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."