Word of the Day Challenge

[Chasing Dreams]

She knew her friend liked someone in their friend's group and never actually said who it was. She ended up figuring it out as she watched her friend when thr group was together.  Her friend seemed to gravitate towards one of their guy friends almost every time they hung out.  She knew she'd eventually tell her friend that she knew, but was waiting to see if her friend said anything first.

[Chasing Dreams]

She had the week off of work, but her boss called her several times before she answered the phone. Her boss told her that he needed her to come into work because there exigent circumstances that only she could tend to. She found out that the person working with a client she normally worked with had been fired and she needed to step in as the client requested her and was offering to pay more if she could takeover. 

[Chasing Dreams]

She had planned on going to medical school, but she ended up being accepted into one. When she started learning about different diagnoses, her instructor gave the class the hallmark symptoms before discussing the rare ones for each illness they were learning about. Her instructor had stressed that while the typical presentations were going to be more of the norm they'd see, they needed to know what rare presentations were for the few times they'd see them in clinicals or in their careers later on.

[Daeva]

disabuse
verb| diss-uh-BYOOZ
 


Definition

: to free from error, misconception, or fallacy (see FALLACY sense 1a)



Weekly Theme

Western


Did You Know?

Taken as a product of its parts, one might assume that disabuse means “to not abuse.” While the usage has changed over the years, that assumption isn’t entirely wrong. We know the verb abuse as a word with various meanings having to do with bad physical or verbal treatment, as well as incorrect or excessive use, but when disabuse first appeared in the 17th century, there was a sense of abuse, now obsolete, that meant “to deceive.” Francis Bacon used that meaning, for example, when he wrote in 1605, “You are much abused if you think your virtue can withstand the King’s power.” The prefix dis- has the sense of undoing the effect of a verb, so it’s logical that disabuse means “to undeceive.” English speakers didn’t come up with the idea of joining dis- to abuse all on their own, however. It was the French who first appended their prefix dés- to their verb abuser; our disabuse is modeled after the French word désabuser.

[Daeva]

inordinate
adjective| in-OR-dun-ut
 


Definition

1: exceeding reasonable limits : IMMODERATE


2 : DISORDERLY, UNREGULATED


Weekly Theme

Mythical Creatures


Did You Know?

At one time, if something was "inordinate," it did not conform to the expected or desired order of things. That sense, synonymous with disorderly or unregulated, is now archaic, but it offers a hint as to the origins of inordinate. The word traces back to the Latin verb ordinare, meaning "to arrange," combined with the negative prefix in-. Ordinare is also the ancestor of such English words as coordination, ordain, ordination, and subordinate. The Latin root is a derivative of the noun ordo, meaning "order" or "arrangement," from which the English order and its derivatives originate.

[Chasing Dreams]

She wasn't a complete fan of studying any mythology of any kind, but was forced to when her college course when they were studying different works. She had to study Ovid's Metamophoses. She had to research the mythical chimera and a few others that appeared in the collection of myths and legends.

[Daeva]

laissez-faire
noun| less-ay-FAIR
 


Definition

1 : a doctrine opposing governmental interference in economic affairs beyond the minimum necessary for the maintenance of peace and property rights

2 : a philosophy or practice characterized by a usually deliberate abstention from direction or interference especially with individual freedom of choice and action






Weekly Theme

Mythical Creatures


Did You Know?

The French phrase laissez faire literally means “allow to do,” with the idea being “let people do as they choose.” The origins of laissez-faire are associated with the Physiocrats, a group of 18th-century French economists who believed that government policy should not interfere with the operation of natural economic laws. (The actual coiner of the phrase may have been French economist Vincent de Gournay, or it may have been François Quesnay, who is considered the group’s founder and leader.) The original phrase was “laissez faire, laissez passer,” with the second part meaning “let (things) pass.” Laissez-faire, which first showed up in an English context in the first half of the 19th century, can still mean “a doctrine opposing governmental interference in economic affairs,” but it is also used in broader contexts in which a “hands-off” or “anything-goes” policy or attitude is adopted. It is frequently used as an adjective meaning “favoring a ‘hands-off’ policy,” as in “laissez-faire economics.”

[Chasing Dreams]

She watched her friend's woebegone behavior after they returned home from the best vacation they had been on in the last two years. Her friend wasn't looking forward to going back to work and had been looking for another job because she needed a change.

[Lilias]

'I'm not trying to be difficult', said Nadia, with as much composure as she could muster, knowing that she had probably earned the label after trying to get her point across for the last ten minutes. 'That kind of text – not just in another language but an unusual script as well – needs time to parse correctly.' A pause, a big eyeroll – thank goodness the conversation was over the phone rather than Zoom, and no one could see her expression. 'No, until next Monday is absolutely not an inordinate amount of time. You asked for a specialist estimate, and this is it; you are free to take it or leave it.'

The person at the other end was obviously growing louder, because Nadia held the handset at some distance from her ear for a while. Her finger hovered over the disconnect button, circled a couple of times, then brought the phone back to her ear. 'Taking it up with Dr Kane or Professor Johansson, or both, is an excellent idea. I will go with whatever they decide. Is that satisfactory? Brilliant. I will wait for further communication.'

Nadia hung up and heaved a sigh. She knew that Beth and Arvid would back her up, and this was likely the last she would ever hear from the particular person, it just seemed that all the loons who thought their cockamamie ideas could be implemented if they just threw enough money at them, were finding their way to her office these days.

[Chasing Dreams]

When she arrived at work, she ended up having to disabuse that she had been the one to mess up by not meeting the deadline her manager gave her to get the three articles written.  She was able to prove she hadn't been submitted them late by showing the time she sent the email to her manager to their boss. She knew her manager wasn't always diligent about deadlines, but she didn't think her manager would ever try to blame her for her manager not submitting things on time.

[Daeva]

boilerplate
noun| BOY-ler-playt
 


Definition

1: syndicated material supplied especially to weekly newspapers in matrix or plate form

2a: standardized text

2b : formulaic or hackneyed language

3 : tightly packed icy snow




Weekly Theme

Mythical Creatures


Did You Know?

In the days before computers, small newspapers around the U.S. relied heavily on feature stories, editorials, and other printed material supplied by large publishing syndicates. The syndicates delivered that copy on metal plates with the type already in place so the local papers wouldn't have to set it. Printers apparently dubbed those syndicated plates "boiler plates" because of their resemblance to the plating used in making steam boilers. Soon boilerplate came to refer to the printed material on the plates as well as to the plates themselves. Because boilerplate stories were often more filler—material used to fill extra space in a column or page of a newspaper to increase its size—than important or informative news, the word acquired negative connotations and gained the "standardized or formulaic language" sense widely used today.

[Chasing Dreams]

She had put off what she was about to do for as long as she possibly could because she wasn't ready to go through everything. In the last year she had accumulated all of her parents stuff and now she had to go through all of it to see what was worth keeping and what wasn't.  She noticed her parents had an inordinate amount of stuff as they hadn't been good about getting rid of stuff they didn't need or didn't use. It felt a bit overwhelming for her even though her two best friends were there to help her.

[VVitch]

She smiled a small, polite rehearsed smile across at him and gave the gentlest shake of her head. When she spoke up it was in a sot, meager tone that belied the weight behind her words, "I'm terribly sorry if you find me rude, Sir. I only mean to disabuse you of the notion that I am the kind of woman who will do as she's told." Despite her gentleness, there was a glimmer of steely determination in her eyes that took aback the man in front of her who truly wasn't used to a woman speaking back to him in such a fashion.

He shook his head now, chuckling a little and shooting her the cocky smirk of a person who always got their way and who only really saw opposition as a sport. "Listen here, little lady. I don't know who you think you are but when Ed Blackburn speaks to you you show a little respect," The tall, rugged man returned with a little fire and frustration in his rough, gravelly voice. 

Everyone else in the saloon was silent, watching as this unassuming woman stood up to a feared outlaw. The tension was palpable, building as conversations cut quiet, drinks were set down and all eyes turned to her and waited to see if she would provoke him anymore. In a moment of peace, she adjusted her hands on her lap, one of which had been resting in the pretty but humble bag she always carried. With a labored sigh, she looked him in the eyes as she pulled the trigger, a single round tearing through the fabric of her beloved purse to pierce clean through his heart.

[Lilias]

The first thing that greeted Ava when she finally made it home – not on the last train of the evening, but close – was Geronimo's woebegone expression, and it actually made her crack a smile. 'Oh, don't look at me like I abandoned you without feeding you since last year', she said. 'You'll be fine, old git.' He hadn't even bothered to climb down from his bed on top of the radiator, to wait for her in the middle of the living room floor with the full-on accusatory glare turned on, like he did at first, whenever she came in late from work.

Even so, she fed him first, before tackling the subject of supper for herself. She ransacked the pantry, taking stock. Not an awful lot; it was grocery shopping night, and the delay had been entirely unexpected. She knew she was out of bacon and sausages, but there were a few eggs. Half a loaf of bread, on the turn; she managed to salvage four slices without blue spots on them, and that gave her an idea. There would be no bread left for breakfast, but she could always pop out early. A look in the fridge confirmed there was enough milk and butter left. Sugar and cinnamon, she was never out of. She put the frying pan on the hob and got down to work.

Ten minutes later, she settled on the sofa with a tower of crispy golden fried bread slices in one hand and a big mug of tea in the other. Geronimo, of course, came to have a sniff, and Ava barely managed to move the plate away before he had a lick. 'Nuh-uh, my friend, this is not dessert time, and French toast is not for kitties. Now, how about a cuddle, while we watch Strictly?' Geronimo snorted and returned to his perch. 'Thought not', chuckled Ava. She took a big bite, relishing the crunch. There was something amazing about this snack, made of all sorts of leftovers, that never failed to satisfy, at all hours. She put her tea down on the side table and reached for the remote.

[Jaclyn]

  Did you know that dragons like turtles lay a pile of eggs and then abandon them to the vagaries of the environment. We all probably know that turtle eggs are laid in the sand on select beaches above the waterline, and eventually if the eggs are not molested by predators they hatch and the wee turtles somehow aim at the ocean and struggle into the water where a few manage to survive predators there.

  Dragons? It’s not beaches but the remote corners of what passes for a hoard for mother dragon. Imagine if you will a dragon named Scrooge McDuck, because we all know the image of Scrooge sitting atop his hoard of gold coins. He would – were he a she and all the other egg producing magic be in tune – lay eggs over in one of the corners of his vault and eventually the little Scrooge McDragons would struggle up through the layers of coinage to scramble uphill to where hopefully they’d be give food and other nurturing by the matron of the McDuck hoard.

  But this mother dragon is not sitting on that hoard. Oh no! This modern dragon mother hoards the trash she collects from that noble newspaper that began as The Daily Universal Register and then promptly changed its name to simply The Times. And the ruined type discarded by The Times fascinated this adolescent dragon who hoarded it away. She especially valued the boilerplate, those metal plates that contained whole stories and she tried to teach herself to read the inside out letters arranged on the boilerplate until one day it dawned on her that The Times also discarded many reams of unsold newspapers daily and from then forward she read the printed page almost daily and made up her own names for letters and the sounds they made because there was no teacher to expose her to human speech and dragon speech is for another story.

  So on a day after several eons of assignations with a boy dragon from up the Thames, she realized she had to find a place for her eggs. So she constructed a small space at the far corner of her pile of type, walled it four sides with boilerplate, and carefully deposited her eggs therein. She tenderly covered them over with loose type and re-ascended her hoard to await their hatching.

[Chasing Dreams]

She had been asked to create boilerplates for her work because her boss was particular about the format and text used for submitting articles that would be printed in the weekly magazines. She knew changing them up could be a good thing, but her boss couldn't handle change very well and the last time she tried to do so, she had wound up on her boss' bad side.

[Lilias]

We always go home for Dia de los Muertos. No matter how far afield our lives take us, we always arrange to be back for those three days. It's worth all the hassle and money, which can be considerable, some years.

My sister and I have always been at odds. I know that's considered a twin cliché, but we're not even twins. Anaya is a full two years older than me. Our relationship improved a lot as we grew up, our lives just don't overlap much. Except for that time of the year.

We always meet in New York to catch a flight down to the Distrito Federal together. Without fail, we run out of catching up a couple of hours in, and end up napping the rest of the way. We've been making our own way to the family estate at La Magdalena for years. The first thing to do after unpacking is put up the requisite additions to the family ofrenda, which has always resided in abuela's sunroom, and grows bigger every year, it seems. Anaya always brings whiskey, the favourite of the clan menfolk. I insist on clairin, a taste I picked up during a year volunteering in Haiti. You'd be surprised how similar ancestral spirits are here and there.

But that's where our ways diverge again. Anaya gravitates towards the domesticity of the feast, the marigolds, the papel picado, the candles and lanterns. She always teases me that she's the help, who tidies up the graves so I can swan in for the feast. That's nonsense, the aunts for many years would not let even their own children muck in with the family graveyard, let alone us. It is true, though, that I don't care to linger at the feast for too long. After the vigil is done, I will slip away and back to the city, where I can lose myself in the parades and street parties. The dead can come a lot closer there, and I won't say any more details here. Not after the brush with Santa Muerte from three years ago.

[Chasing Dreams]

She hadn't been one to enjoy her economics class at all She knew some found it fascinating, but she was didn't understand a lot of it. Their instructor had lectured about laissez-faire and it was one of the few things she did understand slightly and could see why it was important in a many ways.

[Daeva]

scrumptious
adjective| SKRUMP-shus
 


Definition

: DELIGHTFUL, EXCELLENT



Weekly Theme

Mythical Creatures


Did You Know?

First appearing in English in the early 1800s, scrumptious is a mouth-watering word that is used to describe things delightful and delectable. It may have originated as an alteration of sumptuous, carrying the elegant connotations of its parent, though this is not certain. The Oxford English Dictionary cites a dialect form of the word used to mean “cheap, stingy” as its earliest use, and posits that it could instead have been formed by combining the verb scrimp, meaning “to be frugal or stingy,” with the adjective suffix -ious. (Scrimption meaning “a tiny amount or pittance” could be a relation.) How could a word with such a meaning lead to the wholly positive scrumptious? The OED points to a similar path taken by the word nice, which began as a word meaning “wanton or lacking restraint” and is now, well, nice. Regardless, scrumptious today is a fun word to say and play around with, a fact apparent to British author Roald Dahl who used the variation scrumdiddlyumptious in his novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

[Daeva]

nebbish
noun| NEB-ish
 


Definition

: a timid, meek, or ineffectual person




Weekly Theme

Mythical Creatures


Did You Know?

“It looks like Pa isn't anything like the nebbish Ma is always making him out to be.” Sounds like poor Pa got a bum rap, at least according to a 1951 book review that appeared in The New York Times. The unfortunate Pa unwittingly demonstrates much about the etymology of nebbish, which comes from the Yiddish word nebekh, meaning “poor” or “unfortunate.” In keeping with the term’s semantic timidity, its journey from Yiddish to English wasn’t accomplished in a single bold leap. In the earliest known English example of the word, it’s an adjective meaning “harmless or ineffectual.” That mid-19th century use was joined in the early 20th century by the noun we’re familiar with today. Along the way, nebbish has also been used in English as an interjection expressing dismay, pity, sympathy, or regret. The English adjective and interjection are too rare to be included in most general-use English dictionaries, but the noun has made a place for itself in the common lexicon, proving that it’s less of a nebbish than the timid and meek types it refers to.

[Daeva]

abnegate
verb| AB-nih-gayt
 


Definition

1 : DENY, RENOUNCE
2 : SURRENDER, RELINQUISH



Weekly Theme

Mythical Creatures


Did You Know?

There's no denying that the Latin root negāre, meaning "to deny," has given English some useful words, among them abnegate, which is used in formal settings to mean "to deny or renounce" (with responsibilities typically being the thing denied), and "to surrender or relinquish" (with personal desires or self-interest being the thing surrendered). Abnegate combines negāre with the Latin prefix ab-, meaning "from or away." (The related noun abnegation means "denial" or "self-denial.") Other negāre relations include negative, negate, renegade, and deny.

[Jaclyn]

Scrumdiddlyumptious? Scrums are in rugby. Diddly are for gym squats. Umps are officials in certain sports. And tious are just gratuitous endings. See what I did there? But anyway, this is about scrumptious so I had some leftover pecan pie with leftover real whipped cream for breakfast with eggs and bacon. Scrumptious. Ain’t no gratuitous about that!

[Jaclyn]

And praytell, three words of the day today? Really? I get done writing to one and find two more snuck in. Am I supposed to go back and redo? Do I only get ⅓ credit for what I wrote before I was clobbered from behind?

[Daeva]

And praytell, three words of the day today? Really? I get done writing to one and find two more snuck in. Am I supposed to go back and redo? Do I only get ⅓ credit for what I wrote before I was clobbered from behind?

Please try to keep any questions to the chatter thread here - https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=298385.0

However it was a holiday so we got a little behind with posting the words. You do not have to post the words in order to get credit for them as long as they are words posted in this calendar year.

[Daeva]

olfactory
adjective| ahl-FAK-tuh-ree


Definition

: of or relating to the sense of smell


Weekly Theme

Folk Tales


Did You Know?
No, olfactory is not a noun meaning “a place that makes scents”; for that, you want perfumery, which makes more sense. Olfactory is instead an adjective used to describe things related to one’s sense of smell, that which lets you detect fruit with your snoot, a leek with your beak, Shiraz with your schnozz. Olfactory comes from the Latin word olfacere (“to smell”), which in turn combines two verbs, olēre (“to give off a smell”) and facere (“to do”). It often appears in scientific contexts (as in “olfactory nerves,” the nerves that pass from the nose to the brain and contain the receptors that make smelling possible), but it is occasionally used in less technical writing and speech. The pleasant smell of hot mulled cider, for example, might be considered an “olfactory delight,” depending on the spices and your own sensibilities, of course. As they say, the nose knows.