Etiolate

Etiolate means whitened, of a pale or sickly appearance or of stunted growth. In botany it is used to denote plants grown in the absence of light and therefore developing without chlorophyll.

His etiolation signaled years in prison. Mind you, alcohol also etiolates the skin!

Mellifluous

Mellifluous (muh-LIF-loo-uhs) literally means flowing like honey but its modern meaning is sweet-sounding, dulcet, pleasing to the ear. The word is usually used of a person's voice, a musical instrument or bird song.


It is rarely used in relation to jack-hammers, bin lorries, or football crowds!

Lassitude

Lassitude is one of the things I am suffering from at the moment - it means listlessness, weariness and languor.

Mondegreen

A mondegreen is a form of error arising from mishearing a spoken or sung phrase. The term was coined in 1954 by the American writer Sylvia Wright in her essay "The Death of Lady Mondegreen," which was published in Harper's Magazine. In the essay, Wright described how, as a young girl, she misheard the final line of the first stanza from the 17th century ballad "The Bonnie Earl O' Murray." She wrote:

"When I was a child, my mother used to read aloud to me from Percy's Reliques, and one of my favorite poems began, as I remember:

Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl Amurray,
And Lady Mondegreen. "

The actual fourth line is "And laid him on the green."

As Wright explained the need for a new term, "The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens, since no one else has thought up a word for them, is that they are better than the original."

(The only potential example I ever came across is not really a mondegreen since I'm sure that the Christmas carol 'While shepherds washed their socks by night' was the invention of naughty schoolboys rather than those who didn't hear it properly! )

Nous

I was surprised when I described someone as having plenty of nous (pronounced ‘nowse’) that the spellchecker (or spillchucker as I prefer to call it) rejected the word ‘nous’. I often use the word nous in its meaning of ‘common sense’ but I thought I had better check the spelling to be on the safe side. I discovered it is spelled nous and that it not only has the meanings ‘common sense, mind or intellect’ but it is also a term in Platonic philosophy. In that philosophy it means the Higher Mind or Soul – the idea of man’s Spirit as opposed to animal-Soul.

P.S. Nous (pronounced 'nu') is the French word for we.

Anodyne

An anodyne (Greek αν, loss, and οδυνη, pain: a cause which relieves pain) is a medicine that relieves or soothes pain by lessening the sensitivity of the brain or nervous system. Also called an analgesic (or colloquially a "painkiller").

This should not be confused with the French adjective anodin(e) which means harmless, innocuous, insignificant, or trivial. I made that comment because I am forever confusing them though why anyone else should do so I don't know.

LOL

LOL is shorthand for Laughing out Loud or Laugh out Loud. LOL is the most commonly used chat expressions to illustrate you are laughing during a text conversation or that you found something funny. LOL is also less commonly short for Lots of Laughter and Laughing on Line and is also often substituted by LAL (Laughing a Lot) and LAWL (Laughing a Whole Lot). Although already an abbreviation LOL is also sometimes abbreviated even more as LL.

This may all be obvious to those who use chatese (or whatever the word is for chat language) but it wasn’t to me until the other day. I thought that LOL stood for Lots of Love. Apparently it is sometimes used for that but not so often as for Laughing out Loud.

It was only when I had read LOL in a few places where Lots of Love seemed totally inappropriate that I got around to looking it up and discovering what most people mean by it.

Nebbish and friends

A nebbish is a person regarded as weak-willed, timid or simple-minded. (From the Yiddish nebekh - a timid, unfortunate simpleton).

The best definition I ever heard of a nebbish was someone who upon entering a room makes you think someone has just walked out...



There are some other great words of Yiddish origin to describe folk. Words like nudnik : a pest, "pain in the neck"; a bore.

And schlemiel : an inept clumsy person; a bungler; a dolt.


Then there is shmendrik : a foolish or contemptible person.

And finally yenta : a talkative woman; a gossip; a scold.

If you want to insult someone there is always a Yiddish term that fits.

Lagniappe

Lagniappe is a word of French origin meaning something extra or in addition to or including other things. It is usually used to mean an extra or unexpected gift or benefit, in particular a small gift given by a merchant to a customer who makes a purchase.

Perhaps it's not surprising that I hadn't heard this word before - not many of the merchants I know give their customers small gifts!

Gossamer

Two of the recent words on this blog have been diapahanous and ethereal. These are words that can be synonymous with gossamer. Gossamer means a fine film, as of cobwebs; a gauze fabric with an extremely fine texture; characterized by unusual lightness and delicacy.