Category Archives: vocabulary

Word for the day….The Color Purple (And I’m not talking about the movie!)

I found these two beauties on Word Dynamo, a favorite word website. This test was about various cool names for colors, and as purple is my favorite color, I thought I’d share a couple. First, solferino is a vivid purplish pink.

Also, aubergine is the name for a very dark purple. Curiously enough, the etymology of the word explains it all…[French, from Catalan albergina, from Arabic al-binjn (the eggplant), from Persian bdenjn, bdengn.]

Feel free to share your recent word treasures on this thread!

Phrase for the Day: toot suite

rocketToot suite means: quickly, immediately, at once. As with many foreign language phrases, it is a corruption of the origin phrase from the French ‘tout de suite’, which literally means ‘all at once’.

In a sentence: When his ex girlfriend arrived, he got out of there toot sweet!

Source: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=toot+sweet

Word for the day….gimme the money!

bags of moneyWord for the day (and a great new website to share)….
I found our word today on a FREE learning website called Khan Academy, it relates to our modern world…bit coin.

A bit coin is another term for an electronic payment system!

Source and link: http://www.khanacademy.com

Word for the day..let’s get legalized!

CPA with stack of formsWord for the day..let’s get legalized!

I’m in the middle of preparing a Living Trust for Wade and I, and I was reading the final document when I came upon this jawbreaker: hypothecate.

hypothecate  (tr.v.)
To pledge (property) as security or collateral for a debt without transfer of title or possession.

Etymology: [Medieval Latin hypothcre, hypothct-, from Latin hypothca, pledge, deposit, from Greek hupothk, from hupotithenai, to give as a pledge, suppose; see hypothesis.]

Source cited: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hypothecate

The reason I prefer the Free Online Dictionary to Wikipedia for my definitions is that the Free Online Dictionary has this cool little function that allows you to hear the word pronounced properly, and, that they have a better etymology section for the words.

Tuesdays Misused or Myth-understood word: wheelbarrow

brainTuesday’s Misused or Myth-understood word is… the commonplace wheelbarrow, which many people misspell as wheelbarrel.

Definition and origins: “A wheelbarrow is a small hand-propelled vehicle, usually with just one wheel, designed to be pushed and guided by a single person using two handles at the rear, or by a sail to push the ancient wheelbarrow by wind. The term “wheelbarrow” is made of two words: “wheel” and “barrow.” “Barrow” is a derivation of the Old English “bearwe” which was a device used for carrying loads.”

Source cited: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheelbarrow

Enjoy, and share your own Wordy findings with us today!

Word for the day…oh “precious one”

I ran into this word in an ad for radio show guests, and just couldn’t resist sharing it with you….

guru on mountaintop“Rinpoche or Rinboqê is an honorific used in Tibetan Buddhism. It literally means “precious one,” and is used to address or describe Tibetan lamas and other high-ranking or respected teachers. This honor is generally bestowed on reincarnated lamas, or Tulkus, by default. In other cases it is earned over time, and often bestowed spontaneously by the teacher’s students.”

Source cited: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinpoche

Words for the day…all the colors of the rainbow bridge

Gold bars

Gold bars

It’s HEAVY METAL DAY…..my new words for today came from Word Dynamo, a great word site where you can take tests to learn new words. These were all a welcome addition to my writer’s vocabulary:

aeneous means bronze colored
ferruginous means the color of iron rust
or means the tincture or metal of gold
xanthous also means yellow!

Please feel free to share your new word, favorite word or weird word on this thread today!

Meet The FireWalker sigil

fwlogocolorWord for the day…sigil (the picture attached to this post is a sigil I drew as a logo for my company FireWalker Publications (it is the Fire Walker!)

Sigil (Noun)
1. seal, signet
2. a sign, word, or device held to have occult power in astrology or magic

Origin of SIGIL- Middle English sigulle, from Latin sigillum
First Known Use: 15th century

Source cited: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sigil

Dead as a doornail….just how dead is it?

front door detail-1My Phrase for the day is “dead as a doornail” which brings to mind “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens. But in fact, the saying is much older than that,  from the 14th century. There’s a reference to it in print in 1350, a translation by William Langland of the French poem Guillaume de Palerne:
“For but ich haue bote of mi bale I am ded as dorenayl.”

Langland also used the expression in the much more famous poem The Vision of William Concerning Piers Plowman, circa 1362:
Fey withouten fait is febelore þen nouȝt, And ded as a dore-nayl.
[Faith without works is feebler than nothing, and dead as a doornail.]

For the whole citation see: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/as-dead-as-a-doornail.html

Word for the day…put that in your pipe and smoke it!

elephantThis word stumped me while I was playing Scrabble, so I’ll share it:

“Estrone is an estrogenic hormone secreted by the ovary as well as adipose tissue. Estrone is one of several natural estrogens, which also include estriol and estradiol. Estrone is the least abundant of the three hormones; estradiol is present almost always in the reproductive female body, and estriol is abundant primarily during pregnancy.” (from Wikipedia)

Put that in your pipe and smoke it! ;-)

As always, feel free to add your own crazy, hazy, silly, new or weird words to this thread.