Word of the Day Challenge

[Britwitch]

Today's Word of the Day is....

miasma
noun | mye-AZ-muh


Definition

1 : a vaporous exhalation formerly believed to cause disease; also : a heavy vaporous emanation or atmosphere

2 : an influence or atmosphere that tends to deplete or corrupt; also : an atmosphere that obscures : fog


Weekly Theme

Fairytales


Did You Know?

In notes taken during a voyage to South America on the HMS Beagle in the 1830s, Charles Darwin described an illness that he believed was caused by "miasma" emanating from stagnant pools of water. For him, miasma had the same meaning that it did when it first appeared in English in the 1600s: an emanation of a vaporous disease-causing substance. (Miasma comes from Greek miainein, meaning "to pollute.") But while Darwin was at sea, broader applications of miasma were starting to spread. Nowadays, we know germs are the source of infection, so we're more likely to use the newer, more figurative sense of miasma, which refers to something destructive or demoralizing that surrounds or permeates.

[CinematicMind]

Word: miasma

Theme: Fairytales


“We’re almost there,” the dwarf informed the once-chipper woman behind him. The woman’s mood was much different from when their journey first began, and the swampy environment had only added to her feelings of woe. Her shoes were once a lively green, but, in spite of the care she took with her steps, the muggy ground had painted her shoes with the appeal of mud and mold. It had taken everything inside her to hold herself off from gagging on the miasma of fog that sat atop the swamp water.

“When you said you and your brothers had a house overlooking the water, this isn’t exactly what I was expecting,” the woman admitted, her voice attempted to hide any judgement in her words.

[Chasing Dreams]

The afternoon had been fun because she had finally been able to meet up with her friends at the pub that was their weekly meet up spot. Since life had gotten busy, the group had made it a point to meet up once a week just to keep in touch as they had been best friends since elementary school. They were all adults now with full-time jobs as well as families of their own that kept them busy. They had skipped the previous week because they all had things come up, but now as they sat in the pub and caught up about how their lives were going, and were asking questions about married life. The only one in the group that wasn’t married yet abruptly went from willing talking about how things were going to refusing to say a word about her love life. The others found it odd because out of all of them, the one that went silent was the last one that ever withheld anything from them. They tried to push a little to find out what was wrong, but hadn’t been successful.

[Britwitch]

Today's Word of the Day is....

emeritus
adjective | ih-MEH-ruh-tus


Definition

1 : holding after retirement an honorary title corresponding to that held last during active service

2 : retired from an office or position


Weekly Theme

Fairytales


Did You Know?

In Latin, emeritus was used to describe soldiers who had completed their duty. It is the past participle of the verb emereri, meaning "to serve out one's term," from the prefix e-, meaning "out," and merēre, "to earn, deserve, or serve." (Merēre is also the source of our word merit.) English speakers claimed emeritus as their own in the late 17th century, applying it as both a noun and an adjective referring or relating not to soldiers but to someone who is retired from professional life but permitted to keep as an honorary title the rank of the last office they held. The adjective is frequently used postpositively—that is, after the noun it modifies rather than before it—and it is most commonly used to describe specifically those retired from a professorship.

[Chasing Dreams]

The weather had been a bit crazy lately, but Sam wasn’t surprised because of where she lived. She often said the weather couldn’t make up its mind on whether it was going to be summer or winter because in any given day, it felt as though the weather hinted at the two polar opposite seasons. Today was no exception because a weather alert was made to warn everyone in her area that miasma was so bad that it was causing multiple car accidents and visibly was less than five feet. The last time the weather had been like this that she could remember was three years ago and that morning had set a record in the number of accidents that had happened since many weren’t sure how to drive safely in it as it wasn’t like driving in snow or on icy roads that came along with the nasty winters those that lived in the area were used to driving in. This miasma provided a whole new set of challenges that many had to learn how to deal with as they were driving.

[CinematicMind]

Word: emeritus

Theme: Fairytales

As he watched his kingdom falter, the king knew that something was wrong. Everything that could go wrong for his land and his people, had been. After working through why decisions and actions that had a history of success and prosperity were suddenly causing his kingdom to crumble, the king had come to a fearful worry that one of his enemies must have had their magicians cast a curse upon him. The people surrounding the king worried about his paranoia, and feared that the king was simply trying to pass blame for his poor ruling onto myths of magical curses. However, the king knew.

The king had decided he would set out, and would travel to find Garzian Grinwiddie, the only wizard he trusted with something this serious. Although no longer Exalted Wizard at the Institute of Wizardry, the wise old gnome would still house in her the greatest knowledge of magic. Only having chosen to step down from teaching due to the way her students were starting to use the power they were taught, the emeritus Exalted Wizard's power was still beyond-impressive, and warranted all others to still respect her highest achievement. If anyone could help the king, he knew she could.

[Britwitch]

Today's Word of the Day is....

forswear
verb | for-SWAIR


Definition

1 : to make a liar of (oneself) under or as if under oath

2 a : to reject or renounce under oath

b : to renounce earnestly

3 : to deny under oath

4 : to swear falsely


Weekly Theme

Fairytales


Did You Know?

Forswear (which is also sometimes spelled foreswear) is the modern English equivalent of Old English forswerian. It can suggest denial ("[Thou] would'st forswear thy own hand and seal" — John Arbuthnot, John Bull) or perjury ("Is it the interest of any man … to lie, forswear himself, indulge hatred, seek desperate revenge, or do murder?" — Charles Dickens, American Notes). But in current use, it most often has to do with giving something up, as in "The feuding parties agreed to forswear violence" and "She refused to forswear her principles."

[Chasing Dreams]

There had been whispers from those close to the crown that the eldest prince was unsure about taking the throne in just week’s time. While he was the eldest, he was only the eldest by minutes as he was a twin. It was well-known that he was more of the protector and was more than happy to continue serving his kingdom by remaining on the guard as one of the best and most feared warriors. He often confided in his twin that he would go insane if he had to take over ruling the kingdom so it was not a surprise that the rumors might end up being true. The guards closest to him held his secrets and would never admit to hoping he didn’t take his birthright because they didn’t want to lose the mastermind of the elite warriors. Before the kingdom knew it, the ceremony was upon them that day. The kingdom was full of excitement and curiosity as there were bets being made on the outcome as the eldest prince had always been the wildcard in social events. The crowning of the new king was minutes away as the eldest stepped forward along with his brother as he knew there was no way he could become king. It wasn’t something he wanted nor could stomach. Before anyone could say anything else, the eldest had no choice but to forswear his birthright in front of the entire kingdom that left many angered despite knowing his brother would be the better king.

[CinematicMind]

Word: forswear

Theme: Fairytales

The usually-chipper fairy had no idea what to do. Her new human was such a good friend, but the fairy had no desire to lie for him. If she endorsed Bernard’s fictitious story, no one would be hurt, but she would feel disappointed in herself; however, if she exposed the lies in Bernard’s story, she wouldn’t feel negatively about herself, but her new companion would be punished.

Unfortunately for Bernard, the fairy wasn’t able to forswear her own values of honesty, and she began to recount the true happenings in the forest. She explained Bernard’s true involvement in why Marina hadn’t returned with them to the village, and almost immediately Bernard was jerked into custody by the king’s men.

[Chasing Dreams]

She had not been looking forward to the semester starting because she knew that she wasn’t going to have much free time at all between work and clinicals. She looked at the calendar that she had filled out with her busy schedule and knew that some days would only be filled with the didactic work on campus. According to the calendar, those were the only days she’d be able to get a little bit of a break since her classes were over by noon on some days and one on the other days. It was the didactic work that had her most worried because the classes she was taking were difficult as they were all upper classes and classes for her degree path. The days that she had clinicals were the ones she didn’t worry about as she learned better by doing things.

[Daeva]

Today's Word of the Day is....

affluent
adjective | AF-loo-unt


Definition

1 : having an abundance of goods or riches : wealthy

2 : flowing in abundance


Weekly Theme

Fairytales


Did You Know?

Visualize with us: coffers overflowing, a cash flow more than adequate, assets that are fluid. The image conjured is the essence of the word affluent. Based on Latin fluere, meaning "to flow," affluent is all about flow. (The same image is echoed in other fluere descendants, such as confluence, fluctuate, fluid, influence, mellifluous, and superfluous.) The flowing of goods or riches wasn't the word's first purview, however; 16th century print examples of affluent tend to be about the abundance of such intangibles as "goodness" and "spirit." In the 17th century, the flow suggested by affluent varied greatly: streams, poisons, estates, and blood were all described with the word. In modern use, affluent most often describes wealthy people, or places where wealthy people live.

[Daeva]

Today's Word of the Day is....

thesaurus
noun | thih-SOR-us


Definition

1 a : a book of words or of information about a particular field or set of concepts; especially : a book of words and their synonyms

b : a list of subject headings or descriptors usually with a cross-reference system for use in the organization of a collection of documents for reference and retrieval

2 : treasury, storehouse


Weekly Theme

Fairytales


Did You Know?

In the early 19th century, archaeologists borrowed the Latin word thesaurus to denote an ancient treasury, such as that in a temple. Soon after, the word was metaphorically applied to a book containing a treasury of words or information about a particular field. In 1852, the English scholar Peter Mark Roget published his Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, in which he listed a treasury of semantically related words organized into numerous categories. This work led to the common acceptance of the term thesaurus to refer to "a book of words and their synonyms." The word developed another meaning in the 1950s, when thesaurus began being used in the field of word processing to refer to a list of related terms used for indexing and retrieval.

[CinematicMind]

Words: thesaurus, affluent

Theme: Fairytale

Even if she wasn’t meeting the queen in the garden of the royal castle, Lucia would be able to tell that Queen Margorie was royalty. The queen’s vocabulary was a thesaurus of educated words, and everything from the queen’s wardrobe to her posture told of her affluent status. Lucia had never even traveled to this side of the the city, and to now be standing inside the castle walls at the queen’s request was still such a baffling but honored experience. Lucia just couldn’t understand what a queen would need from the daughter of a seamstress. The queen's wardrobe was already dazzling, and far beyond the artistry her mother was capable of; not to mention that in spite of Lucia's mother's attempts, Lucia was not a seamstress herself, and she had not honed a craft that could be useful to the queen or the court.

[Chasing Dreams]

Her frustration level grew as she had received her paper back from her professor and frowned seeing all the notes written in the margins of the twenty-page paper that she knew they would have the chance to do a rewrite on. The paper was one of the last that she was ever going to have to write for her undergraduate degree, but it seemed that her professor was still going to be incredibly harsh. She started to read the notes her professor left and tried not to glare in his direction because she had taken so much time trying to use words she normally didn’t use since her professor had given them a list of words to avoid that he thought were used way too often. She had even used a thesaurus this time around, but apparently, she needed to choose other words. She made a mental note to use the most obscure words she could find in the thesaurus and see what he had to say about that once she re-submitted it in two-week’s time.

[Daeva]

Today's Word of the Day is....

desiccate
verb | DESS-ih-kayt


Definition

1 : to dry up or become dried up

2 : to preserve (a food) by drying : dehydrate

3 : to drain of emotional or intellectual vitality


Weekly Theme

Post-Apocalyptic


Did You Know?

Raisins are desiccated grapes; they're also dehydrated grapes. And yet, a close look at the etymologies of desiccate and dehydrate raises a tangly question. In Latin siccus means "dry," whereas the Greek stem hydr- means "water." So how could it be that desiccate and dehydrate are synonyms? The answer is in the multiple identities of the prefix de-. It may look like the same prefix, but the de- in desiccate means "completely, thoroughly," as in despoil ("to spoil utterly") or denude ("to strip completely bare"). The de- in dehydrate, on the other hand, means "remove," the same as it does in defoliate ("to strip of leaves") or in deice ("to rid of ice").

[CinematicMind]

Word: desiccate

Theme: Post-Apocalyptic

It was Zion’s first time back to the city since everything had happened. It was strange for her to see a once-flourishing city possessing less signs of life than the small outposts out in the country. Technically there were more bodies, but they were all lifeless and left to desiccate in the new hellish heat. The bones of corpses and the exteriors of the once-towering buildings were all now brittle and willing to crumble at command. Steels and supports of the broken buildings were bent and curved, and Zion couldn’t tell if that was from collapse or melting. She started to wade through the city and keep an eye to the ground for any structures that might house underground areas, and might supply the Raiders with usable goods or survivors.

[Chasing Dreams]

She’d heard it all before from those she had thought were her friends from college. They often told her that she ought to splurge a little more on things she wanted, but didn’t necessarily need. Her whole life she had been one to save and not buy everything little thing that she wanted because she knew the importance in saving her money. Her friends from college were ones that had been born with a silver spoon handed to them, while she had to work hard for everything she had as she knew her parents had struggled at times. The only thing that she wasn’t going to compromise on was where she decided to live. While her friends were all buying houses in the affluent area, she made the decision to move into a high-end apartment that had all the things she wanted in a place in the same area that her friends were moving into without having to take on the responsibilities of owning it. She knew her friends had argued with her over renting versus buying, but she knew she wouldn’t have been able to afford buying a place with the high-end upgrades she wanted and truly didn’t ant to take on any renovations yet. She was giving herself a few years to work in order to pay off her debt and save for her future home that she had a feeling she’d end up building one day.

[Daeva]

Today's Word of the Day is....

whilom
adjective | WYE-lum


Definition

: former


Weekly Theme

Post-Apocalyptic


Did You Know?

Whilom shares an ancestor with the word while. Both trace back to the Old English word hwīl, meaning "time" or "while." In Old English hwīlum was an adverb meaning "at times." This use passed into Middle English (with a variety of spellings, one of which was whilom), and in the 12th century the word acquired the meaning "formerly." The adverb's usage dwindled toward the end of the 19th century, and it has since been labeled archaic. The adjective first appeared on the scene in the 15th century, with the now-obsolete meaning "deceased," and by the 19th century it was being used with the meaning "former." It's a relatively uncommon word, but it does see occasional use.

[CinematicMind]

Word: whilom

Theme: Post-Apocalyptic

The sight of the city was more depressing to Zion than the actual struggles of having had survived to the aftermath. The fact that she had to live in the conditions the world was in after the bombings was one thing, but she was acclimated to the present. As Zion looked at the whilom mecca of the American dream in its current state, it brought back reminders of how well everyone once had it. The display of despair triggered remorseful thoughts about the lack of appreciation everyone had, when in truth most people had more wealth in their lives than they thought. The trouble was that if the wealth wasn’t in monetary value, most people didn’t care for the alternative forms it could exist. For the vast majority, they no longer had to worry about their troubles, the bickering, anything. The attacks took care to bring their always racing minds to rest.

[Lilias]

The Midsummer gathering at the covenstead was turning out to be the most fun Faith had had in quite a while. The circle had been pretty generic feel-good stuff, since there were lots of mundanes in attendance, but still there was singing and dancing in reckless abandon, and spontaneous gift exchanges, and little games for the kids, that no one could have pinpointed as beyond nature, but magic was swirling thick in the air, and Faith revelled in its benevolent chaos.

She caught up with Anna under one of the awnings that stretched between trellises. Anna was sitting at one of the rose petal-scattered tables with Madame Vera, sipping on some sparkling elderflower to rest her voice. Her myrtle crown was just held in place by the unruly tangle of her curls, her shoes were nowhere to be seen, and she looked radiantly happy. ‘Having fun?’ she motioned her friend to join them.

Faith sat down, kicked off her sandals and took off her ivy crown that had kept slipping most of the day. ‘Tons,’ she said, pouring herself some black cherry cordial. ‘Events like this are probably the best press you could ask for.’

‘It gets pretty dark during the dark half,’ said Madame Vera, ‘so we make the most of the brightness while it’s here’. Faith and Anna exchanged glances and nods; they knew Madame Vera was not talking about the weather only. The glittering fairies milling about today would probably flee in terror from the teachings and rituals that took place in the covenhouse during the winter.

‘Are you staying for the bonfire?’ asked Anna.

Faith shook her head. ‘I have a party of my own people to attend later, at the Arcade. Couldn’t get completely out of it, I’m afraid.’

‘A Midsummer party, in the evening and in an enclosed space? For a bunch that prides itself in exactitude and precise calculations, you still manage to get your seasonal stuff dead wrong,’ snorted Anna. ‘I’ll have to wear shoes, won’t I?’

Faith blinked, then a grin started to spread on her face. ‘Are you thinking of crashing it?’

‘It’s not crashing if I’m your plus-one, is it?’ Anna’s smile was impish. ‘Look, those are the same affluent people we both love to deride. I’m not leaving you to face them on your own.’

‘You’ll have us both thrown out.’

‘And come back in time for the bonfire? Sounds like a plan!’

[Wandering Mind]

His eyes went over the woman from the affluent family.  He wondered if her parents knew that she was staying with him.  The police officer knew that they did not care for him.  He had given them enough reasons for them not to like him.  Her father had tried to pay him off.  The blue eyed man didn’t even want to think about why her mother didn’t like him.  It was an understatement that the two had gotten together in poor circumstances.  Despite all the drama, the two were still together more than a year later.

[Chasing Dreams]

The investigation was taking forever to build a case to go after a scammer that had managed to fly below the radar until they slipped up the last three times. The slip ups allowed the investigator to finally see a pattern that she was about to begin gleaning the information needed to finally catch the scammer. Her colleagues had given her a hard time for sticking with the case because they thought she was chasing nothing, but with the latest evidence that she was able to collect proved to them that they had been wrong.

[Lilias]

Ramilys woke up to an empty bed, silver light flooding the room as the moon almost touched the horizon. Another couple of hours of darkness before daybreak, and Damon’s side was completely cold. She got up, slipped on her fur-lined robe and slippers, peeked into the side room, where the nurse lay between the twins’ cribs, all three blissfully asleep, and padded out in search of her husband.

She found him in the sunroom, as she had expected; it was his favourite place to retreat to in order to think. He looked tired, of course, but even more than that, he looked sad. Ramilys wrapped her arms around his shoulders from behind, trying not to lean on him. The burden of lordship was heavy enough right now as it was.

Damon covered her hands with one of his. ‘None of this makes sense,’ he said hoarsely, as if continuing an earlier conversation.

‘I know,’ she whispered. He was right. Old Lord Darriel had sworn fealty to Aldaran in his father’s time. He had been one of the domain’s most stalwart bannermen during the hard years of rebuilding. Whatever had possessed him to forswear his vows and ally himself with Ardais, practically handing them his border lands, was beyond anyone’s guess.

‘I think I’m going to ask Maellen to scry back and see if she can find anything out,’ said Damon. That was obviously a new idea, a product of this very night.

Ramilys blinked. ‘Can she do that?’

‘She would have to establish a link - be close to him, or at least where he used to live, but I believe she is powerful enough, yes.’

‘Travelling to those parts would be stupidly risky right now,’ she frowned.

‘Assuming she can even get out of her Tower duties for long enough,’ he added. ‘I know. But I can’t think of anything else to do. Although Maellen might.’

Ramilys laughed. ‘True enough. You can send her a message and find out. But, please, leave that for the morning and come back to bed now. I would rather not walk all the way back in pitch blackness.’

[Daeva]

Today's Word of the Day is....

oaf
noun | OHF


Definition

1 : a stupid person : boob

2 : a big clumsy slow-witted person


Weekly Theme

Post-Apocalyptic


Did You Know?

A long time ago in England, it was believed that elves sometimes secretly exchanged their babies for human babies. This was used as an explanation when parents found themselves with a baby that failed to meet expectations or desires: these parents believed that their real baby had been stolen by elves and that a changeling had been left in its place. The label for such a child was auf, or alfe, (meaning "an elf's or a goblin's child"), which was later altered to form our present-day oaf. Although the linguistic history is not entirely clear, auf is likely from the Middle English alven, elven, meaning "elf" or "fairy." Today, the word oaf is no longer associated with babies and is instead applied to anyone who appears especially unintelligent or graceless.

[Chasing Dreams]

She hadn’t been much of a meat eater throughout her life, but one of her favorite go-to snacks was beef jerky. While the store name brands were good, she stumbled on a little shop in a small town that made their own delicious jerky. She also hadn’t realized that one of her guy friends also made his own and after attending a party at his place, she had convinced him to show her how he made his own. The day she headed over to his place, she was surprised at the amount of meat that he had to make into jerky, but she knew she shouldn’t have been surprised at all. He had told her that the meat needed to be desiccated or in simpler terms, dehydrated. He showed her his dehydrator and then the different seasonings that he used to make jerky of different flavors.