Word of the Day Challenge

[Daeva]

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

knackered
adjective | NAK-erd


Definition

: TIRED, EXHAUSTED


Weekly Theme

Thriller



Did You Know?


An apt synonym for knackered might be the phrase “dead tired” for more than one reason. Knackered comes from the past participle of knacker, a slang term meaning “to kill,” as well as “to tire, exhaust, or wear out.” The origins of the verb knacker are uncertain, but the word is perhaps related to an older noun knacker. That word originally referred to a harness-maker or saddlemaker, and later to a buyer of animals no longer able to do farmwork (or their carcasses), as well as to a buyer of old structures. Knackered is used on both sides of the Atlantic but is more common among British speakers.

[Chasing Dreams]

There were so many things running through her mind with the upcoming deadline for the grand ball she was tasked to organize for her work. She knew that there was still much to do. She ended up having to balkanize everything that wasn’t important like how she was feeling or everything else she needed to do at work that wasn’t important to the tasks she had at hand. She just hoped that she was able to concentrate on the deadline while working on the tasks she was having her coworkers help her with what needed to be done.

[Daeva]

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

wangle
verb | WANG-gul


Definition

Intransitive Verb

: to resort to trickery or devious methods

Transitive Verb

1: to adjust or manipulate for personal or fraudulent ends

2: to make or get by devious means : FINAGLE



Weekly Theme

Thriller



Did You Know?


You may have noticed a striking resemblance between wangle and wrangle, both of which have a sense meaning “to obtain or finagle.” But the two do not share a common history: wrangle is centuries older than wangle, and despite their overlap in both meaning and appearance, wangle is believed to have evolved separately by way of waggle, meaning “to move from side to side.” (Wrangle, by contrast, comes from the Old High German word ringan, meaning “to struggle.”) It’s possible, though, that wangle saved the “obtain” sense of wrangle from the brink of obsolescence—until recent decades, this usage had all but disappeared, and its revival may very well have been influenced by wangle. We wish we could wangle conclusive evidence to support this theory, but alas!

[Chasing Dreams]

When she bought her books for her poetry class, she was pleasantly surprised to see the marginalia throughout the book. The notes were useful to her and helped her immensely because poetry wasn’t her strong suit at all.

[Daeva]

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

doctrinaire
adjective | dahk-truh-NAIR


Definition

: stubbornly or excessively devoted to a doctrine or theory without regard to practical considerations



Weekly Theme

Thriller



Did You Know?


The noun doctrine refers to a set of ideas or beliefs that are taught or believed to be true, and is often used specifically for the principles on which a government or religion may be based. Its adjectival form, doctrinal (“of, relating, or preoccupied with doctrine”), as in “doctrinal teachings,” is straightforward and not particularly judgmental. Doctrinaire, however, describes someone who is rigidly and impractically devoted to a doctrine. This critical connotation comes from the word’s history in post-revolutionary France as a name for members of a group of constitutional monarchists led by statesman and philosopher Pierre Paul Royer-Collard. Royer-Collard’s doctrine was opposed by both ultraroyalists and revolutionists, and he was given the nickname “doctrinaire,” which was later capitalized and extended to his colleagues, thereafter known as the Doctrinaires.

[Chasing Dreams]

The week of her move, she had so many things that she needed to do. She was up early every morning and up until the early morning before going to sleep. As she watched her stuff get moved into her house, she was completely knackered from the entire week and was looking forward to sleeping in her own bed once it was put together and she made it later that day.

[Britwitch]

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

rubric
noun | ROO-brik


Definition

1 a : an authoritative rule
especially : a rule for conduct of a liturgical service

b (1) : NAME, TITLE
specifically : the title of a statute
(2) : something under which a thing is classed : CATEGORY

c : an explanatory or introductory commentary : GLOSS
specifically : an editorial interpolation

2 : a heading of a part of a book or manuscript done or underlined in a color (such as red) different from the rest

3 : an established rule, tradition, or custom

4 : a guide listing specific criteria for grading or scoring academic papers, projects, or tests



Weekly Theme

Pirates / Age of Sailing



Did You Know?

Centuries ago, whenever manuscript writers inserted special instructions or explanations into a book, they put them in red ink to set them off from the black used in the main text. (They used the same practice to highlight saints’ names and holy days in calendars, a practice which gave us the term red-letter day.) Ultimately, such special headings or comments came to be called rubrics, a term that traces back to ruber, the Latin word for “red.” While the printing sense remains in use today, rubric has developed other meanings over the years, and is most often encountered in its extended sense referring to a class or category under which something is organized.

[Chasing Dreams]

When she learned the people she once associated with were in town, she tried to make herself scarce as she had dated one of the guys and had no interest in running into him again. It seemed no matter what she wanted, fate wasn’t on her side as she ran into him at the coffee shop she frequented. He was there and handed her a cup of coffee just how she liked it. She was hesitant to take it but eventually did as she watched him warily. She wanted to leave right then and there, but he managed to wangle an agreement from her. All she had to do was go out to dinner with him that night and then he’d leave her be.

[Britwitch]

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

adapt
verb | uh-DAPT


Definition

transitive verb
: to make fit (as for a new use) often by modification

intransitive verb
: to become adapted



Weekly Theme

Pirates / Age of Sailing



Did You Know?

"Nothing in this world is as reliable as change" is a common aphorism and one we can certainly attest to as lexicographers. English speakers adapted adapt, for example, in the 15th century from the Middle French adapter, which was itself an adaptation of Latin adaptāre. That source traces back to Latin aptus, meaning "fit" or "apt." Other adaptations of aptus in English include aptitude, inept, and of course apt itself, as well as unapt and inapt.

[ajtrue]

01/30 /2023 Word of the day
     ADAPT
           1 - To make fit (as for a new use) often by modification, OR
           2 – To become adapted.

     Word Count: 465



Mark looked at the pipefitting with disgust and literally scratched his head. It took all kinds. And he’d seen a lot of things in his years on the job, but this was something else. He wasn’t sure who the owner had work on this thing before they'd called in the professionals, but whoever it was, they’d left the juncture well and truly fakakta’d.   

He’d called Jim over earlier and the two had marveled at the level of ingenuity it took to screw a simple pit joining up this horrendously. I mean, they’d have really had to work at it to make it this FUBAR'd. Mark thought again. Someone needed to smash some heads together. Or at least be given a really good talking to about leaving this kind of thing to the professionals. He squatted, hoping a new angle would make the whole mangled mess make more sense.

“Maybe if you…” Jim trailed off, eyes squinting as he tried to picture a fix. His mind struggled to come up with a single thing that could make this work and he'd been on the job twice again as long as Mark. Between the two of them, there shouldn't be anything they came up against they couldn't fix. This was a stumper though.

They had the truck. They had just about every tool you could want or need to get this kind of job done. What they didn’t have was superhuman powers or a magic wand. Jim shook his head in the negative.

“No. That’ll never work.” He drew in a deep breath and finally shrugged, raising his hands palm up in surrender. Mark gave him a dirty look. Jim winced but shrugged again.

“I don’t know what to tell you man. It’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen. Good luck with that.”

His “friend” gave a low wave and turned to walk back to where he was working on an entirely different issue. Not helpful.

Maybe he could adapt one of the lead joints? But even then, if he heated the joint to the point the metal became malleable enough to fit around the oddly misshapen pipe end, the structural integrity would start to be questionable. The last thing he wanted was to be called back to this place to fix the same problem twice. Because no doubt, the second time around, the owners would likely have some pretty choice words for him. Not to mention several feet of raw sewage backed up inside their house. Some days he really just hated this damn job. The city didn't pay them enough to deal with this kind of crap.

[Chasing Dreams]

It was one of the last classes she had to take for her degree and was one she had pushed off until the last possible semester because she had heard nightmare stories about the professor of the class. She had heard that he was incredibly strict and wasn’t the best instructor, yet he was the only one that taught the class she needed to take. On the first day of class, she sat there and listened to his lecture and realized he was a doctrinaire about literary theory and criticism. She wanted to just leave the class because she knew it was going to be a wickedly tough class as her views were the same as his and knew many in the class would struggle right along with her.

[Lilias]

Ava watched, smiling, from the main house back porch as the children, two girls around the cusp of their teens and one a bit younger, brushed down their ponies after their riding lesson, with the same care and diligence they had shown in mucking out their stalls before. The stable master was not as implacable as the absolute misanthrope that had terrorised the place when Ava was their age, but she was sure he would give very short shrift to anyone caught slacking off. The attitude was part and parcel of their ilk.

But eventually the ponies were groomed, petted, and, since there would be no more lessons that day, turned out into the paddock to enjoy themselves until sundown. 'Right, story time is coming up', said Ava, to no one in particular. 'You coming along, old git?' That was obviously addressed to Geronimo, who had been snoozing at the top of the porch steps this whole while, tucked into a perfect loaf right in the middle of the rag rug. He half-opened one eye, graced Ava with a glance of utter contempt, and settled down again, flicking his tail a couple of times, to reinforce his point.

'Don't sit on the fence, tell us how you really feel', chuckled Ava, picking up the book that had been waiting by her side, bookmark at the ready, and standing up. She moved swiftly down the steps, just in case Geronimo decided to make a swipe for her ankle, then paused at the bottom. 'Don't go wandering, okay? Even those ponies can stomp you flat, and nobody likes furry pancakes.' Geronimo didn't deign respond, but, as far as Ava was concerned, it was a proper comeback and she chuckled all the way over to the stable and her audience.

[FoxWriter]

Erik watched through narrowed eyes as he sat astride his horse. The beautiful gray mare was so soft she was almost white, and so he struck a very imposing figure on the battlefield with his gleaming armor and his shield. He was a Paladin of the Goddess of Justice, and today, he was serving justice.

“Stand down your arms!” he commanded, raising his shield to show his goddess’ image. People around him where standing down. People draped in red and yellow backing away from him, people in purple and blue looking bright eyed and hopeful. They all knew why he was there. He was there to end the war. Well. If you could call it that. The Goddess of Justice did not stand for petty squabbling, so they all where sure that Erik was here to say who was in the right, and who was in the wrong. The people of Valhall in the purple and blue where so sure their cause was just and right. The people of Louvre, in yellow and red, where sure this was all a trick.

“Where are your lords?!” Erik demanded. He was very annoyed to have to be doing this. The petty squabbling of greedy rulers who aught to know better. He had so much better things to be doing, like stopping a demon king, or smiting the undead. Instead, he was here to stop two assholes from fighting over a lake that didn’t even have anything in it aside from a nice view and some buttercups. In truth, it was over some bitch of a woman who was stringing them both along because SHE wanted the lake.

No one was pleased with the lecture that followed. Erik reprimanding the two lords for three hours about childishness and abusing their positions. Then he scolded the woman in question, threw her onto his horse, and dragged her kicking and screaming, back to her own damn home where her parents had BETTER keep a better eye on her. This whole thing… was a mess and Erik had a migraine to suit all migraine. But hey, at least his Goddess was happy.

[FoxWriter]

it was one hell of a conundrum he was in. and he wasn’t even sure how it had happened. One second he had been watching his favorite T.V. show and the next… well, lets just say he wasn’t having a very good time. He scowled as he tightened his grip on the bat in his hands, wishing he had been able to bring the guns he’d been cleaning with him. How was he supposed to survive zombies without a gun!?

Worse, he was on his own. He’d been dumped into season four, episode six which was an episode where the main group was exploring a Zombie infested city looking for batteries, gas, and food. He had seen the group from the roof a while ago, fighting with the season four main antagonists group, the Righteous Ones.  A group of overly zealous cultists who believed that they where supposed to sacrifice non-believers to their ‘special’ zombies. The special zombies would then become a thing in the fifth season.

But of course, he didn’t need to worry about season five, he needed to worry about WHY THE HELL HE WAS IN A T.V. SHOW! At least he knew how to take care of himself, and how to fight. He was pretty well equipped aside from not having any of his usual equipment.

“Hey! There’s someone on the roof!” that was the voice of the main character… well, one of them anyway. Jackson was a wet dream to say the least, and now he’d noticed the lone person on the roof, beating in a zombie’s head. Clark looked down at them, saluted them with the bat, and then swung at another Zombie before he took a running leap off of one roof and onto the next.

“Damn. He’s got some moves for a little guy.” Jackson admitted and Clark huffed. Being short kind of sucked, but whatever, he’d just have to make his way down and maybe, he’d wake up from this weird ass dream in a few hours… hell, if it was a dream… maybe he could kiss Jackson? He hoped so. That would be pretty cool. Maybe being trapped in his favorite T.V. show wasn’t all THAT bad?

[Britwitch]

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

savant
noun | sa-VAHNT


Definition

1 : a person of learning
especially : one with detailed knowledge in some specialized field (as of science or literature)

2 : a person affected with a developmental disorder (such as autism or intellectual disability) who exhibits exceptional skill or brilliance in some limited field (such as mathematics or music)



Weekly Theme

Pirates / Age of Sailing



Did You Know?

Word-loving Homo sapiens will appreciate how much there is to know about savant. For one, savant comes ultimately from the Latin word sapere (“to be wise”) by way of Middle French, where savant is the present participle of savoir, meaning “to know.” Second, savant shares roots with the English words sapient (“possessing great wisdom”) and sage (“very wise”) (as well as Homo sapiens). Finally, the term is sometimes used to refer to a person who demonstrates extraordinary knowledge in a particular subject or has an extraordinary ability to perform a particular task (such as complex mathematics) but has more limited capacities in other areas.

[FoxWriter]

it was impossible. How could this have happened?! To have someone hoodwink him like this! It was inconsolable! He stared at the thing in front of him and he could feel his eye twitching. It was a horse alright but that didn’t mean it was HIS horse! He glared at the thing, which had eight legs, of all things. It was completely black all over, and it stared at him with far too intelligent eyes.

“Loki, that bastard.” he sighed as he moved over to the horse. “Sleipnr right? Look, I know your not a horse, but could I get a ride home? Please?” the horse stared at him for a long moment and then snorted and turned to offer him it’s back and he beamed.

“Thanks so much! I’ll make sure to repay you when we get back to my home. We have an apple tree and a hive. All the honey and apples you want in return.” the ears pricked up and the head tossed and the horse pranced in place for the offer. Caroline wouldn’t mind giving up a few jars of honey soaked apples to one of the ancient gods. Hell, she might even throw in some extra. Until then, he carefully climbed aboard and clung on for dear life as the horse raced through the nine realms, heading for midgaurd. He didn’t bother trying to get his own horse back, if Loki wanted his horse, well… he wasn’t clever enough to try and trick it back from Loki of all the gods. Thor? Maybe, but never Loki.

Besides, this was gonna make his wifes day, getting to lavish a feast upon Sleipnr. It had to bring some kind of good fortune right?

[FoxWriter]

“How dare you!” Sam blinked and rubbed her face. What was with all the yelling? She sat up and winced as pain lanced through her skull. The last thing she remembered was cooking with Catherine, making bread… then they’d went to the living room and started watching some cheesy werewolf romance series.

“A charlatan like you has no right to complain about my actions! Your the one attempting to marry a woman who is unconscious!” what? She knew that voice… it was Axle, one of the leaders of the werewolf packs from the show. She stared at him. He and Jeremiah where squaring off. Jeremiah was in a suit and tux, and he was snarling with crooked teeth.

“She is MY mate! She’ll have to marry me whether she’s awake or not so stay out of this!” Jeremiah demanded and Axle snarled.

“You and I both know she’s fully capable of rejecting you. Mate or no mate, bond or no bond, you cannot force anyone like this! I am taking her and I am leaving!” Axle snarled and Sam shook her head and looked around and felt bile rise in her throat as she realized her girlfriend was there as well. She was dressed like Abigail from the show, Jeremiah’s sister, and she was bleeding from a deep gash on her head. Sam raced to her feet, only to trip over the long flowing white gown she was dressed in. someone had dressed her while she was unconscious! Perverts! She shook her head and crawled over to Catherine to check on her. She was blinking, looking dazed and a bit confused but she smiled when she saw Sam who sagged with relief that she was okay.

“Hey! Come on! We’re fighting for who has the right to marry you, you know! You could at least pay attention!” Jeremiah complained and Sam glared at him.

“Piss off you chauvinistic, Misogynistic, bigoted piece of shit.” Sam spat and he jerked back in shock and Axle grinned and made his way over to them, he was practically strutting. He thought he’d won. Sam realized that must make her Juliana. The Daughter of the Alpha of Alpha’s. Whoever she chose to marry was supposed to take over for her ‘father’ who had died suddenly.  She glared at him.

“You piss off too.” she spat and Axle froze in shock as Sam and Catherine leaned in for a deep kiss. “I have my mate. You assholes can go piss on a tree somewhere else. I’m leaving with my mate. The mate of my heart and soul!”

“aaaw. Sam. Did you just ask me to marry you? Wait… where the hell are we?”

“Dreaming… I hope. Or maybe we’re drugged or hallucinating. Who knows. Come on, you need a doctor.” Sam smiled as she helped Catherine to her feet and they both headed for the doors. Leaving behind a stunned pair of piss poor Alpha’s behind.

[FoxWriter]

Erebus scowled as he stared at the enemy. The enemy of all enemies. Oh how he HATED these foul beasts. The enemy stared back at him with it’s beady black eyes and chewed on the mouthful of grass that Abbie had fed it. He glared harder at it,, attempting to make it obey him with his thoughts alone. It didn’t seam phased.

“Would you just get on it instead of glaring at it?” Solaris demanded, rolling his eyes as he headed over to Abbie to help her onto her own horse. Erebus growled, glaring at it even more before he finally moved to get into the saddle. Oh how he hated these stupid things. Why did Solaris have to mention he owned stables?! Why did Abbie insist he had to come? These slobbering, gross beasts… he had barely settled into the saddle when the horse took off and Erebus swore, loudly, as Solaris took off after the two. Erebus and horses, where NOT a good mix and with Erebus being in such a bad mood already, was just exacerbating the issue. He was going to make Solaris pay for this… he really was.

[FoxWriter]

“ladies and Gentlemen we are bringing you breaking news today. There is a new Endemic occurring as we speak. It has happened very suddenly and very quickly. There has been a rash of sudden extremely unusual disappearances all over the world. We are calling it the Isekai Endemic, as people disappearing have been found to have been watching Anime at the time of the sudden vanishing act. We are asking people to step away from their Televisions until we can find out what is going on.”

Jeremy scowled at the interruption to his show. He’d been waiting all week for this episode. The latest in his most favorite Anime. So I was reincarnated as a slime was full of all the things he loved best. An overpowered but kind protagonist. An isekai world full of amazing monsters and people. A chearful humor interspersed between extreme situations. It was the best! He huffed and turned the announcement off and flicked his show back on. Vanishing would be fine so long as he could finish his episode first.

He paused as he realized as soon as he’d started watching, the world had started to blur. He realized that maybe he should have listened to the announcement a little too late as the world melted around him. “ah! Another one! Wonderful wonderful. Come in young man. Sorry to pull you away so suddenly but we’re having a bit of an emergency in other worlds.” Jeremy blinked at the god… god?  Standing before him. It was a little kid! He couldn’t have been more than four, looking up at Jeremy with a sheepish little smile.

“other words? So this is literally an Isekai situation?”

“oh yes very much so. Thankfully most of the people coming through are quite excited by the idea. We’re giving you all kinds of special abilities of your choice and you can go to any number of worlds. Here.” the kid handed him a packet and Jeremy sat down to examine each one, his head tilted. According to the packet, a great evil had spread across the many worlds after one of the gods went mad. They where sending heroes to each world to ‘keep the balance’ as it where.

“I'll go here.” Jeremy decided with a grin and just like that, thy where floating over a brand new world filled with all kinds of monsters and dragons and busty babes. A few more options to alter his looks a little and choose the classes he wanted most and he was soon down in the forest of beginnings, in a brand new world, ready to play the part of his most favorite television show. He was going to revolutionize the food scene here. He was a professional chef after all. He was going to start with taming a few powerful beasts to protect him and hunt for him, and from there, he could begin to spread the idea of seasoning ones food and other ways of cooking it all. Yes. He was going to enjoy his cooking isekai adventure.

[FoxWriter]

“Alright! Get them wrangled up!” the call from the boss rang through the fields and the horses perked up at the command, their riders wooping as they kicked their horses into gear as they tore into the grassy green fields. Birds took flight and rabbit sized deer scattered as they took notice of the thundering crowd racing into their home. The people on horseback ignored them, they where focused on something more important. The slimes.

Thousands of slimes, which wiggled and jiggled and bounced around. Normally, they where just kin of, there. But every once and a while, they had a population boom and when that happened, it was time to herd them into a very special spot, where they could be evolved and turned into giant slimes that could then be tamed and used for all kinds of things. The horses yipped and pranced as they drove the Slimes into a massive pile and then towards the villagers waiting in the Mana caves to feed the slimes mana soaked crystal formations to facilitate the evolution.

“Man am I knackered.” one of the horses complained as it laid down to chew some grass while it watched the goings on, his rider snorted.

“Stop being so lazy.” he ordered, ruffling the horses mane before offering an apple slice. “you where awesome though, thanks for all the hard work.”

“shhh. Less talking. More apples.”

“Lazy and greedy!”

[FoxWriter]

James was annoyed. Very annoyed. He couldn’t believe this had happened. He had thought for the first hour that it had to be impossible. That he had to be dreaming or something. Of course, after an hour, he had to admit this wasn’t a dream…

Who knew annoying an ancient witch could bring THIS to fruition? He was a pastel green dragon in a very cartoonish world and a purple Dragon named Spike would not stop whining about his cookies. A purple pony named Twilight had been lecturing for hours to no one and a pink pony named Pinkie kept looking at him and snickering. He was miserable and outraged. He knew he was supposed to sit back, adapt to the situation and wait for help but if that purple pony went on about the power of friendship one more time, he was pretty sure he was going to barf.

“Here it is!” Twilight called, walking over with a book that was flipping it’s own pages. James had to admit, that was pretty cool. “ancient ritual magic to go through the multiverse.” she smiled at him. “we’ll get you home in no time.” she promised. “I the meantime, why don’t you make yourself at home? I’m sure we can find a way to make you comfortable while your here.” she promised and James shuddered. This place gave him the creeps, but he supposed he didn’t have much of a choice. And really, being in a dragon body, even if it was a cartoon, would be good practice. He still hadn’t learned how to fly after all. He stretched his wings with a groan, shook his head, and followed… spike, up the bright crystal… everything, to find a place that would be a little less blinding to sleep in.

he was going to blame Shelly for this. He really was.

[Chasing Dreams]

The final project that she was working on was going to make or break her final grade. She had looked at the rubric for the project several times to ensure she wasn’t missing anything as it was due the next day. She had completed it a day ago but was just going over it once more as her nerves started to get to her as she knew that it was going to determine how she finished her college career and entered her professional one.

[Britwitch]

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

eleemosynary
adjective | el-ih-MAH-suh-nair-ee


Definition

: of, relating to, or supported by charity




Weekly Theme

Pirates / Age of Sailing



Did You Know?

A grammarian once asserted in reference to eleemosynary that "a long and learned word like this should only be used under the stress of great need." Whether or not you agree with such prescriptions, the word eleemosynary isn't exactly ubiquitous. Its tricky spelling doesn’t do it any favors—though this wasn’t always the case. The good people of early England had mercy on themselves when it came to spelling and shortened the root of eleemosynary, the Latin eleemosyna, to ælmes, which they used to mean "charity." (You may be more familiar with alms, an ælmes derivative that refers to food, money, etc., given to the poor.) The original Latin root, however, was resurrected in the early 17th century to give us our modern conundrum of a spelling.

[Chasing Dreams]

Walking into work, she noticed that the rumors about there being a new CEO were true because there was a new guy dressed to the nines in an amazing suit standing at the entrance greeting the employees as they entered. She was a little nervous because she had heard that he was known for making many changes and was certain that some would affect her department. She wasn’t a huge fan of change and had been happy the last ten years she had been there, but she knew she’d have to learn to adapt to anything new he threw their way. She wasn’t exactly looking forward to that, but she also knew she had to as she wasn’t looking for another job.

[Britwitch]

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

portend
verb | por-TEND


Definition

1 : to give an omen or anticipatory sign of

2 : INDICATE, SIGNIFY




Weekly Theme

Pirates / Age of Sailing



Did You Know?

It may seem like a stretch to say that portend, beloved verb of seers, soothsayers, and meteorologists alike, is related to tendon—the word we use to refer to the dense white fibrous tissue that helps us, well, stretch—but it’s likely true. Portend comes from the Latin verb portendere (“to predict or foretell”), which in turn developed as a combination of the prefix por- (“forward”) and the verb tendere (“to stretch”). Tendere is thought to have led to tendon, among other words. So you might imagine portend as having a literal meaning of “stretching forward to predict.” In any event, the history of the word surely showcases the flexibility of our language.