Cyprian

Whilst nowadays a Cyprian or Cypriot is someone who originates in Cyprus in Victorian times a Cyprian was a prostitute, a woman who engaged in sexual intercourse for money. Cyprus was famous as the home of Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love and Beauty – hence the use of the name for a prostitute.

Groat

A Groat was a Fourpence - a former English silver coin worth four pennies.

According to Wikipedia the first groats were minted during the reign of Edward I (1272 to 1307). From the reigns of Charles II to George III, groats (by now often known as fourpences) were issued on an irregular basis for general circulation, up to 1800. After this the only circulating issues were from 1836 to 1855, with proofs known from 1857 and 1862 and a colonial issue of 1888. These last coins had the weight further reduced to about 27 grains (1.9 grams) and were the same diameter as the silver threepenny pieces of the day although thicker. They also had Britannia on the reverse, while all other silver fourpenny pieces since the reign of William and Mary have had a crowned numeral "4" as the reverse, including the silver fourpenny Maundy money coins of the present day. Some groats continued to circulate in Scotland until the 20th century.

Groats are also the hulled grains of various cereals, such as oats, wheat, barley or buckwheat. Groats from oats are a good source of avenanthramide. (Avenanthramides are antimicrobial substances synthesized by plants.)

A very Unique word - Ugh.

Some adjectives can be qualified; attractive, for example. A work of art may be fairly attractive or very attractive. There are however some adjectives that cannot be qualified like true or unique. Something is either true or it isn't

Unique means radically distinctive and without equal; singular; the single one of its kind; an item of which only one specimen is known to exist; something of which no two are exactly the same.

I therefore get really worked up when I hear television presenters describe something as very unique or fairly unique. It isn't! It is either unique or it isn't.

Decadal

In his blog the other day Ian used a word I had never come across before – decadal.

Decadal is defined as of or pertaining to the number ten; a group of ten things; or a decade; occurring over a 10-year period; once every ten years.

So, in the UK, the census is decadal.

Cabbage

 
To cabbage was an archaic term meaning to steal lengths of cloth while cutting clothes. “Your taylor, instead of shreads, cabbages whole yards of cloth.” (Arbuthnot’s History of John Bull, 1713.)
 

Ampersand

&

The ampersand is a punctuation mark (&) used to represent the conjunction ‘and’.

Alrhough it is a substitute for the word 'and' in any context it is not generally used outside of signs and titles.

It is a ligature formed from an upper or lowercase e conjoined with t which spells et (“and” in Latin).

(In writing and typography the word ligature means a character consisting of two or more letters combined into one.)

Solidus

A solidus is another name for a punctuation mark (/) used to separate related items of information; the ‘Forward Slash’. But I doubt you’ll hear people talking about www dot scriptorsenex solidus blogspot dot com

In UK maths the solidus is the line between the numerator and the denominator of a fraction.

In addition to ‘forward slash’, an alternative name for the solidus is the virgule. (But note that in French la virgule is a comma. In maths in France la virgule is also the decimal separator! In fact, in English maths and French maths both the comma and the period/ full stop are reversed so the English number 2,576.5 is written in French as 2.576,5. Isn't life confusing. )

So far as I know there is no technical name for the back slash but I’m happy to be corrected if anyone knows of one.

A solidus was also a bezant, a round gold coin of the Byzantine Empire which was widely circulated in Europe in the Middle Ages.

Driving me up the wall

To drive someone up the wall means to annoy or irritate someone very much. If something drives you up the wall it makes you very unhappy and full of anxiety or anger.

It's origin is said to come from the idea that one climbed the walls to escape from whatever was annoying one.

(Thanks to Brian for the brilliant photo!)

Mitochondria

In biology, mitochondria (plural) are the parts of a cell which are responsible for providing the cell with energy; The powerhouse of the cell.

Sink introduced me to this word by describing her 13 year old as ‘mighty mitochondria’ – what a great description for a bundle of energy!

Ephelis

 
An ephelis is a form of freckle . A flat red or light-brown spot on the skin that typically appears during the sunny months and fades in the winter. Freckles are clusters of concentrated melanin which are most often visible on people with a fair complexion.