Word Of The Day Catch-Up

Word of the Day for Thursday August 11, 2005

nugatory \NOO-guh-tor-ee; NYOO-\, adjective:

1. Trifling; insignificant; inconsequential.
2. Having no force; inoperative; ineffectual.

Tygiel's forte as a historian is his eye for what may appear nugatory or marginal but, when focused upon, illuminates the temper of a given moment.
--Roberto Gonzlez Echevarria, "From Ruth to Rotisserie," New York Times, July 2, 2000

Jacoby's offense was no offense -- or an error so nugatory
as to demand no more than a one-sentence explanation.
--Lance Morrow, "In Boston, a Foolish Consistency of Little Minds," Time, July 19, 2000

Socialism no longer restrains; trade unions do so much less than they did; moral inhibitions over the acquisition and display of wealth are nugatory.
--John Lloyd, "If not socialism, what will persuade the rich willingly to pay more taxes to help the poor and preserve a decent society?" New Statesman, August 2, 1996

Nugatory comes from Latin nugatorius, from nugari, "to trifle," from nugae, "jests, trifles."



Word of the Day for Wednesday August 10, 2005

sojourn \SOH-juhrn; so-JURN\,

intransitive verb:

• To stay as a temporary resident; to dwell for a time.

noun:

• A temporary stay.

Though he has sojourned in Southwold, wandered in Walberswick, dabbled in Dunwich, ambled through Aldeburgh and blundered through Blythburgh, Smallweed has never set foot in Orford.
--Smallweed, "The trouble with hope," The Guardian, April 14, 2001

Yet he is now an accomplished student and speaker of English, a literary editor and television producer, someone who has sojourned in Paris and attended the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.
--William H. Gass, "Family and Fable in Galilee," New York Times, April 17, 1988

As chance would have it, Degas's five-month sojourn in New Orleans coincided with an extraordinarily contentious period in the stormy political history of the city.
--Christopher Benfey, Degas in New Orleans

During that long sojourn in Sligo, from 1870 to 1874, he had lessons from a much loved nursemaid, Ellie Connolly; later he received coaching in spelling and dictation from Esther Merrick, a neighbour who lived in the Sexton's house by St John's, and who read him quantities of verse.
--R. F. Foster, W.B. Yeats: A Life

Sojourn comes from Old French sojorner, from (assumed) Vulgar Latin subdiurnare, from Latin sub-, "under, a little over" + Late Latin diurnus, "lasting for a day," from Latin dies, "day."



Word of the Day for Tuesday August 9, 2005

captious \KAP-shuhs\, adjective:

1. Marked by a disposition to find fault or raise objections.
2. Calculated to entrap or confuse, as in an argument.

The most common among those are captious individuals who can find nothing wrong with their own actions but everything wrong with the actions of everybody else.
--"In-Closet Hypocrites," Atlanta Inquirer, August 15, 1998

Mr Bowman had, I think, been keeping Christmas Eve, and was a little inclined to be captious: at least, he was not on foot very early, and to judge from what I could hear, neither men nor maids could do anything to please him.
--M. R. James, The Haunted Dolls' House and Other Stories

Most authors would prefer readers such as Roiphe over captious academic critics.
--Steven Moore, "Old Flames," Washington Post, November 26, 2000

With the imperturbablest bland clearness, he, for five hours long, keeps answering the incessant volley of fiery captious questions.
--Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution

Captious is derived from Latin captiosus, "sophistical, captious, insidious," from captio, "a taking, a fallacy, sophism," from capere, "to take, to seize."