9 February 2016

clinquant

[kling-kuh nt]

adjective

1. glittering, especially with tinsel; decked with garish finery.
noun
2. imitation gold leaf; tinsel; false glitter.

Origin of clinquant

Dutch

1585-1595; < Middle French: clinking, present participle of clinquer (< Dutch klinken to sound); see -ant

Dictionary.com

Examples from the Web for clinquant

Historical Examples

My eyes rejoice in the shine of it; its clinquant sound is music in my ears.
Trivia
Logan Pearsall Smith

I liked Jack, but not clinquant in crimson and gold, with spurs and sword clanking on the hard, frost-bitten road.
The Yeoman Adventurer
George W. Gough

Anagram

Clan quit

Today’s quote

‘Thank you’ is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, understanding.

– Alice Walker

On this day

9 February 1944 – birth of Alice Walker, American author, poet and activist. She grew up in the America’s deep south, under the notorious ‘Jim Crow’ laws which segrated whites and blacks. She has since written numerous books, including the Pulitzer Award winning ‘The Color Purple’ which addressed much of the issues facing society in Georgia in the 1930s.

9 February 1981 – death of Bill Haley, who arguably had the world’s first ever rock’n’roll song, ‘Rock Around the Clock’. He was born 6 July 1925.

9 February 1997 – death of Brian Connolly, Scottish rocker, lead singer of Sweet (Fox on the Run, Ballroom Blitz, Teenage Rampage, Action). Born 5 October 1945.

8 February 2016

smicker

[smik-uh]

adjective

“elegant, fine, gay,” from Old English smicere “neat, elegant, beautiful, fair, tasteful.” Hence smicker (v.) “look amorously” (1660s); smickering “an amorous inclination” (1690s).

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper

Anagram

ricks me

Today’s quote

The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.

– Charles Dickens

On this day

8 February 1238 – Mongols burn the Russian city of Vladimir.

8 February 1587 – Mary Queen of Scots is executed for her apparent role in the failed Babington Plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.

8 February 1952 – Princess Elizabeth declares herself Queen of the British Commonwealth, taking the title, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

8 February 1960 – Queen Elizabeth II issues an Order-in-Council declaring that her family would be known as the House of Windsor and her descendants will take the name ‘Mountbatten-Windsor’.

8 February 1983 – At 3pm, Australia’s second largest city, Melbourne, is hit by a massive dust-storm, towering 320m high, reducing visibility to 100m and turning day into night. The dust-storm came during the most severe drought on record and was caused by loose top-soil in the Mallee and Wimmera districts of western Victoria being whipped up by fierce northerly winds. Other places in Victoria recorded dust as high as 1,000m. This photo was taken by a motorist heading west on the Princes Highway at Werribee.

4 February 2016

deipnophobia

[deep-no-foh-bee-uh]

noun

– an abnormal fear of dining and dinner conversation.

Examples

Christmas parties were particularly frightening for him because of his deipnophobia.

Anagram

ion hippo bead

Today’s quote

It is hard to give unlimited power to limited minds.

– Unknown

On this day

4 February 1904 – birth of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German pastor, theologian and anti-Nazi dissident. He was executed on 9 April 1945 at Flossenburg Concentration Camp, two weeks before the camp was liberated by US soldiers.

4 February 1948 – birth of Alice Cooper, (Vincent Damon Furnier), legendary American shock rocker.

4 February 1948 – Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) is granted independence from Britain, but remains a member of the British Commonwealth.

4 February 1959 – the barbie doll is invented by Ruth Handler.

4 February 1993 – Yugoslavia is dissolved and replaced by a union between Serbia and Montenegro.

4 February 2004 – Facebook founded by Mark Zuckerberg.

3 February 2016

abessive

[a-bes-iv] Grammar

adjective

1. noting a case, as in Finnish, whose distinctive function is to indicate absence or lack.
noun
2. the abessive case.

In linguistics, abessive, caritive and privative are names for a grammatical case expressing the lack or absence of the marked noun. In English, the corresponding function is expressed by the preposition without or by the suffix -less. The name abessive is derived from Latin abesse “to be away/absent”, and is especially used in reference to Uralic languages. The name caritive is derived from Latin carere “to lack”, and is especially used in reference to Caucasian languages. The name privative is derived from Latin privare “to deprive”.

Origin of abessive

Latin

1890-1894; < Latin abess (e) to be distant + -ive

Dictionary.com
lexbook.net

Anagram

eve basis
visa bees

Today’s quote

The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.

– Woodrow Wilson

On this day

3 February 1830 – Greece achieves full independence from the Ottoman Empire following Great Britain, France and Russia agreeing to the London Protocol (1830). This followed on from Greece obtaining internal autonomy through the London Protocol (1829) on 22 March 1829. The borders of Greece were finalised in the London Conference of 1832.

3 February 1919 – Inaugural meeting of the League of Nations (the predecessor of the United Nations), which was headed by US President Woodrow Wilson, aimed at promoting world peace and security.

3 February 1959 – ‘The Day the Music Died’. Plane crash during a storm near Clear Lake, Iowa, claims the lives of some of America’s finest rock and roll stars: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson). The pilot, Roger Peterson, also died. Another rock star, Dion Di Mucci, decided not to board the plane. The stars had performed at Clear Lake as part of ‘The Winter Dance Party Tour’ and were on their way to the next venue. Don McLean’s iconic song ‘American Pie’ paid homage to the tragedy, declaring it the ‘Day the Music Died’.

3 February 1966 – The Soviet Union achieves the first moon landing when the unmanned Lunix 9 spacecraft touches down on the moon’s Ocean of Storms area.