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Word Of The Day

tete-a-tete \TAYT-uh-TAYT; TET-uh-TET\, adjective:
Private; confidential; familiar.

noun:
1. A private conversation between two people.
2. A short sofa intended to accommodate two persons.

Once you have a couple of offers in hand, ask the boss for a tete-a-tete.
--Michelle Cottle, "Seeking That Fair Day's Pay." New York Times, January 24, 1999

George Adamski, a penny-ante guru already in the flying saucer business, lecturing on the subject and selling his own UFO photos, had his first tete-a-tete with a Venusian named Orthon, who explained by dumb show and telepathy that his saucer was powered by Earth's magnetism.
--Thomas M. Disch, The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of

Raw garlic will give you plenty of this disulfide, but cooking gets rid of it because it is volatile enough to evaporate during cooking. This is the reason you can safely eat a soup or stew that has lots of garlic in the recipe, and still enjoy a friendly tete-a-tete with someone.
--John Emsley, Molecules at an Exhibition

Tete-a-tete comes from the French, literally "head-to-head."


quisling \KWIZ-ling\, noun:
Someone who collaborates with an enemy occupying his or her country; a traitor.

In the clutches of Herod, a quisling whom even his Roman paymasters despise, John is an all-too-perfect personification of Israel under Roman rule abetted by Jewish collaboration.
--Jack Miles, Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God

This circle had already closed ranks around Tito in the prewar period of illegal struggle, and our ensuing sacrifices, our suffering, the exploits of both Party and people as they made war against the Nazi and Fascist occupiers and their quislings and supporters, had only further toughened and hardened the leaders.
--Milovan Djilas, Fall of the New Class

A quisling is so called after Vidkun Quisling (1887-1945), Norwegian politician and officer who collaborated with the Nazis.


nolens volens \NO-lenz-VO-lenz\:
Whether unwilling or willing.

Beneath the surface, little-noticed but fundamental changes are taking place that must compel both sides, nolens volens, sooner or later to reconfigure their tortured but inseparable relationship.
--Bernard Wasserstein, Israelis and Palestinians

Events have put NATO in a position where it is the policeman of Europe and beyond, nolens volens.
--"NATO then, Nato now," Daily Telegraph, April 23, 1999

After all, I'm not sure that I'm so angry with them, for it means that now you've got to remain here indefinitely -- nolens volens.
--Mina McDonald, "True Stories Of The Great War: Some Experiences In Hungary," History of the World, January 1, 1992

Nolens volens is from the Latin, from nolle, "to be unwilling" + velle, "to wish, to be willing."


woolgathering \WOOL-gath-(uh)-ring\, noun:
Indulgence in idle daydreaming.

Similarly, in the meadow, if you laze too late into the fall, woolgathering, snow could fill your mouth.
--Edward Hoagland, "Earth's eye," Sierra, May 1999

It would be easy to slip off into woolgathering and miss a deadline.
--Jeraldine Saunders, Washington Post, March 4, 2004

Plagued by guilt, they took refuge in wine, women, and woolgathering.
--Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust

The soprano roused Fergus from his woolgathering.
--Sandra Brown, Where There's Smoke

Woolgathering derives from the literal sense, "gathering fragments of wool."


ab ovo \ab-OH-voh\, adverb:
From the beginning.

I will begin ab ovo -- at the very beginning.
--War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

The performers do not have to discover these techniques and processes ab ovo; they learn them from the previous generation, who learned them from their predecessors, and so on.
--William L. Benzon, Beethoven's Anvil

Ab ovo is from Latin, literally, "from the egg."

Word Of The Day

providential \prov-uh-DEN(T)-shuhl\, adjective:
1. Of or resulting from divine direction or superintendence.
2. Occurring through or as if through divine intervention; peculiarly fortunate or appropriate.

For Boston's progressive Unitarians in this period, rejecting the Calvinism of their forebears increasingly meant opposing the old idea that suffering was inevitable, irremediable, and providential.
--Elisabeth Gitter, The Imprisoned Guest

The laws of nature seem to have been carefully arranged so that they can be discovered by beings with our level of intelligence. That not only fits the idea of design, but it also suggests a providential purpose for humankind -- that is, to learn about our habitat and to develop science and technology.
--Robin Collins, quoted in The Case for a Creator, by Lee Strobel

In the very first sentences of Mein Kampf, Adolf was to emphasize -- what became a Nazi stock-in-trade -- how providential it was that he had been born in Braunau am Inn, on the border of the two countries he saw it as his life's task to unite.
--Ian Kershaw, Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris

Providential derives from Latin providentia, from providens, provident-, present participle of providere, literally, "to see ahead," from pro-, "forward" + videre, "to see."

Word Of The Day

megrim \MEE-grim\, noun:
1. A migraine.
2. A fancy; a whim.
3. In the plural: lowness of spirits -- often with 'the'.

That might justify her, fairly enough, in being kept away from meeting now and again by headaches, or undefined megrims.
--Harold Frederic, The Damnation of Theron Ware

Tonight, by some megrim of the scheduler, I have the honor of working with the departmental chairman, Dr. B.
--Pamela Grim, Just Here Trying to Save a Few Lives

They do say it's always darkest before the dawn, she thought. I reckon this is proof of it. I've got the megrims, that's all.
--Stephens Mitchell, Scarlett

Kate had learned a long time ago that the best way to deal with Effie's megrims was to maintain an attitude of determined cheerfulness.
--Susan Carroll, Midnight Bride

Megrim is from Middle English migrem, from MiddleFrench migraine, modification of Late Latin hemicrania, "pain inone side of the head," from Greek hemikrania, from hemi-, "half"+ kranion, "skull."

apotheosis \uh-pah-thee-OH-sis; ap-uh-THEE-uh-sis\, noun plural apotheoses \-seez\:
1. Elevation to divine rank or stature; deification.
2. An exalted or glorified example; a model of excellenceor perfection of a kind.

Following martyrdom at the Alamo and apotheosis in song, tall tale, and celluloid myth, this bumpkin from west Tennessee [Davy Crockett] became better known and more revered than all but a handful of American presidents.
--Mark Royden Winchell, Cleanth Brooks and the Rise of Modern Criticism

Plato's Athens, conventionally the apotheosis of civilized Western urbanity, endured Diogenes the Cynic, who (according to tradition) dwelt in contented filth under an overturned bathtub outside the city gates, heaping ribald scorn on philosophers and citizens alike.
--Mark Caldwell, A Short History of Rudeness

Charles I's court represented the English apotheosis of this Renaissance ideal of kingship.
--John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination

Apotheosis comes from Greek, from apotheoun, "to deify,"from apo- + theos, "a god."

fructuous \FRUHK-choo-uhs\, adjective:
Fruitful; productive.

It had by now reached much beyond even that status to appear in our minds as a place sentient, actively helping these once forlorn and homeless sailors, presenting us with fructuous soil to grow our food, bountifully adding its own edible offerings, its waters supplying us with an abundance of fish.
--William Brinkley, Last Ship

Theory does not provide us worthy marching orders for a fructuous future, for theory in itself tells us nothing about how and when it is applicable.
--Sheila McNamee and Kenneth J. Gergen, Relational Responsibility

Fructuous comes from Latin fructuosus, from fructus, "enjoyment, product, fruit," from the past participle of frui, "to enjoy."