal state, human beings are stripped of anything that might differentiate them from their fellow human beings—they are in between the social structure, temporarily fallen through the cracks, so to speak, and it is in these cracks, in the interstices of social structure, that they are most aware of themselves. Yet liminality is a midpoint between a starting point and an ending point, and as such it is a temporary state that ends when the initiate is reincorporated into the social structure.

But you don't have to read pretentious academic journals to appreciate the concept of the limen, a threshold of awareness or change.

Word-E: A Word-A-Day

lachrymose

lach•ry•mose   / LAK-ruh-mohs /   adj

Definition 

1. Generating or shedding tears; given to shedding tears; suffused with tears; tearful.

2. Causing or tending to cause tears.

lachrymosely adverb lachrymosity noun

Related 

Synonyms: dolorous, tearful, weeping
Related Words:
lachrymal, a. pertaining to tears and weeping;
lachrymal, n.pl. organs secreting tears; crying fits.
lachrymary, a. containing, or intended to contain, tears; lachrymal
lachrymation, n. the act or process of shedding tears
lachrymator, n. substance or gas causing tears.
lachrymatory, n. narrow-necked vase; tear-bottle.
lachrymiform, a. tear-shaped.
lachrymist, n. weeper.
lachrymogenic, a. causing tears.

Examples

At the farewell party on the boat, Joyce was surrounded by a lachrymose  family.
-- Edna O'Brien, "She Was the Other Ireland", New York Times , June 19, 1988

I promise to do my best, and if at any time my resolution lapses, pen me a few fierce vitriolic words and you shall receive by the next post a lachrymose  & abject apology in my most emotional hand writing.
-- Rupert Brooke, "letter to James Strachey", , July 7, 1905

The game is perpetuated by the sons in a sometimes vicious sibling rivalry that inevitably subsides into lachrymose  reconciliation.
-- Arthur Gelb and Barbara Gelb, O'Neill: Life With Monte Cristo

Meanwhile, a lachrymose  new waltz, "After The Ball Is Over," was sweeping the nation.
-- Benjamin Welles, Sumner Welles: FDR's Global Strategist

Origin

1660s, "tear-like," from L. lacrimosus "tearful, sorrowful," from lacrima "tear," a dialect-altered borrowing of Gk. dakryma "tear," from dakryein "to shed tears," from dakry "tear," from PIE *dakru-/*draku- (see tear (n.)). Meaning "given to tears, tearful" is first attested 1727; meaning "of a mournful character" is from 1822.

Sources: Online Etymology, Dictionary.com, Dictionary of Difficult Words,

Why This Word:

So many variants, so seldom used. I started out after the word lachrymal and despaired of another fine word that has become primarily a medical term. Fortunately, lacrima has deposited itself in English in several forms, bespeaking a useful word, albeit from an age evidently more comfortable with signs of grief and sorrow.

Word-E: A Word-A-Day