8 July 2016

gasconade

[gas-kuh-neyd]

noun

1. extravagant boasting; boastful talk.
verb (used without object), gasconaded, gasconading.
2. to boast extravagantly; bluster.

Origin of gasconade

French

1700-1710; < French gasconnade, derivative of gasconner to boast, chatter. See Gascon, -ade1

Related forms

gasconader, noun

Dictionary.com

Examples from the Web for gasconade

Historical Examples

Colonel Carr, with a cavalry division, was sent to the line of the gasconade, to watch the movements of the enemy.
Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field
Thomas W. Knox

But the officers who lead the troops do not allow their enemies the monopoly of gasconade.
Romantic Spain
John Augustus O’Shea

My gasconade delighted the old lady and she gave me a heap of sweetmeats to recover her place in my good graces.
Trafalgar
Benito Prez Galds

Anagram

adages con
aced a song
can dosage
a snag code

Today’s quote

First our pleasures die – and then our hopes, and then our fears – and when these are dead, the debt is due dust claims dust – and we die too.

– Percy Bysshe Shelley

On this day

8 July 1822 – death of Percy Bysshe Shelley, English romantic poet, considered to be one the finest lyric poets of all time. Born 4 August 1792.

8 July 1947 – reports are that a UFO crash-landed at Roswell, New Mexico.

8 July 1954 – Military leader, Castillo Armas seizes power of Guatamala in a CIA-backed coup, overthrowing Communist president Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. The coup was part of the CIA’s international anti-communist activities. On request of the CIA, Armas formed the National Committee of Defense Against Communism, which is recognised as Latin America’s first modern death squad, purging the government and trade unions of people with suspected left-wing tendencies. Armas introduced the ‘Preventive Penal Law Against Communism’ which increased penalties for ‘Communist’ activities, such as labor union activities. Armas was assassinated on 26 July 1957 by a palace guard, Romeo Vásquez. It is unknown what Vásquez’s motive was. He was found dead in a suspected suicide a short while later.

8 July 1980 – First State of Origin match played between New South Wales and Queensland at Lang Park (Suncorp Stadium), Brisbane. Queensland won 20-10.

7 July 2016

larruping

[lar-uh-ping]

adverb, Chiefly Western U.S.

1. very; exceedingly:
That was a larruping good meal.

Origin of larruping
1900-1905, Americanism; larrup + -ing2

larrup

[lar-uh p]

Spell Syllables

verb (used with object), larruped, larruping.

1. to beat or thrash.

Origin

1815-25; perhaps < Dutch larpen to thresh with flails

Related forms

larruper, noun

Dictionary.com

Examples from the Web for larruping

Historical Examples

Blame my buttons, if I don’t always hate to pronounce that larruping long name Blennerhassett!
A Dream of Empire
William Henry Venable

I gave him a glass of my choicest rum, when all he deserved was a larruping.
The Maid of Sker
Richard Doddridge Blackmore

They was a-making tracks along hereaway, sartain, sure; larruping them hosses to a keen jump, lickity-split.
The Master of Appleby
Francis Lynde

Anagram

lunar grip
rural ping

Today’s quote

No-one has the right to do wrong, not even if a wrong has been done to them.

– Victor Frankl

On this day

7 July 1941 – birth of Bill Oddie, English comedian, star of ‘The Goodies’.

7 July 1953 – After graduating from medical school in June 1953, Dr Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara sets out on a train trip from Argentina to Bolivia and the Andes. His family don’t see him for six years, when he emerged in Havana, fighting for Fidel Castro’s Cuban Revolution. Following the successful overthrow of the government, Che was given key government positions within the Castro regime, including as Minister of Industries to implement agrarian reform.

7 July 1985 – 17 year old Boris Becker becomes the youngest player to win Wimbledon.

7 July 2005 – Four suicide bombers detonate themselves on London’s transport system, killing 56 people and injuring 700.

7 July 2007 – The New 7 Wonders Foundation officially declares a new ‘Seven Wonders of the World’ list:

The Great Wall of China
Petra, Jordan (a city carved into rock)
Christ Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Machu Picchu, Peru
Chichén Itzá Pyramid, Mexico
Roman Colisseum, Italy
Taj Mahal, Indian
The Original Seven Wonders of the World were:

Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt
Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
Statue of Zeus, Olympia, Greece
Mausoleum of Maussollos at Hallicarnassus
Colossus of Rhodes
Lighthouse of Alexandria

6 July 2016

benighted

[bih-nahy-tid]

adjective

1. intellectually or morally ignorant; unenlightened:
benighted ages of barbarism and superstition.
2. overtaken by darkness or night.

Origin of benighted

1565-1575; benight (be- + night ) + -ed2

Related forms

benightedly, adverb
benightedness, noun

Synonyms

1. backward, primitive, crude, uncultivated.

Dictionary.com

Examples from the Web for benighted

Contemporary Examples

Colonial rhetoric was often virtuous: colonizers would bring civilization to benighted Africans.
Why Africa’s Turning Anti-Gay
Jay Michaelson
March 30, 2014

I knew immediately where to locate my benighted family and growing restlessness.
In A Very Deep Way: Remembering Rabbi David Hartman
Bernard Avishai
February 20, 2013

In our benighted moment, that modest self-definition rose to mythic proportions.
A Man More Heroic Than Sully
Lee Siegel
March 4, 2009

Anagram

debt hinge
get behind
gent be hid

Today’s quote

The love of one’s country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?

– Pablo Casals

On this day

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

6 July 1942 – Anne Frank and her family go into hiding in the ‘Secret Annexe’ above her father’s office in an Amsterdam warehouse.

6 July 1957 – John Lennon and Paul McCartney meet for the first time. Three years later they formed the Beatles.

3 July 2016

colligate

[kol-i-geyt]

verb (used with object), colligated, colligating.

1. to bind or fasten together.
2. Logic. to link (facts) together by a general description or by a hypothesis that applies to them all.
Origin of colligate

Latin

1425-1475 for obsolete adj. sense “bound together”; 1535-45 for def 1; < Latin colligātus (past participle of colligāre), equivalent to col- col-1+ ligā- (stem of ligāre to bind) + -tus past participle ending

Related forms

colligation, noun

Dictionary.com

Examples from the Web for colligate

Historical Examples

Granting the validity of the evidence, the hypothesis appears to colligate the facts.
Magic and Religion
Andrew Lang

That one cause would explain, and does colligate, all the facts.
Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1
Andrew Lang

Perhaps there is something amiss in the working of our system in relation to colligate ministries.
Congregationalism in the Court Suburb
John Stoughton

Anagram

collage it
clog a tile
logic tale

Today’s quote

How foolish is man! He ruins the present while worrying about the future, but weeps in the future by recalling the past.

– Ali Ibn Abi Talib

On this day

3 July 1883 – Birth of Franz Kafka, Austrian novelist, who wrote in German. Two of his books (‘The Trial’ and ‘The Castle’) were published posthumously against his wishes. He wrote of a dehumanised world in which he explored paranoia, isolation, fear and bewilderment, from which the term ‘Kafka-esque’ has been coined. Died 3 June 1924.

3 July 1969 – death of Brian Jones. English guitarist for the Rolling Stones. He was 27. Born 28 February 1942.

3 July 1971 – death of Jim Morrison, lead singer and song writer of the Doors. He was 27. Born 8 December 1943.

3 July 1971 – birth of Julian Assange in Townsville, Queensland, former hacker and computer programmer, publisher, journalist and activist. Co-founder of WikiLeaks, a website on which he published classified military and diplomatic documents. The USA has been investigating Assange since 2010 when he published documents leaked by Chelsea Manning. Facing extradition to Sweden in 2012 on charges of sexual assault, Assange sought and obtained asylum by Ecuador. He has been accommodated in the Ecuadorean embassy in London ever since.

3 July 1988 – An Iranian passenger plane carrying 290 civilians, including 66 children, is shot down by the United States Navy. Iran Air flight 665 was over Iranian territorial waters and had not deviated from its usual flight path. The US Navy had fired surface-to-air missiles from the USS Viciennes at the Airbus A300. The US Navy claimed they had mistaken it for an attacking F-14 Tomcat even though the plane had been issuing identification ‘squawks’s on Mode III for civilian aircraft, not on Mode II which was for military aircraft. The US government ‘expressed regret’, but did not apologise. In 1996 the US government paid the Iranian government USD $131.8 million to settle a court case brought in the International Court of Justice. There was also a payout of $61 million following a claim in the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal. The crew of the Viciennes were awarded medals for their tour of duty in the Persian Gulf, including the Air Warfare Coordinator receiving the Navy Commendation Medal and the Legion of Merit.

3 July 1999 – death of Mark Sandman, US musician, singer, songwriter. Founder of the alternative rock band, Morphine, which blended heavy bass sounds with blues and jazz. Sandman was described as the most under-rated and skilled bass player of his generation. Sandman collapsed and died on stage during a Morphine concert in Latium, Italy. His death was the result of a heart attack and blamed on heavy smoking, stress and extreme heat, in which the temperature on the night was in excess of 38o Celsius. Born 24 September 1952.

2 July 2016

natant

[neyt-nt]

adjective

1. swimming; floating.
2. Botany. floating on water, as the leaf of an aquatic plant.

Origin of natant

Latin

1700-1710; < Latin natant- (stem of natāns), present participle of natāre to swim; see -ant

Related forms

natantly, adverb

Dictionary.com

Examples from the Web for natant

Historical Examples

She stood rigid, listening with a natant, sickening consciousness that something terrible hung at her back.
The Red Debt
Everett MacDonald

Anagram

ant tan

Today’s quote

Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure, only death can stop it.

– Ernest Hemingway

On this day

2 July 1839 – Twenty miles off the coast of Cuba, 53 rebelling African slaves led by Joseph Cinqué take over the slave ship, Amistad. The 49 adults and four children had been captured in Sierra Leone and sold into slavery in Cuba. After commandeering the ship, the men demanded the ship’s navigator (Don Montez) to return them home. Montez deceived them and sailed up the USA east coast to Long Island. The USA took custody of the ship and a court-case ensued over the legal status of the slaves. In 1841, in the case of the United States v The Amistad, the US Supreme Court ruled that the slaves had been illegally transported and held as slaves. The Court ordered them to be freed. 35 of them returned to Africa in 1842.

2 July 1900 – the first Zeppelin flight takes place in Germany.

2 July 1937 – Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan are last heard from over the Pacific while attempting an equatorial round-the-world flight.

2 July 1961 – death of Ernest Hemingway, American author. He wrote books including ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls‘ and ‘Old Man and the Sea‘. Born 21 July 1899.

2 July 1976 – The Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) falls to the Communist North Vietnam, resulting in the formation of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.