Don’t think much

Ciaossu (It’s means Hello in  an anime called “Kateikyoushi Hitman Reborn”).. It’s been awhile since i last blogged. Well, alot of thing have happened since i last blogged. Something like holidays are here and common tests are over. Also, today’s my dad’s birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!! Though i’m positive my dad wouldn’t read my blog but who cares? So, as you all can see and feel, it’s been raining for quite long already. In fact, I feel that it’s been raining for too long! And hooray for those who likes to go out to shop and party for it didn’t rain today! Sorry if the post is short for my arms and body are crying for mercy. Just went to the gym this afternoon with Jia Zheng, Jonathan and Lester. So I think i should end here. Oh. About the Word-of-the-day thingy.. I will put everything from where i stopped below after the video. See you all around!

 

 

How was it? Ain’t a bad player heh. Alright. Now for the Word-Of-The-day.

 

foundling \FOWND-ling\, noun:

A deserted or abandoned infant; a child found without a parent or caretaker.

Some of her desires were more altruistic: she wanted to “send Phyllis to school for a year, take Auntie May for a winter in the Isle of Pines,” and “raise foundlings.”
– Tim Page, Dawn Powell: A Biography

Then one day her daughter returns home with a foundling, an abandoned baby boy.
– Charles R. Larson, Washington Post, September 26, 1999

Foundling comes from Old English foundling, fundling, from finden, “to find” + the suffix -ling.

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for foundling

kvetch \KVECH\, adjective:

1. To complain habitually.
2. A complaint.
3. A habitual complainer.

People kvetched when someone else wouldn’t relinquish his position.
– Barry Lopez, “Before the Temple of Fire.”, Harper’s Magazine, January 1998

They begin to look like malcontents who kvetch about the weather so much that they don’t notice the sun coming out.
– David Shenk, “Slamming Gates”, The New Republic, January 26, 1998

Time for my biennial kvetch about the West End theatre.
– Simon Hoggart, “Hose bans, petrol mania: saying ‘don’t panic’ always triggers chaos”, The Guardian, November 4, 2000

He’s just a very up person, she says, which is odd, because he is also a big complainer, a class-A kvetch.
– Penny Wolfson, “Moonrise”, The Atlantic, December 2001

He had difficulty getting American publishers for his later novels, partly because of his self-created image by then as a crusty old kvetch.
– Geoffrey Wheatcroft, “What Kingsley Can Teach Martin”, The Atlantic, September 2000

Kvetch comes from Yiddish kvetshn, “to squeeze, to complain,” from Middle High German quetzen, quetschen, “to squeeze.”

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for kvetch

incongruous \in-KONG-groo-us\, adjective:

1. Lacking in harmony, compatibility, or appropriateness.
2. Inconsistent with reason, logic, or common sense.

I have since often observed, how incongruous and irrational the common Temper of Mankind is.
– Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

She made nightdresses and petticoats in the old-fashioned mode and sold them to a shop in the market town — one of those exclusive little shops with a single garment and something imaginatively incongruous — a monkey’s skull or an old boot — arranged in the window.
– Alice Thomas Ellis, Fairy Tale

They made an incongruous pair as they walked on: one was slight and dapper, some thirty-five years in age, with long, clipped mustaches, and dressed in the height of modern elegance, complete with pearl buttons and gold watch chain. The other, ambling a few paces behind, was a towering fellow with grizzled mutton-chop whiskers, whose ill-fitting frock coat barely contained a barrel chest.
– Ben Macintyre, The Napoleon of Crime

Incongruous comes from Latin incongruus, from in-, “not” + congruus, “agreeing, fit, suitable,” from congruere, “to run together, to come together, to meet.”

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for incongruous

hirsute \HUR-soot; HIR-soot; hur-SOOT; hir-SOOT\, adjective:

Covered with hair; set with bristles; shaggy; hairy.

The Bear . . . makes the rounds of the clubs “disguised” in trench coat and broad-brimmed hat, hoping (successfully, it seems) to be mistaken for a rather hirsute human.
– Richard M. Sudhalter, “The Bear Comes Home’: Composing the Words That Might Capture Jazz”, New York Times, August 29, 1999

First of all, your nose is nearly covered with your bloody moustache and your beard, Mr Gogarty replied. Mr Allen apologised for his “hirsute” appearance.
– Paul Cullen, “No ambush sprung on returning Gogarty”, Irish Times, March 23, 1999

He was incredibly hirsute: there was even a thick pelt of hair on the back of his hands.
– Tama Janowitz, By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee

Hirsute comes from Latin hirsutus, “covered with hair, rough, shaggy, prickly.”

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for hirsute

malapropos \mal-ap-ruh-POH\, adjective:

1. Unseasonable; unsuitable; inappropriate.
2. In an inappropriate or inopportune manner; unseasonably.

Such malapropos wise cracks are driven home with a relentlessly upbeat soundtrack which serenades scenes of human tragedy with bouncy, Disneyesque melodies.
– Steve Rabey, “Noah’s Ark’ hits bottom: Miniseries suffers from lack of accuracy”, Arlington Morning News, May 2, 1999

As an on-air radio pronouncer, I am quite familiar with the hazard of opening the mouth before the brain is in gear. It is very easy to fire-off a malapropos statement in the heat of trying to make a point and the result is some funny things are said, but perhaps not meant.
– Gerry Forbes, “Foot-in-Mouth Afflictions”, Calgary Sun, March 18, 2001

Malapropos comes from French mal à propos, “badly to the purpose.”

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for malapropos

cavalcade \kav-uhl-KAYD; KAV-uhl-kayd\, noun:

1. A procession of riders or horse-drawn carriages.
2. Any procession.
3. A sequence; a series.

Behind him he sensed the progress of the cavalcade as one by one the carriages wheeled off the Dublin road.
– Stella Tillyard, Citizen Lord: The Life of Edward Fitzgerald, Irish Revolutionary

Last week, Seoul pleaded for immediate financial assistance from the United States and Japan, following a cavalcade of bad economic news.
– Steven Butler and Jack Egan, “No magic won for Korea”, U.S. News, December 22, 1997

Cavalcade derives from Old Italian cavalcata, from cavalcare, “to go on horseback,” from Late Latin caballicare, from Latin caballus, “horse.”

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for cavalcade

vicissitude \vih-SIS-ih-tood; -tyood\, noun:

1. Regular change or succession from one thing to another; alternation; mutual succession; interchange.
2. Irregular change; revolution; mutation.
3. A change in condition or fortune; an instance of mutability in life or nature (especially successive alternation from one condition to another).

This man had, after many vicissitudes of fortune, sunk at last into abject and hopeless poverty.
– Thomas Macaulay

Max had rescued his father’s gold watch through every vicissitude, but as it didn’t go I took it to a watchmaker.
– Edith Anderson, Love in Exile:An American Writer’s Memoir of Life in Divided Berlin

It has come about that this writer, who at the beginning might have appeared in unique occupation of a marginal and peripheral world, is instead writing from the center of a historical vicissitude, utterly contemporary.
– Elizabeth Hardwic, “Meeting V. S. Naipaul“

Vicissitude comes from Latin vicissitudo, from vicissim, in turn, probably from vices, changes.

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for vicissitude

soporific \sop-uh-RIF-ik; soh-puh-\, adjective:

1. Causing sleep; tending to cause sleep.
2. Of, relating to, or characterized by sleepiness or lethargy.
3. A medicine, drug, plant, or other agent that has the quality of inducing sleep; a narcotic.

Hamilton’s voice droned on, hypnotic, soporific, the gloom beyond the windows like the backdrop of a waking dream.
– T. Coraghessan Boyle, Riven Rock

They were almost an hour behind in their daily schedule, and both women looked tired after a soporific afternoon of three executive meetings.
– Gabriel Garcia Marquez, News of a Kidnapping

Happily, these three lullaby books offer the sort of comforting bedtime soporific that has delivered generations of children, young and older, into deep, safe slumber.
– Lisa Shea, New York Times, January 30, 1994

Soporific is from French soporifique, from Latin sopor, “a heavy sleep” + -ficus, “-fic,” from facere, “to make.”

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for soporific

profuse \pruh-FYOOS; proh-\, adjective:

1. Pouring forth with fullness or exuberance; giving or given liberally and abundantly; extravagant.
2. Exhibiting great abundance; plentiful; copious; bountiful.

Lo and behold, when the time came to pay the check, it turned out that my pants had been torn by a nail strategically located under the table. Profuse apologies and “please don’t pay for this dinner” followed.
– George Lang, Nobody Knows the Truffles I’ve Seen

Thickets of brambles and vines grew in profuse, obscuring tangles between our house and the road.
– Reeve Lindbergh, Under a Wing

Profuse comes from Latin profusus, past participle of profundere, “to pour forth,” from pro-, “forth” + fundere, “to pour.”

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for profuse

tarradiddle \tair-uh-DID-uhl\, noun:

1. A petty falsehood; a fib.
2. Pretentious nonsense.

Oh please! Even in the parallel universe, tarradiddles of this magnitude cannot go unchallenged.
– “Taxation in the parallel universe”, Sunday Business, June 11, 2000

Mr B did not tell a whopper. This was no fib, plumper, porker or tarradiddle. There was definitely no deceit, mendacity or fabrication.
– “Looking back”, Western Mail, May 11, 2002

Other amendments, such as a chef at the birthday party, a dancing bear in the hunting scene, and a brief solo for the usually pedestrian Catalabutte, seemed more capricious, and the synopsis suggested further changes had been planned but perhaps found impractical. Some tarradiddle with roses for death and rebirth also necessitated different flowers for the traditional Rose Adagio.
– John Percival, “The other St Petersburg company”, Independent, November 22, 2001

Tarradiddle is of unknown origin.

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for tarradiddle

deracinate \dee-RAS-uh-nayt\, transitive verb:

1. To pluck up by the roots; to uproot.
2. To displace from one’s native or accustomed environment.

In the People’s Republic, communism’s utilitarian bent first poisoned the culinary arts and then, in the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, tried to deracinate what were regarded as the insidious strains of China’s former culture.
– Benjamin and Christina Schwarz, “Going All Out for Chinese”, The Atlantic, January 1999

He was a Jew who was never given a chance to belong anywhere, a deracinated intellectual.
– David Cesarani, Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind

Deracinate comes from Middle French desraciner, from des-, “from” (from Latin de-) + racine, “root” (from Late Latin radicina, from Latin radix, radic-). The noun form is deracination.

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for deracinate

surly \SUR-lee\, adjective:

1. Ill-humored; churlish in manner or mood; sullen and gruff.
2. Menacing or threatening in appearance, as of weather conditions; ominous.

Voters may be turned off by candidates who play dirty, but nothing gets a campaign reporter going like the smell of blood on the trail. Part of it has to do with boredom: journalists can only listen for so long to a candidate blather on about “a world of possibilities guided by goodness” before they get surly.
– Michelle Cottle, “Nice Try”, New Republic, February 14, 2000

Maggie drank a little too much and got surly and made snide comments during the final toast.
– John L’Heureux, Having Everything

Surly is from Middle English sirly, “lordly,” from sir, “lord,” which eventually came to mean “arrogant or haughty,” whence the more negative modern sense.

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for surly

mendicant \MEN-dih-kunt\, noun:

1. A beggar; especially, one who makes a business of begging.
2. A member of an order of friars forbidden to acquire landed property and required to be supported by alms.
3. Practicing beggary; begging; living on alms; as, mendicant friars.

Money has ever posed problems. Not even love, said Gladstone, has made so many fools of men. Throughout time the most obvious but universal dilemma — that there is never enough of it — has confounded everyone, from mendicants to monarchs, and their ministers.
– Janet Gleeson, Millionaire

She was well dressed, obviously not a mendicant.
– William Safire, Scandalmonger

Mendicant derives from Latin mendicare, “to beg,” from mendicus, “beggar.”

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for mendicant

rapprochement \rap-rosh-MAWN\, noun:

The establishment or state of cordial relations.

Mikhail Gorbachev and his team of self-described reformers were publicly heralding a new era of rapprochement with the West.
– Ken Alibek with Stephen Handelman, Biohazard

The documentary record of initial White House-level efforts to initiate rapprochement with China . . . remains slim.
– William Burr, The Kissinger Transcripts

But I have no desire for some kissy rapprochement.
– Zoë Heller, Everything You Know

Rapprochement comes from the French, from rapprocher, “to bring nearer,” from Middle French, from re- + approcher, “to approach,” from Old French aprochier, from Late Latin appropire, from Latin ad- + propius, “nearer,” comparative of prope, “near.”

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for rapprochement

perspicacity \pur-spuh-KAS-uh-tee\, noun:

Clearness of understanding or insight; penetration, discernment.

His predictions over the years have mixed unusual aristocratic insight with devastating perspicacity.
– “Why fine titles make exceedingly fine writers”, Independent, November 3, 1996

Doubtless these thumbnail sketches, like everything else Stendhal wrote, were intended ultimately to relate to his own notion of himself as a creature of invincible perspicacity and sophistication.
– Jonathan Keates, Stendhal

Perspicacity comes from Latin perspicax, perspicac-, “sharp-sighted,” from perspicere, “to look through,” from per, “through” + specere, “to look.”

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for perspicacity

artifice \AR-tuh-fis\, noun:

1. Cleverness or skill; ingenuity; inventiveness.
2. An ingenious or artful device or expedient.
3. An artful trick or stratagem.
4. Trickery; craftiness; insincere or deceptive behavior.

Built by design and artifice, it fell apart in confusion and chaos.
– John Gray, False Dawn

This theatricality is necessary to signal Prospero’s farewell to magic, and indeed the play debates that very contrast between artifice and reality, illusion and truth.
– Amy Rosenthal, “An insubstantial pageant”, New Statesman, February 3, 2003

The smoke had cleared enough for him to see bayonets flash in the distance, behind the wall, what looked like thousands of them, the wall itself appearing to rise out of the smoke as if produced by the artifice of some magician.
– Kathleen Cambor, In Sunlight, in a Beautiful Garden

The intuitive connection children feel with animals can be a tremendous source of joy. The unconditional love received from pets, and the lack of artifice in the relationship, contrast sharply with the much trickier dealings with members of their own species.
– Frans De Waal, The Ape and the Sushi Master

Artifice comes from artificium, from artifex, artific-, “artificer, craftsman,” from Latin ars, art-, “art” + facere, “to make.” It is related to artificial.

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for artifice

dishabille \dis-uh-BEEL\, noun:

1. The state of being carelessly or partially dressed.
2. Casual or lounging attire.
3. An intentionally careless or casual manner.

People meant to be fully clothed lounge around in dishabille.
– John Simon, “Tangled Up in Blue”, New York Magazine, March 26, 2001

But, unlike the Black Knights, Princeton . . . was in varying states of dishabille — some players in warmups, some in uniform, some halfway between.
– Daily Princetonian, December 13, 2000

She was dressed, that is to say, in dishabille, wrapped in a long, warm dressing-gown.
– Alexandre Dumas, Twenty Years After

She imagines the shocked faces of Josiah or her father or her mother were any of them to come around the corner and catch her in her dishabille.
– Anita Shreve, Fortune’s Rocks

Dishabille comes from French déshabiller, “to undress,” from dés-, “dis-” + habiller, “to clothe, to dress.”

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for dishabille

cacophony \kuh-KAH-fuh-nee\, noun:

1. Harsh or discordant sound; dissonance.
2. The use of harsh or discordant sounds in literary composition.

New York was then a cacophony of sounds — a dozen accents ricocheting off surrounding buildings as immigrant mothers called their children home for supper, noon whistles blowing, vendors hawking their wares on the streets, children shouting, horses whinnying, and people yelling.
– Herbert G. Goldman, Banjo Eyes

The mammoth central station towered over the platforms, and with the cacophony from whooshing steam, shrill whistles, shouts and the heaving of hand and horse carts, not only was it the biggest, noisiest, most confusing experience any of them had ever encountered, but the city was almost unimaginable.
– Christopher Ogden, Legacy: A Biography of Moses and Walter Annenberg

Cacophony comes from Greek kakophonia, from kakophonos, from kakos, “bad” + phone, “sound.” The adjective form is cacophonous. The opposite of cacophony is euphony.

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for cacophony

frangible \FRAN-juh-buhl\, adjective:

Capable of being broken; brittle; fragile; easily broken.

That’s because Federal Aviation Administration regulations call for a “sturdy” but “frangible” — or breakaway — door. “It must be able to break away at the lock, the hinge or the door handle” to allow pilots to get out in emergencies, Olsen says.
– Blake Morrison, “Flight decks vulnerable to passenger attacks”, USA Today, January 5, 2001

The red-gray, meringuelike substance ices some of the cave’s surfaces and ledges like cake frosting, from a millimeter to several inches thick, and is so frangible you could cut it with a butter knife.
– Peter Nelson, “The Cave That Holds Clues To Life On Mars”, National Wildlife, August/September 1996

Frangible ultimately derives from Latin frangere, “to break.”

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for frangible

draconian \dray-KOHN-ee-uhn; druh-\, adjective:

1. Pertaining to Draco, a lawgiver of Athens, 621 B.C.
2. Excessively harsh; severe.

The Irish Government last night announced a package of measures it described as “draconian” as part of an unprecedented crackdown on dissident republicans.
– “Draconian crackdown to help end the violence”, Birmingham Post, August 20, 1998

In October 1996 Allen publicly admitted that his draconian cost-cutting campaign had had devastating effects on Delta’s workforce.
– Daniel Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence

The most straightforward solution would be a draconian crackdown on all unrest — curfews, house-to-house searches, firing on armed rioters, mass internment, widespread use of capital punishment for terrorists, and so on.
– John O’Sullivan, “Dangerous Restraint”, National Review, April 6, 2004

Draconian refers to a code of laws made by Draco. Their measures were so severe that they were said to be written in blood.

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for draconian

complement \KOM-pluh-muhnt\, noun:

1. Something that fills up or completes.
2. The quantity or number required to make up a whole or to make something complete.
3. One of two parts that complete a whole or mutually complete each other; a counterpart.
4. To supply what is lacking; to serve as a complement to; to supplement.

He was four years older than Lewis, whom he had once commanded in the army; less formally educated, but with more practical experience and a steadier yet more outgoing personality — a friend, but also a perfect complement in both training and temperament to the man who was inviting Clark to make history with him.
– Dayton Duncan, Lewis & Clark

There was also a tennis court, a riding stable, a five-car garage, and a full complement of servants.
– Carol Felsenthal, Citizen Newhouse

The two points of view are not contradictory; they complement each other.
– Feançoise Gilot, “The Maid Was Ugly, the Meals Were Bad…,”, New York Times, October 7, 1970

Smart, athletic, blond, with a “bubbly” — that’s the word Ed uses to describe Sue when she’s not around — personality that complements his perpetually calm outlook.
– Martin Dugard, Knockdown

The wine complemented the food perfectly.
– Mary Sheepshanks, Picking Up the Pieces

Complement is from Latin complementum, from complere, “to fill up,” from com- (intensive prefix) + plere, “to fill.”

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for complement

unfledged \uhn-FLEJD\, adjective:

1. Lacking the feathers necessary for flight.
2. Not fully developed; immature.

It is most likely that this parrot was caught when very young, even possibly unfledged, and was totally nurtured by humans.
– D’vora Ben Shaul, “A parrot in a man’s world”, Jerusalem Post, June 15, 1997

Some also charge the leaders with sheltering unfledged youth from the real world or, as one public education official quoted in the Washington Post put it, “prolonging a cocoon existence.”
– Helen Mondloch, “Homegrown Virtue on Campus”, World and I, November 1, 2001

He is not naive, unfledged, but he is always in some way a “Johnny come lately.”
– Robert Creeley, “Austerities”, Review of Contemporary Fiction, March 22, 1994

Unfledged is from obsolete fledge, “capable of flying; feathered,” from Middle English flegge, from Old English -flycge.

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for unfledged

pari passu \PAIR-ee-PASS-oo; PAIR-ih-PASS-oo\, adverb:

At an equal pace or rate.

Expand the state and [its] destructive capacity necessarily expands too, pari passu.
– Paul Johnson, Modern Times: The World From the Twenties to the Eighties

Independent hedge funds can sell their holdings in a stock all at once, but if a hedge fund is part of a mutual fund company, it generally must sell pari passu . . . with the company’s mutual funds that hold the same stock, constraining flexibility.
– Geraldine Fabrikant, “Should You Bristle at These Hedges?”, New York Times, November 8, 1998

Pari passu literally means “with equal step,” from Latin pari, ablative of par, “equal” + passu, ablative of passus, “step.”

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for pari passu

discursive \dis-KUR-siv\, adjective:

1. Passing from one topic to another; ranging over a wide field; digressive; rambling.
2. Utilizing, marked by, or based on analytical reasoning — contrasted with intuitive.

The style is highly discursive, leap-frogging forwards and backwards across the decades, without ever sacrificing thrust or clarity.
– Nicholas Blincoe, “Spirit that speaks”, The Guardian, August 21, 1999

Rather than being a limiting influence, the time restrictions seem often to have compelled ensembles and soloists to condense and distill arrangements and to edit potentially discursive solo performances.
– Richard M. Sudhalter, Lost Chords

He is in general a discursive politician: Start him talking and you cannot get him to stop.
– Dan Balz, “President Endures Embarrassing Week”, Washington Post, March 15, 1998

He is an intuitive being who can pierce to the heart of a matter without taking the circuitous route of deeper and more discursive minds.
– “1962 Man of the Year: Pope John XXIII”, Time, January 4, 1963

Discursive comes from Latin discurrere, “to run in different directions, to run about, to run to and fro,” from dis-, “apart, in different directions” + currere, “to run.”

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for discursive

I think that’s about all. Take your time to digest the words. Have fun!

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