ZAFTIG

TileHead’s Word of the Day for 14 December 2011

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ZAFTIG  (adj.)

Definition(s):

1. (adj.) having a full, shapely figure; curvaceous
2. (adj.) full-bosomed

Useful information for game players:

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

Epilogue:
This is another useful word from the colorful and evocative Yiddish language.  It derives from the Yiddish zaftik (“juicy”) and probably ultimately from the Middle High German saft (“juice”).  Depending on your point of view, you might prefer near-synonyms such as BUXOM, CURVACEOUS, or VOLUPTUOUS.

This week’s theme: Words starting with the letter Z

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ZOONOSIS

TileHead’s Word of the Day for 13 December 2011

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ZOONOSIS  (n. pl. ZOONOSES)

Definition(s):

1. (n.) a disease that can be transmitted from animals to human beings

Useful information for game players:

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

Epilogue:
There are many ZOONOTIC diseases, and among the best-known are malaria, rabies, and Lyme disease.  Diseases such as AIDS and influenza may have originated as ZOONOSES, though they are now typically spread from human-to-human.  The word derives from straightforward Greek elements: zoion (“animal”) and nosos (“disease”).

This week’s theme: Words starting with the letter Z

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ZELKOVA

TileHead’s Word of the Day for 12 December 2011

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ZELKOVA  (n. pl. -S)

Definition(s):

1. (n.) an Asian tree of the elm family, various species of which are used as a shade tree, for timber, or for a bonsai tree

Useful information for game players:

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

Epilogue:
One species of this tree is native to parts of Japan, China, and the Caucasus — this last place being an ethnically diverse region where Iran, Russia, and Turkey come together.  Probably because of the Caucasus connection, the English word for this tree family comes from the Russian zel’kova and ultimately from the Georgian dzelkva, roughly meaning “hard rock” (because it was often used in making durable construction materials).  Among the very few other English words deriving from Georgian are LARI and TETRI, both forms of Georgian currency.

Theme:
A zany collection of words starting with the letter Z

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"When I use a word..."

Quote of the Week:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
~ Lewis Caroll (1832-1898), Through the Looking-Glass

YOGINI

TileHead’s Word of the Day for 9 December 2011

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YOGINI  (n. pl. -S)

Definition(s):

1. (n.) a female practitioner of yoga (a Hindu philosophy involving physical and mental disciplines, or a system of exercises for attaining bodily or mental control and well-being)

Useful information for game players:

• Front hooks: (none)
• Back hooks: -S
• Anagrams: (none)
• Longer extensions: (none)
• Wraparounds: (none)
• Other Spellings: (none)
• Related Forms: YOGA, YOGI, YOGEE, YOGIC, YOGIN

Epilogue:
Originally applied to a type of female demon or to a female practitioner of a form of tantric Buddhism, a YOGINI nowadays may be a spiritual teacher or merely a devotee of modern yoga exercises.  The masculine forms are YOGI, YOGEE, or YOGIN, though each of these is sometimes considered gender-neutral.

English adopted the YOGA / YOGI family of words from Hindi forms of a Sanskrit word that meant “to yoke, join, or harness” — with the connotation of joining the physical self with the transcendent.


Recapping this week’s words: YCLEPED, YEGG, YESTREEN, and YOGINI

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YESTREEN

TileHead’s Word of the Day for 7 December 2011

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YESTREEN  (n. pl. -S)

Definition(s):

1. (n.) yesterday evening; the night before

Useful information for game players:

• Front hooks: (none)
• Back hooks: -S
• Anagrams: (none)
• Longer extensions: (none)
• Wraparounds: (none)
• Other Spellings: (none)
• Related Forms: YESTEREVE, YESTERNIGHT

Epilogue:
It is easy to see how the Middle English yisterday even (“yesterday evening”) morphed into yistreven and eventually the modern YESTREEN or YESTEREVE.  A similar alteration happened with Halloween, which started out as All-Hallow-Even. 

YESTREEN is a good old word for a common concept, having been in the language for over 600 years, and it still sees occasional use.  The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for the fascinating old word yesterfang, “that which was taken or caught on the previous day or former occasion” — as in a yesterfang of fish.   

One might also wish that the word nudiustertian, which means “on or pertaining to the day before yesterday” (from Latin nudiustertianus, “today the third day”) had not become obsolete, but it is, admittedly, a mouthful and a bit contrived.  However, I would like to call for a full revival of overmorrow, a useful and straightforward word meaning “the day after tomorrow.”  It was employed in the Coverdale Bible translation of 1535 (“Up Sara, let us make oure prayer unto God to daye, tomorrow, and overmorrow,” Tobit 8:4), and it has cognates in other languages (German ubermorgen, etc.), but it never caught on widely.

Regardless, we will conclude our examination of words starting with the letter Y overmorrow.

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YEGG

TileHead’s Word of the Day for 6 December 2011

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YEGG  (n. pl. -S)

Definition(s):

1. (n.) a burglar or safecracker
2. (n.) a dangerous criminal of any kind

Useful information for game players:

• Front hooks: (none)
• Back hooks: -S
• Anagrams: EGGY
• Longer extensions: yeggMAN, yeggMEN
• Wraparounds: (none)
• Other Spellings: (none)
• Related Forms: YEGGMAN, YEGGMEN

Epilogue:
The colorful word YEGG, and the synonymous YEGGMAN, were often used in newspaper stories in the early to mid-twentieth century:

Six yeggmen, masked with handkerchiefs, blew open the safe in the Suffield Savings Bank early this morning.
~ NY Tribune, 18 Dec. 1906

A gang of more than a dozen yeggs yesterday blew the doors of five safes of the Kellogg Switchboard & Supply Co. and escaped with loot estimated at $33,000.
~ Miami News, 18 October 1926

There have been several theories about the origins of the term, but none have proved conclusive.  It may have been inspired by John Yegg or John Yeager, notorious SAFECRACKERS (or CRACKSMEN) of the early 1900s.  Or it may derive from San Francisco Chinatown slang (yekk, meaning “beggar”) or from Scottish dialect words (yark or yek, meaning “to break”).  Even the German jager (“huntsman”) has been suggested as a possible source.  Like the individual the word describes, this word’s history is likely to remain slightly elusive and mysterious.


This week’s theme: Words starting with the letter Y

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YCLEPED

TileHead’s Word of the Day for 5 December 2011

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YCLEPED  (adj.)

Definition(s):

1. (adj.) called; named
2. (v.) a past tense form of the verb clepe (to call by name)

Useful information for game players:

• Front hooks: (none)
• Back hooks: (none)
• Anagrams: (none)
• Longer extensions: (none)
• Wraparounds: (none)
• Other Spellings: YCLEPT
• Related Forms: CLEPE (v. CLEPED or CLEPT or YCLEPT or YCLEPED, CLEPING, CLEPES)

Epilogue:
In Old English, verbs were sometimes prefixed with ge-, a form that became altered to i- or more commonly y- in Middle English.  The prefix seems to have had the effect of intensifying the meaning, especially in past participles, similar to the way the a- prefix operates in modern dialectal expressions such as “I ain’t a-tired.”  Thus, you can find many examples of words such as yblent, ybound, yclad, ydight, ypent, and ywrought in the writings of authors such as Chaucer, Lydgate, and Spenser.  These forms were already on the verge of obsolescence by the time of Shakespeare, though he did use both YCLAD (“clad; clothed”) and YCLEPT / YCLEPED in his works — the only two such y- prefix archaisms that still survive in most modern dictionaries, often with a usage note such as “obsolete except in archaic or humorous writings.”   

Her sight did ravish, but her grace in speech,
Her words yclad with wisdom’s majesty,
Makes me from wond’ring fall to weeping joys,
Such is the fullness of my heart’s content.
~ Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2

Shakespeare also used oddities such as yravished and yslaked, but these forms are completely ygoe (“gone”) from our modern language.


Theme:
This week we’ll satisfy your yearning for words starting with the letter Y

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"I've learned to relax and be confident..."

Quote of the Week:

The big thing is that I've learned to relax and be confident. Anyone performs better when he's relaxed. If you're relaxed, you're more patient, more selective. It's all in the head.
~ Dave Kingman (1948- ), former Major League Baseball player

XEBEC

TileHead’s Word of the Day for 2 December 2011

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XEBEC  (n. -S)

Definition(s):

1. (n.) a two- or three-masted Mediterranean ship with a long overhanging bow and stern, used formerly as a ship of war and more recently as a merchant ship

Useful information for game players:

• Front hooks: (none)
• Back hooks: -S
• Anagrams: (none)
• Longer extensions: (none)
• Wraparounds: (none)
• Other Spellings: ZEBEC, ZEBECK
• Related Forms: (none)

Epilogue:
Most English words beginning with X derive from the Greek language, as we have seen with other words profiled this week, but there are a few exceptions — with English, there’s almost always a few exceptions!  For example, XU (a former monetary unit of Vietnam) is Vietnamese and was influenced by the French form sou. 

The word XEBEC is another exception to the rule.  It derives from the Arabic shabbak (“a small warship”), but on its way to English it passed through French (chebec) and Italian (sciabecco), and the English spelling may have been further influenced by obsolete Spanish (xabeque) or Catalan (xabec) forms.  The alternate spellings ZEBEC and ZEBECK were obviously influenced by the word’s English pronunciation.

Recapping this week’s words: XENIAL, XYLOID, XEROSIS, and XEBEC

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XEROSIS

TileHead’s Word of the Day for 30 November 2011

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XEROSIS  (n. pl. XEROSES)

Definition(s):

1. (n.) abnormal dryness of a body part of tissue

Useful information for game players:

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

Epilogue:
The Greek xeros (“dry”) is a part of many English words pertaining to dryness, as the following selections will illustrate.

Among the more specific forms of anatomical XEROSIS are XERODERMA, “abnormal dryness of the skin,” and XEROPHTHALMIA, “abnormal dryness of the eye.” 

In the botanical world, a XEROPHILE or XEROPHYTE is “a plant adapted to living in a dry habitat and requiring little water” and PHYLLOXERA is “any of several plant lice that produce galls on the leaves and roots of certain grape vines.” 

Turning to the office, the word XEROX — coined as a company name and now used as a common verb — was formed after the slightly younger word XEROGRAPHY (“a dry copying process; photocopying”). 

In ecological circles, you might run into XERIC (“requiring only a small amount of moisture”), XEROSERE (“a succession of ecological communities originating in a dry habitat”), and XERARCH (“of a plant succession having its origin in a dry habitat”).  Or, if you live in the southwestern United States, you might have encountered the word XEROTHERMIC, which means “characterized by heat and dryness.”  In such a climate, one might use XERISCAPE, “a landscaping method developed for arid and semiarid climates that utilizes water conservation techniques.” 

There’s also an African ground squirrel called a XERUS, so named on account of the spiny, dry texture of its hair.  It lives in burrow communities, similar to prairie dogs, and is a cute little devil.

Our well is running dry (that's just a little dry humor), so that is enough for now.  Friday we will wrap up this excellent and exciting week of X words.

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XYLOID

TileHead’s Word of the Day for 29 November 2011

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XYLOID  (adj.)

Definition(s):

1. (adj.) relating to or resembling wood; woody; ligneous

Useful information for game players:

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

Epilogue:
Almost all English words beginning with xyl- — and there are quite a few of them — derive from the Greek xylon, meaning “wood.”  Among my other favorites are:

• XYLITOL: a sweet crystalline alcohol, used as a sweetener in some gums and foods
• XYLOCARP: a fruit, such as a coconut, having a hard woody pericarp (fruit wall)
• XYLOGRAPH: an engraving on wood; a woodcut
• XYLOPHAGOUS: feeding on or in wood (as certain insects or crustaceans)

And of course the word that is often used as a common example of a word beginning with X:

• XYLOPHONE: a percussion instrument consisting of a mounted row of wooden bars graduated in length and designed to be struck with small mallets

This week’s theme: Words starting with the letter X

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XENIAL

TileHead’s Word of the Day for 28 November 2011

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XENIAL  (adj.)

Definition(s):

1. (adj.) hospitable; friendly; pertaining to hospitality or to relations among hosts and guests
2. (adj.) pertaining to the effect of pollen on certain plant structures

Useful information for game players:

• Front hooks: (none)
• Back hooks: (none)
• Anagrams: ALEXIN (n.)
• Longer extensions: (none)
• Wraparounds: (none)
• Other Spellings: (none)
• Related Forms: XENIA, XENIAS

Epilogue:
The ancient Greeks placed a high value on the host-guest relationship, which developed into a set of concepts and rituals known as philoxenia (literally, “love of strangers”) — a spirit of hospitality for which Greece is still known.  Reflecting this reality, the ancient Greek word xenos actually had a wide variety of meanings, ranging from “stranger, foreigner” to “guest” to “friend” to “host.”  For this reason, a lot of English words starting with xeno- pertain to things that are “foreign” or “unfamiliar” — such as XENOPHOBIA (“fear of strangers or foreigners”) and XENOPUS (a type of frog with “strange” feet) — but a few (such as XENIAL) relate to the more friendly, hospitable side of the relationship.

Theme:
This week we’ll take a xenial stroll through a few words beginning with the letter X.

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"A great feast of languages..."

Quote of the Week:

Moth:  They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.
Costard:  O! they have lived long on the alms-basket of words. I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word.
~ William Shakespeare (c. 1564-1616), in Love's Labour's Lost (c. 1598)

KIRN

TileHead’s Word of the Day for 23 November 2011

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KIRN  (v. -ED, -ING, -S)

Definition(s):

1. (v.) to churn: to stir or agitate in a vessel, as in making butter
2. (n.) a butter churn
3. (n.) a harvest celebration; a feast or party celebrating a successful harvest
4. (n.) the harvesting of the last handful of corn or grain

Useful information for game players:

• Front hooks: (none)
• Back hooks: -S
• Anagrams: RINK
• Longer extensions: kirnED, kirnING
• Wraparounds: (none)
• Other Spellings: (none)
• Related Forms: (none)

Epilogue:
Harvest celebrations have ancient roots and underlie many religious and mythological practices, and in many cultures the harvesting of the last sheaf of corn was an occasion of special significance.  For example, in Sir James George Frazer’s seminal book The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion he recounts many legends involving “corn mothers” and “corn maidens,” as well as the “kirn baby” ritual:

In some parts of Scotland, as well as in the north of England, the last handful of corn cut on the harvest-field was called the kirn, and the person who carried it off was said to ‘win the kirn.’  It was then dressed up like a child’s doll and went by the name of the kirn-baby, the kirn-doll, or the Maiden.
~ from the chapter on “The Corn-Mother and the Corn-Maiden in Northern Europe”

Sometimes the person who had the honor of cutting the last sheaf was said to “cry the kirn” or “shout the kirn” to acknowledge the event.  Afterwards, a “kirn supper” would be held to celebrate the successful harvest, and the “kirn baby” would be preserved until the following year.  The word MELL was also used in an almost identical manner: to refer to “the last sheaf of corn at harvest time,” as well as to “mell dolls,” “mell suppers,” and the like.

The ultimate derivation of the word KIRN is not known, though it is probably related either to the word CHURN (because, the OED notes, “a churnful of cream was a prominent item in the harvest-supper”) or to the word CORN, with which it was closely associated, as in the Frazer tale above.

Enjoy the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday — an observance that is also rooted in the celebration of a successful harvest.  May you STODGE yourself silly, break the MERRYTHOUGHT, and shout the KIRN to your heart’s delight!

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WISHBONE

TileHead’s Word of the Day for 22 November 2011

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WISHBONE  (n. pl. -S)

Definition(s):

1. (n.) a forked bone in front of a bird’s breastbone, consisting chiefly of the two clavicles fused at their median or lower end; a furcula
2. (n.) in football, an offensive formation in which the halfbacks are positioned behind and to either side of the fullback
3. (n.) something shaped like a forked bone

Useful information for game players:

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

Epilogue:
While WISHBONE seems a very common word now, it is actually a relatively recent coinage that started appearing in American publications only in the mid-1800s and did not come into widespread usage until the early 1900s.  For about three hundred years prior to that, the standard term for the forked bone in front of a bird’s breastbone was MERRYTHOUGHT.  Now there’s a delightful old word, deserving of revival!

Both MERRYTHOUGHT and WISHBONE come from the ritual of two people breaking the bone, originally with the idea that the person holding the larger part (or in some circles, the smaller part) would be married sooner, or later with the idea that the person would be granted a wish.

For those wanting a more scientific term, the bone is also called a FURCULA or FURCULUM.  Those terms derive from the Latin furca (“fork”), which also serves up FORK, FURCATE, BIFURCATE, TRIFURCATE, and related FORKY words.


This week’s theme: A cornucopia of words inspired by Thanksgiving

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