ACFLMNOO

Word of the Week

A feature wherein TileHead highlights a word that is is especially interesting or unusual (and, incidentally, useful in Scrabble play):

ACFLMNOO

(unscramble the letters to form this week's word...)

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This week's word is...

MOONCALF (n. pl. MOONCALVES)

• Definition:
  
  1. a foolish person
  2. a daydreamer; someone absent-minded, distracted, or given to sentimentality
  3. a deformed animal; a monster (mostly obsolete)
  4. an animal imagined to inhabit the moon (used in science fiction writings)

• Front hooks: (none)
• Back hooks: (none)
• Anagrams: (none)
• Longer extensions: (none)
• Wraparounds: (none)
• Other Spellings: (none)
• Related Forms: (none)

TileHead says:

This word was originally used (in the 1500s and 1600s) to refer to an aborted or deformed fetus, "formerly regarded as being produced by the influence of the moon" (OED), or to any monster or deformed creature.  Vestiges of such folk beliefs about the power of the moon also show up in words such as LUNATIC (from the Latin luna, "moon") and MOONSTRUCK.

As belief in the influence of the moon waned, MOONCALF's meaning gradually softened to "a foolish person; a simpleton" or to "a person who daydreams or behaves in an absent-minded or sentimental manner," and these are the most common current definitions. 

Stephano: Moon-calfe, speak once in thy life, if thou beest a good moon-calfe.
Caliban: How does thy honor? Let me lick thy shoe. I'll not serve him: he's not valiant.
Trinculo: Thou liest, most ignorant monster...
– William Shakespeare, The Tempest (c. 1610)

"But Mr. Dunston is not a mooncalf, and the compliments he paid me were very pretty."
– Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep (1966)

"I suspect Sara is plotting in my favor, but I can't leave you up here in London wandering around with that sick mooncalf expression on your face."
– Nita Abrams, A Question of Honor (2002)

"If a word..."

Quote of the Week:

If a word in the dictionary were misspelled, how would we know?
– Steven Wright (1955- )

EEILLTVY

Word of the Week

A feature wherein TileHead highlights a word that is is especially interesting or unusual (and, incidentally, useful in Scrabble play):

EEILLTVY

(unscramble the letters to form this week's word...)

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This week's word is...

VELLEITY (n. pl. VELLEITIES)

• Definition: A mere wish, desire, or inclination without accompanying action or effort; a low degree of desire

• Front hooks: (none)
• Back hooks: (none)
• Anagrams: (none)
• Longer extensions: (none)
• Wraparounds: (none)
• Other Spellings: (none)
• Related Forms: (none)

TileHead says:

This word seems to have fallen out of fashion, which is a pity given that it describes such a common feeling or situation.  VELLEITY stems from the Latin velle ("to will, to wish"), the same root that also gave English words such as BENEVOLENT and MALEVOLENT.  It has been used in English since the early 1600s and still makes rare appearances in modern writings:

The antecedent will of God is only a velleitie or wishing that a thing might be.
– Francis White, A Replie to Jesuit Fishers Answere (1624)

"He had no fixed intentions, only rebellious impulses, blind longings and velleities."
– James Anthony Froude, Thomas Carlyle: A History of His Life in London, 1834-1881 (1884)

The old fear that Lenora might divorce him and go away with Morris Langdon did not trouble him any more. Any inclination he had once had toward the Major seemed now a mere velleity compared to his feelings for the soldier.
– Carson McCullers, Reflections in a Golden Eye (2000)

Finally, the following Ogden Nash poem explains the word with both accuracy and humor:

Seated one day at the dictionary I was pretty weary and also pretty ill at ease,
Because a word I had always liked turned out not to be a word at all, and suddenly I found myself among the v's.
And suddenly among the v's I came across a new word which was a word called velleity,
So the new word I found was better than the old word I lost, for which I thank my tutelary deity,
Because velleity is a word which gives me great satisfaction,
Because do you know what it means, it means low degree of volition not prompting to action,
And I always knew I had something holding me back but I didn't know what,
And it's quite a relief to know it isn't a conspiracy, it's only velleity that I've got...
– Excerpt from Ogden Nash's "Where There's a Will, There's Velleity" (1938)

"A mind always employed"

Quote of the Week:

A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe, for felicity.
– Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

ABEEHNS (2)

Word of the Week

A feature wherein TileHead highlights a word that is is especially interesting or unusual (and, incidentally, useful in Scrabble play):

ABEEHNS (2)

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This week's word is...

SHEBEAN (n. pl. -S)

• Definition: an unlicensed or illegally operated drinking establishment: a speakeasy; sometimes, a drinking-party in general

• Front hooks: (none)
• Back hooks: S
• Anagrams: BANSHEE (a female spirit – see below)
• Longer extensions: (none)
• Wraparounds: (none)
• Other Spellings: SHEBEEN
• Related Forms: (none)

TileHead says:

The etymology of SHEBEAN/SHEBEEN is a little uncertain, but it probably derives from the Irish Gaelic sibin ("bad ale") or the Irish seapa ("shop").  The English word SHEBANG, meaning "a situation or matter" (frequently seen in the phrase "the whole shebang"), may derive from a similar source.

The South African Government, after years of battling to control illicit drinking dens, known as shebeens, in black townships, has conceded defeat and legalized them.
– Article in The Times (of London), May 1980

I've... seen him standing up there on one of those outcrops overlooking the company's buildings as if he'd like to call down fire from heaven on the whole shebang.
– Vance Palmer, Golconda (1948)

By a strange coincidence, the anagram BANSHEE also derives from Irish, namely the Old Irish ben side ("woman of the fairies").  A banshee (also spelled BANSHIE) is a female spirit that "warns a family of the approaching death of a member by her appearance or especially by wailing unseen under the windows of the house a night or two before the time of the death she foretells" (W3).  The phrase "scream like a banshee" (or "wail like a banshee" or similar) comes from this legend.

"Words obey my call"

Quote of the Week:

...At length
My darling understands it all,
Because I have come into my strength,
And words obey my call.
– William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish poet and dramatist, "Words" (1910)

AAELORTY

Word of the Week

A feature wherein TileHead highlights a word that is is especially interesting or unusual (and, incidentally, useful in Scrabble play):

AAELORTY

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This week's word is...

ALEATORY (adj.)

• Definition: dependent on chance or luck; dependent on a random event or uncertain contingency; of or characterized by gambling; in law, a contract dependent on a contingent event; in music or art, consisting of random or indeterminate elements

• Front hooks: (none)
• Back hooks: (none)
• Anagrams: (none)
• Longer extensions: (none)
• Wraparounds: (none)
• Other Spellings: (none)
• Related Forms: ALEATORIC (adj.)

TileHead Says:

Something ALEATORY is, literally or figuratively, contingent on the throw a die.  It derives from the Latin aleator ("a dice player"), from alea ("a die" or "a dice game").  Legend has it that Julius Caesar cried "Jacta est alea!" ("the die is cast!") when he famously crossed the Rubicon River in 49 BC, starting a civil war.  The historical record is murky on whether he actually said those words, but both "the die is cast" and "crossing the Rubicon" survive today as phrases used to refer to a course of action that has been determined or to any situation beyond the point of no return.

Returning to our English words ALEATORY and ALEATORIC, as used in modern writings:

But then I know it is not true and that the clock in the belly of the alligator is ticking with no relation to what I am thinking or feeling and all is aleatory, disjunctive...
– Edith A. Jenkins, Against a Field Sinister: Memoirs and Stories (1991)

But this story conveys a marvellous feeling for the aleatory, the randomness of life's moments of making sense.
– Article in the West Coast Review (1986)

The pianist, who seemed as drunk as his leader, was doing something atonal and aleatoric; meanwhile drummer and bassist assured the dancers that this was still the dance they had started off to dance.
– Anthony Burgess, Tremor of Intent (1966)

Every Scrabble player is familiar with the concept of ALEATORY events, if not the word itself.  One might argue that a great part of the allure of the game of Scrabble is its near-perfect blending of skill on the one hand and the aleatory element of tile-drawing on the other.  Every game is different, and every dip into the tile bag brings fresh challenges and opportunities.

"Luck enters into every contingency"

Quote of the Week:

Luck enters into every contingency. You are a fool if you forget it – and a greater fool if you count upon it.
– Phyllis Bottome (1884-1963)