21 April 2018

acer

/ˈeɪsə/

noun

1. any tree or shrub of the genus Acer, often cultivated for their brightly coloured foliage See also maple

Examples from the Web for acer

Historical Examples

Growing on the outer surface of the bark of acer, Fagus, etc.
The Myxomycetes of the Miami Valley, Ohio
A. P. Morgan

Growing out of fissures of the bark and wood of Hickory, acer, etc.
The Myxomycetes of the Miami Valley, Ohio
A. P. Morgan

The occasional forms in ‘er’ and ‘il’ will have similar power ( acer, basil).
Proserpina, Volume 1
John Ruskin

Anagram

race

Today’s quote

I find it hard to focus looking forward. So I look backward.

– Iggy Pop

On this day

21 April 753BC – Romulus founds Rome.

21 April 1782 – the city of Rattanaskosin is founded by King Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke. The city is now known as Bangkok.

21 April 1910 – death of Mark Twain, U.S. novellist, author of ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ and ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’. Born 30 November 1835.

21 April 1947 – birth of Iggy Pop, punk, garage & glam rocker, actor.

21 April 1970 – Prince Leonard (born Leonard Casley), self-appointed sovereign secedes the Hutt River Province from Australia. Now known as the Principality of Hutt River, it is located 517km north of Perth, Western Australia and is the oldest micronation in Australia. Its sovereignty is not recognised by Australia or other nations. On 2 December 1977, Prince Leonard declared war on Australia after the Australian Tax Office pursued him for non-payment of taxes. Hostilities were ceased a few days later and Prince Leonard wrote to the Governor-General declaring his sovereignty based on the Province being undefeated in war. In 2012, the ATO again unsuccessfully attempted to recover claimed taxes. Hutt River has its own stamps and currency.

21 April 1972 – The Province of Hutt River attains legal status when Australia fails to challenge its sovereignty within two years of its formation, as required by Australian law.

17 April 2018

abed

[uh-bed]

adverb

1. in bed :
to stay abed late on Sundays.
2. confined to bed.

Origin of abed

Middle English

1200-1300 Middle English word dating back to 1200-1300; See origin at a-1, bed

Dictionary.com

Examples from the Web for abed

Contemporary Examples

From behind the steering wheel, abed introduced me as a journalist.
The Fourth War: My Lunch with a Jihadi
Elliot Ackerman
January 21, 2014

Abu Hassar began to slowly nod and his gaze moved from abed to me.
The Fourth War: My Lunch with a Jihadi
Elliot Ackerman
January 21, 2014

abed filled his mouth with a piece of the baklava, I needed to get our conversation going.
The Fourth War: My Lunch with a Jihadi
Elliot Ackerman
January 21, 2014

Anagram

bade
bead

Today’s quote

If you are going to get anywhere in life, you have to read a lot of books.

– Roald Dahl

On this day

17 April 1521 – Martin Luther appears before the Diet of Worms to be questioned by representatives of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, over the alleged possession of heretical books. (Worms is a town in Germany and Diet is a formal assembly).

17 April 1961 – the U.S. government sponsor 1,500 Cuban exiles to invade the Bay of Pigs, Cuba in an effort to overthrow the socialist government of Fidel Castro. The attacks fails, resulting in the deaths or capture of all of the exiles.

17 April 1967 – the final episode of the sit-com, Gilligan’s Island, airs in the United States. The first episode aired on 26 September 1964. It told the story of four men and three women on board the S.S. Minnow are ship-wrecked on a deserted island in the Pacific Ocean following a storm. Stranded are the ship’s mate, Gilligan and the ship’s skipper, a millionaire and his wife (the Howells), a sultry movie star (Ginger Grant), a professor and farm girl (Mary-Anne Summers).

17 April 1969 – Sirhan Sirhan convicted of 1968 assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. He was originally given a death sentence, which was later commuted to life imprisonment. Robert Kennedy was the brother of assassinated President John F. Kennedy.

17 April 2010 – A Manhattan library reveals that first President George Washington failed to return two library books, accruing overdue fees of $300,000. The library said they weren’t pursuing payment of the fees.

16 April 2018

oppugnant

[uh-puhg-nuh nt]

adjective

1. opposing; antagonistic; contrary.

Origin of oppugnant

Latin

1505-1515; < Latin oppugnant- (stem of oppugnāns), present participle of oppugnāre to oppose. See oppugn, -ant

Related forms

oppugnancy, noun

Dictionary.com

Examples from the Web for oppugnant

Historical Examples

He could have taken another, an oppugnant stand, as many a familiar confederate did.
Abraham Lincoln’s Cardinal Traits;
Clark S. Beardslee

Ant pop gun
to pun pang

Today’s quote

Heroes are not known by the loftiness of their carriage; the greatest braggarts are generally the merest cowards.

– Jean-Jacques Rousseau

On this day

16 April – Panda Appreciation Day. It was on this day in 1972, that the People’s Republic of China presented US President Richard Nixon with two pandas, Ling Ling and Hsing Hsing.

16 April 73AD – The Great Jewish Revolt ends when the fortress Masada falls to the Romans.

16 April 1850 – death of Marie Tussaud, French-English sculptor, founder of Madam Tussaud’s wax museum. Born 1 December 1761.

16 April 1917 – Vladimir Lenin returns to Petrograd, Russia following exile in Switzerland.

16 April 1947 – Bernard Baruch coins the term ‘Cold War’ to describe the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.

16 April 1990 – Dr Jack Kevorkian, (euthanasia activist, otherwise known as the Doctor of Death) participates in his first assisted suicide.

15 April 2018

appurtenant

[uh-pur-tn-uh nt]

adjective

1. appertaining or belonging; pertaining.
noun
2. an appurtenance.

Origin of appurtenant

Middle English, Late Latin

1350-1400; Middle English (see appurtenance, -ant ); replacing Middle English apertinent < Late Latin appertinent- (stem of appertinēns, present participle of appertinēre). See ap-1, pertinent

Dictionary.com

Examples from the Web for appurtenant

Historical Examples

It is my duty to warn you that the property does not produce much revenue; the appurtenant estates are not well kept up.
The White House (Novels of Paul de Kock Volume XII)
Charles Paul de Kock

And its appurtenant projectiles belong to the same branch as in the preceding case.
Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson

Only pieces of land together with the appurtenant territorial waters are alienable parts of territory.
International Law. A Treatise. Volume I (of 2)
Lassa Francis Oppenheim

Waste land (it may be) is given in large quantities, but merely as appurtenant to the profitable core of the gift.
Domesday Book and Beyond
Frederic William Maitland

Has any of your readers met with, or heard of the second short line, appendant and appurtenant to the first?
Notes & Queries, No. 39. Saturday, July 27, 1850
Various

Have the Dalbergs no ghost such as is appurtenant to all well-regulated royal families?
The Colonel of the Red Huzzars
John Reed Scott

A right of pasture attached to land in the way we have described is said to be appendant or appurtenant to such land.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 7
Various

appurtenant to the towns of Karanglan and Pantabangan are a few minor communities, among them Patakgao.
The Negrito and Allied Types in the Philippines and The Ilongot or Ibilao of Luzon
David P. Barrows

Anagram

Apparent nut
pupa entrant
tartan pen up
papa turn net

Today’s quote

To pretend, I actually do the thing: I have therefore only pretended to pretend.

– Jacques Derrida

On this day

15 April 1452 – birth of Leonardo Da Vinci, Italian renaissance inventor, painter, sculptor, mathematician, writer. Died 2 May 1519.

15 April 1865 – Death of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln after being shot the day before. Born 12 February 1809.

15 April 1912 – RMS Titanic sinks after hitting an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton UK to New York City, USA, costing the lives of 1,502 people out of the 2,224 crew and passengers who were on board. The White Star Line, who owned the Titanic, had declared her unsinkable.

14 April 2018

antecedent

[an-tuh-seed-nt]

adjective

1. preceding; prior:
an antecedent event.
noun
2. a preceding circumstance, event, object, style, phenomenon, etc.
3. antecedents.
ancestors.
the history, events, characteristics, etc., of one’s earlier life:
Little is known about his birth and antecedents.
4. Grammar. a word, phrase, or clause, usually a substantive, that is replaced by a pronoun or other substitute later, or occasionally earlier, in the same or in another, usually subsequent, sentence. In Jane lost a glove and she can’t find it, Jane is the antecedent of she and glove is the antecedent of it.
5. Mathematics.
the first term of a ratio; the first or third term of a proportion.
the first of two vectors in a dyad.
6. Logic. the conditional element in a proposition, as “Caesar conquered Gaul,” in “If Caesar conquered Gaul, he was a great general.”.

Origin of antecedent

Middle English, Middle French, Latin
1350-1400; Middle English (< Middle French) < Latin antecēdent- (stem of antecēdēns) going before, present participle of antecēdere to antecede; see -ent

Related forms

antecedental [an-tuh-see-den-tl] (Show IPA), adjective
antecedently, adverb

Can be confused

antecedence, antecedents.

Synonyms

1. precursory, preexistent. 2. precursor, forerunner, ancestor.

Antonyms

1. subsequent. 2. successor.

Dictionary.com

Examples from the Web for antecedent

Contemporary Examples

Even online chat rooms have an antecedent in the exchanges of nineteenth-century American telegraph operators.
Social Media is So Old Even the Romans Had It
Nick Romeo
October 25, 2013

Historical Examples

The antecedent of this pronoun had been mentioned for the last time at eight o’clock.
Barnaby Rudge
Charles Dickens

If magnetism be an antecedent factor, magnetism may be its product.
The Machinery of the Universe
Amos Emerson Dolbear

Anagram

net enacted
a decent ten

Today’s quote

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.

– Abraham Lincoln

On this day

14 April 1865 – President Abraham Lincoln is shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater, Washington DC. Lincoln died the following day.

14 April 1912 – the RMS Titanic strikes an ice-berg just before midnight in the north Atlantic ocean as it sailed on its maiden voyage from Southampton UK to New York City USA , resulting in the deaths of 1,502 of the 3,372 people onboard.

14 April 1988 – Soviet Union begins withdrawing troops from Afghanistan after nine years of occupation.

13 April 2018

mimetic

[mi-met-ik, mahy-]

adjective

1. characterized by, exhibiting, or of the nature of imitation or mimicry:
mimetic gestures.
2. mimic or make-believe.

Anagram

mime tic

Today’s quote

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

– Baruch Spinoza

On this day

13 April 1570 – birth of Guy Fawkes, English soldier and one of the masterminds behind the failed ‘Gunpowder Plot’ to blow up English Parliament in an effort to assassinate King James 1 and VI of Scotland. Died 31 January 1606.

13 April 1923 – birth of Don Adams, American actor, most famous for his character Maxwell Smart (Agent 86) in the TV show ‘Get Smart’. Died 25 September 2005.

13 April 1947 – birth of Mike Chapman, Australian songwriter and record producer. Hailing from Nambour, Queensland, Chapman became one of the most influential record producers in Britain when he teamed with Nicky Chinn, with hits for Sweet, Smokie, Suzi Quatro, Mud, Racey and others, including Bow Wow Wow, Pat Benatar, Huey Lewis, Toni Basil. He also produced albums for the Knack and Blondie.

13 April 1975 – The 15 year long Lebanese Civil War starts when Christian Phalangists attack a bus, massacring 26 members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

12 Arpril 2018

isomorphic

[ahy-suh-mawr-fik]

adjective

1. Biology. different in ancestry, but having the same form or appearance.
2. Chemistry, Crystallography. isomorphous.
3. Mathematics. pertaining to two sets related by an isomorphism.

Origin of isomorphic

1860-1865 First recorded in 1860-65; iso- + -morphic

Related forms

unisomorphic, adjective

Dictionary.com

Examples from the Web for isomorphic

Historical Examples

To-day we should say that they had dealt with isomorphic groups.
The Foundations of Science: Science and Hypothesis, The Value of Science, Science and Method
Henri Poincar

A group may be represented as isomorphic with itself by transforming all its operations by any one of them.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 6
Various

Anagram

I mops choir
chip is moor
I rip smooch

Today’s quote

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

– Niccolo Machiavelli

On this day

12 April 1961 – Uri Gagarin (Russian) becomes the first man in space.

12 April 1989 – death of Sugar Ray Robinson (Walker Smith Jr), American welterweight and middleweight professional boxing champion, declared to be the greatest boxer of all time. Sugar Ray stood at 5′ 11″ (1.80m). He fought 200 fights, winning 173 (108 by knock-out), lost 19, drew six, with two no contests. By 1946 Sugar Ray had won 40 fights straight, but was denied a shot at the world welterweight championship because he refused to cooperate with the mafia, which controlled much of boxing. In December 1946, he was finally allowed to contest the world championship and won. In 1947 Sugar Ray defended his welterweight title against Jimmy Doyle. In the eighth round, Doyle was knocked out and died later that night. Sugar Ray crossed weight classes and also won the world middleweight championship. In 1950, he broke the record for the shortest fight by knocking out Jose Basora 50 seconds into the first round. The record wasn’t broken for a further 38 years. in 1951, he fought Jake La Motta in what became known as the St Valentine’s Day massacre after the fight was stopped in the 13th round when La Motta was out on his feet, unable to even lift his arms throw a punch. That fight and some of the other matches with La Motta were adapted for the Martin Scorsese movie, Raging Bull. Born 3 May 1921.