On one's uppers

 
To be on one's uppers means to be impoverished, down-and-out or shabby-looking. To be down on one's uppers is a variation with the same meaning.

It is of U.S. origin and dates back at least to 1891 when it was recorded in The Century Dictionary.

The uppers are the upper leathers of shoes or boots; a person “on his uppers” has worn through both sole and welt. Footgear as indicative of financial status is also found in the term well-heeled meaning well-off (though this is probably of unrelated origin), and in down-at-the-heel.

Squinch

   Heather recently wrote that she squinched as she tasted something that was not particularly pleasant.  I knew immediately what she meant even though I had never heard the word before and wondered, momentarily if it was an invention of hers.  It isn't Heather's invention; or if it is she's been lying about her age - it was first recorded in 1835.  It probably originated as a combination of the words squint and pinch.

As a verb it means to screw up one's face or eyes.

It also can mean to crouch down or squash oneself into a small space; to squeeze; to pinch; or to draw together. 

It is also a noun in which case it refersnot only to a screwed up face but also to a structure, such as a section of vaulting or corbeling, set diagonally across the interior angle between two walls to provide a transition from a square to a polygonal or more nearly circular base on which to construct a dome.

Photo  Attribution: Gurdjieff at en.wikipedia

Borborygmus

   This is not a word one would normally come across but I just couldn't resist blogging it.  It has such a delightful sound - it's pronounced bor-buh-rig-muss.

Oh yes, It'd better give you its meaning as well.  It means a rumbling or gurgling sound caused by the movement of gas in the intestines.

The plural is borborygmi.

May you have no embarrassing borborygmi in the near future!

Blackleg

 
I've been on strike - or that's what it seems like. I haven't blogged words or phrases on this blog on a regular basios for many months. Hopefully I'm back.

If others are still on strike that makes me a blackleg - a strike-breaker.

The term is said to have come from strikes in the coal mines. Those who were on strike had washed and brushed up after their last trip down the mine and therefore anyone covered in coal dust was a strike-breaker - a blackleg. The derogatory term scab is also used for such people. It is not a direct synonym of strike-breaker since a blackleg is specifically aomeone who works at a job while his colleagues are on strike. A strike-breaker may also be someone who crosses a picket line to do another job. A scab is either a blackleg or a person specially brought in or hired to do the job which is not their normal one.

Pinkertons protecting blacklegs from their fellow workers.

An alternative origin can be dated back as far as the sixteenth century or earlier. The rook is known for its rapacious appetite and it has black legs. Rook was used as a term of abuse for anyone who swindled, took advantage of others or lived on his wits. Gradually cheats and swindlers became known not only as rooks but blacklegs. Since strike-breakers are thought of as cheating their fellow workers they became known as blacklegs and that is the meaning that has stuck.

How far back the term blackleg goes is unclear but 'Blackleg Miner' is a 19th-century English folk song.

Barrette

 

A barrette is a clasp for holding a woman's or girl's hair in place.

If you want to see a delightful little barrette - nip over to here.

Avalokitesvara

 
Generally this blog is for English words and phrases but occasionally I find something fascinating (usually from another blogger) that makes me want to post something from another language. So today's lesson is in Sanskrit!

Avalokitesvara or Avalo Kiteśvara (Sanskrit: अवलोकितेश्वर lit. "Lord who looks down") is a bodhisattva* who embodies the compassion of all Buddhas.

The name Avalokitesvara means something like " the Lord who looks down on the World" or according to another interpretation " the Regarder of the Cries of the World". This bodhisattva is first mentioned in the Lotus Sutra (approx. 1st century AD) which together with the Karandavyuha Sutra describe him as rescuing from all kinds of distress and danger anyone who calls out his mantra, 'Om Mani Padme Hum'. This desire and ability to help all without distinction is due to Avalokitesvara's great compassion, indeed he is seen as the very embodiment of the Buddha's compassion.

*In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is either “an enlightened existence” or, given the variant Sanskrit spelling satva rather than sattva, a "heroic-minded one for enlightenment."

Picaresque

   

Picaresque means of or relating to an episodic style of fiction dealing with the adventures of a rough and dishonest but appealing hero; recounting the adventures of a rogue. (From the Spanish picaro meaning a rogue.)

Totties

   
I know the word tottie as a slang expression for a good looking teenage girl,
especially one that is a tease or dressed to look older than she is.

However, when I came across 'totties' in a Thomas Hardy book it was used to mean 'feet' according to the book note on the expression 'me totties be cold'. Perhaps it was a dialect term for feet in the South but the note brought from the deep recesses of my mind a vague remembrance that totties referred to toes here in the North. Any comments on this use of the term would be welcome.

Nonce

   
As a noun, nonce means for the time being, temporarily, the present, or immediate, occasion or purpose (usually used in the phrase "for the nonce"). A slightly archaic term.

As an adjective it is used of a word or expression used on one occasion: "a nonce usage". I wasn't sure I fully understood this meaning until I read the following in the Wikipedia:- A nonce word is a word used only "for the nonce"—to meet a need that is not expected to recur. Quark, for example, was formerly a nonce word in English, appearing only in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Murray Gell-Mann then adopted it to name a new class of subatomic particle. The use of the term nonce word in this way was apparently the work of James Murray, the influential editor of Oxford English Dictionary.

Eidetic

   
Eidetic (pronounced eye-det-ik) is an adjective meaning of, pertaining to, or constituting visual imagery vividly experienced and readily reproducible with great accuracy and in great detail. Relating to or denoting mental images having unusual vividness and detail, as if actually visible.

The word can also be used as a noun for a person who is able to to form or recall eidetic images.

I remember that at school we envied my friend George who could read pages of a history book and recall them almost word for word - even knowning where on the page any particular fact lay.

I'm not sure if it has an antonymn but it's the opposite of what my brother, GB, experiences - he has difficulty visualising things!